Red Hat to drop free Linux OS in favor of Enterprise

ITWorld.com ^ | 11/4/03 | David Legard, IDG News Service, Australia Bureau

[Joe Bonforte]

Prominent Linux vendor Red Hat Inc. is dropping its free Linux product range and asking customers to migrate to its priced Enterprise Linux, the company said Monday.

In a statement posted on its Web site, Red Hat said it will end maintenance and errata support for Linux versions 7.1 through 8.0 on Dec. 31, 2003, and for the most recent version 9 on April 30, 2004. Red Hat Linux can still be downloaded free but the boxed versions that were on sale for between US$39.95 and $149.95 are no longer available. No future versions will be developed, the company said.

Red Hat has characterized its free Linux product, which has been available since 1994, as "a general purpose, low-cost solution that ... attempted to be all things to all people."

By contrast, Enterprise Linux has been certified by a wide range of hardware and application software vendors, Red Hat said.

The company is offering its users a choice between two upgrade paths, either to the stable Enterprise Linux product which starts at $179, or to its developer-oriented Fedora Project, which is available as a free download.

The Enterprise Linux product comes in three versions; AS for large corporate environments, ES for smaller offices and WS for workstation/desktop use. Each of these products is offered in basic, standard and premium editions depending on the level of support required.

The basic edition of Enterprise Linux WS costs $179, while the premium edition of AS for IBM zSeries and S/390 costs $18,000, according to Red Hat.

[Joe Bonforte]

There are still other distributions, of course. Nevertheless, Red Hat is a poster-child for Linux, and having them distance themselves from the idea of Linux being "free" is significant.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

"Where have all the capitalists gone? A monopolized, controlled market is not a free market"

[Joe Bonforte]

In related news, Novell is buying SuSE. Here's the article:

Longtime Microsoft foe Novell has signed an agreement to acquire SuSE Linux for $210 million in cash, while IBM, the most powerful backer of the open-source operating system, will take a $50 million investment in Novell, the companies said Tuesday.

The move could boost the fortunes of SuSE, the No. 2 seller of Linux, increase the competitive pressure on No. 1 Red Hat, and provides a new direction for Novell's ongoing rivalry with Microsoft.

The move is the second Linux acquisition for the Provo, Utah-based company, which bought desktop Linux software specialist Ximian in August. Though Ximian gave Novell software for using Linux on desktop computers, SuSE is strongest with software for Linux on servers, the networked machines that handle chores such as hosting Web sites and routing e-mail.

The article spins this as good for Novell and for Linux, and maybe it is. But I've gotten in the habit of thinking of Novell as the graveyard for slipping tech products.

[jim_trent]

I guess there is no money in free software. Imagine that.

[steve50]

Think I'll try Mandrake 9.2 on my other puter. Hard to beat $10-$15 for a download burn. Any Penguins in here trying it?

[Joe Bonforte]

I guess there is no money in free software. Imagine that.

Ya know, I made that exact point in another thread, when commenting on why venture capitalists don't get lit up about companies based on open source. The open source proponents told me I just didn't understand the nuances.

[HamiltonJay]

Oh well, guess I'll be moving back to FREEBSD.... more stable anyway.

[js1138]

My first internet provider was free, back about 1996. I'd hate to count the number of free things that aquire a price tag after becoming established.

Oh well, there's always open source. Surely that won't go away.

[whattajoke]

yeah, the Mandrake products are a great deal. I follow the Cooker stuff online, which has some really good guys on it. I've heard 9.2 is a bit buggy, but (for obvious reasons) patching them is very easy.

as you said, 10-15 bucks is definitely worth it.

[steve50]

Hope it's not too buggy, I barely had W98 figured out when XP came along. Considering the last time I did a system restore to orginal specs it took two hours of "updates" to fix XP I'd say "buggy" is a relative term.

[mo]

try www.lindows.com easiest install ever and great support.

[snooker]

Well you obviously only picked the part you wanted. While red hat is dropping 'commercial support' from their roster they are funding a new open source project called Fedora where the old RH9 is being updated and added to.

Go here for the Fedora project http://fedora.redhat.com/

This looks to be a better bigger 'free version' than any that have gone before. It is being sponsored by Red Hat as a testing and development lab for their enterprise software.

Looks like the first release will be by this friday.

[Joe Bonforte]

Well you obviously only picked the part you wanted.

I posted the entire article. How can that possibly be construed as "picking the part I want"?

You see, that's just the sort of attitude that causes lots of us to be dismissive of the more radical Linux proponents. You've got a chip on your shoulders all the time.

Having that extra information to add to the discussion is great. Impugning the motives of the other side is immature and does not further your mission. Especially when there's not the least evidence for it.

[zeugma]

Thius is kindof a shame. I use KRUD, which is a repackaged version of RedHat that ships updated disks every month. I recently downloaded Knoppix though, and thought it was an interesting system. It's a Debian variant, so I'll probably be taking a look at the various Debian distros.

Regardless of what RedHat does, it's not going to affect the Open source movement too much, as there are always lots of options.

[Steely Glint]

Mandrake works fine, and the installation is a breeze.

[decimon]

Oh well, guess I'll be moving back to FREEBSD.... more stable anyway.

Do you know if the popular applications like Open Office run on FreeBsd, OpenBsd, etc.?

[RippleFire]

bump

[HamiltonJay]

Don't know, but any open source software can be run on any OS, I'd assume that if the source is open someones compiled binaries for FreeBSD... though it may not get the press of Linux the FreeBSD community actually has (or at least had last I checked) more developers working on it a than Linux.

[Chewbacca]

Can any Windows based games and programs be reliably run on a Linux machine?

I have a whole bunch on games that I would like to keep playing, but don't want to have to buy new versions.
My Windows 98SE seems to be getting buggier by the day.
I am trying to decide whether to go the Linux route or reformat and reinstall W98SE again.

[Salgak]

Check your hardware first. The Mandrake 9.2 Installer has a bug that could disable your CD-ROM drives, and require you to find and re-flash the bios on your CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives: this is especially pertinent if the box is a Dell or a Compaq.

Details here