ok, given the flurry of responses to my original post, let me see if i have a handle on this as i think i've finally figured it out and, yes, it does make sense.
the scenario is that there is a very large software company in the area whose only officially supported linux platform is currently suse. however, they are getting increasing call to have their product run on red hat.
for most of their clients (who are fairly sizable) who will want official support, RHEL will be the obvious choice and the software company will advertise that RHEL is what they support. the SW company will be happy, the clients will be happy, and red hat will be happy.
on the other hand, if there is the occasional client who is perhaps not as large, or doesn't have a budget for RHEL, centos will be the obvious option if they're prepared to do their own support. that scenario will, i'm guessing, not be that common so red hat has nothing to worry about it in terms of cutting into their revenue stream in any significant way.
and, finally, for any client that chooses centos, that will represent a possible support contract for independent linux consultants.
sound about right?
rday --
======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.
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