[CentOS] RHEL Subscriptions

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Joseph Spenner wrote:
> On 08/18/2013 09:30 PM, Anthony K wrote:
>>
>> I was recently approached by Dell stating that I HAVE TO renew my Red
>> Hat Subscriptions.  I challenged this statement and was informed that
>> this has always been the case and that all servers I have bought off of
>> Dell over the years need to have current subscription!
>>
>> I've been searching the Red Hat website to find where this is stated but
>> can't seem to locate this info.  So, is Dell having me on?
>
> Does seem kinda harsh.  Maybe it's the only way Dell can support you? 
> Without subscriptions/license, I don't think yum updates will work unless
> you modify the repos manually.
>
> The only time anyone at my company ever contacted Red Hat for support was
> to figure out how to use the license they bought!  It didn't take long
> before we dropped that nonsense and started using CentOS.
>
Several things: should we assume that you bought the servers with RHEL
licenses? We have a lot of Dells, but we buy them without licenses, since
we intend to install CentOS (though we do have one or two that we bought
with the licenses, so that we can actually get upstream to fix bugs and
add enhancements, such as native PIV/CAC card support...).

However, I don't see how they can force you to maintain the license. You
can also switch over to CentOS (he says, here on the CentOS mailing list),
and I can't see that they'll say anything. I speak to them a fair bit, but
that's about hardware, and they have zero problems when I tell them we run
CentOS (given that their OMSA disks boot... CentOS <g>).

        mark