I'm a home user of CentOS (a desktop and a laptop) because I like the quality of the product and I love the cost. I'm a great believer in FOSS.
That being said, I know that some of you use CentOS for production servers and (perhaps?) desktops as well. I've read at leat one comment like "I have 20 CentOS servers."
My employer is a firm believer in RHEL - license costs are just a business decision.
I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
What do you think?
Collins Richey wrote:
I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
Our reason is basically that we only use a very small part of the RHEL distribution. Pretty much the only reason we use CentOS/RHEL is for the kernel stability. We strip down the OS beyond even the "minimal" installation. Then we install our own RPMs on top of it. If RH were ever to offer a stripped down RHEL (for a reduced price), we would be more than willing to pay for that. We just can't justify the current price of RHEL when we use so little of it.
You're just asking to start a flame, aren't you? :)
Personally, I run CentOS at home cause I can't afford a RHEL license. At work we use a mix or RHEL & CentOS. RHEL goes on all productions servers, CentOS goes on anything that's a test system. The 3 test systems are used to play with whatever we want to deploy, say we want to test XYZ product or try some new rules in iptables, we try it on the test system. But when it comes time to roll out XYZ product we buy a RHEL license and install it on one of the production servers.
So basically, they want to pay for the (unused) support contracts that RedHat offers, but when it comes to test systems they don't want to pay for a license for those systems which aren't production.
Collins Richey wrote:
My employer is a firm believer in RHEL - license costs are just a business decision.
As am I. Usually license costs are a business decision - in this case we have a perfectly legal and free alternative. Some people probably wouldn't be paying Red Hat even if CentOS didn't exist - they can choose other free Linux distributions.
With that being said, some of my clients need Oracle and Novell software that requires them to use RHEL or SLES so it makes sense for them to purchase licenses and not go with CentOS. I don't think I'm off here by saying that if Red Hat decided they didn't want projects like CentOS to exist then that wouldn't imply an automatic, *drastic* increase in new RHEL subscriptions.
I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
Red Hat believes in the open source philosophy and thus offer their RHEL SRPMs to everyone - it's GPL software for the most part anyway. They would rather sell their support services. People who use CentOS want a free, open source operating system and our willing to support themselves rather than rely on commercial support. We help Red Hat isolate and fix bugs in their commercial offerings. I don't think either party is being selfish with this kind of symbiotic relationship in place.
On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 11:39 -0600, Collins Richey wrote:
I'm a home user of CentOS (a desktop and a laptop) because I like the quality of the product and I love the cost. I'm a great believer in FOSS.
That being said, I know that some of you use CentOS for production servers and (perhaps?) desktops as well. I've read at leat one comment like "I have 20 CentOS servers."
My employer is a firm believer in RHEL - license costs are just a business decision.
I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
What do you think?
---- I think asking this means that you have a lot to learn about GPL and various other F/OSS licenses and what distributions are.
Red Hat contributes much to open source development but they have also come to being and fruition by their own exploitation (not meaning in a derogative way) of the open source software.
Because it is open source, they are merely packaging that which is already available to them free of charge - restricted by the licenses of the software that they package.
They are required to make the source code for their RHEL packages available in a manner that is prescribed by the various licensing restrictions of these packages and ultimately, they aren't really selling the software itself, but rather the support, maintenance, certification etc. for the software.
Thus if you wish to accept characterizations of others regarding the usage of RHEL packaging that is your choice but it would seem that you are getting what you paid for with something like CentOS - you don't get support or certification...only the open source software which is available for free in so many other packaged distributions.
Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does?
Craig
On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 19:54 +0100, Matt Dainty wrote:
On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 19:40, Craig White wrote:
Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does?
Take a look in the SRPMS, and the various patches that are applied, the kernel for instance.
You mean "major breaking" of the kernel for i810 based chipsets? In RHEL 3 u3 they took out support for AGP sets that were not specifically tested for (the old behavior was to fall back to 440xx support). This bit a couple universities and me also because we had some older socket 370 desktops that used the chipset. The official fix was in u4 and you could use a "fixed" kernel downloaded from one of their developers, but if you did that you system was officially "unsupported".
Yes they feed back patches to the community and were the main/only backer of GNOME in the early days and are a strong supporter of the GPL in general by making most things they develop themselves GPL/LGPL.
Regards, Paul Berger
On Apr 3, 2005 12:40 PM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
[ snips ]
I think asking this means that you have a lot to learn about GPL and various other F/OSS licenses and what distributions are.
Not really, but I welcome your coments.
Red Hat contributes much to open source development but they have also come to being and fruition by their own exploitation (not meaning in a derogative way) of the open source software.
Yes, certainly.
... they aren't really selling the software itself, but rather the support, maintenance, certification etc. for the software.
Yes again.
Thus if you wish to accept characterizations of others regarding the usage of RHEL packaging that is your choice but it would seem that you are getting what you paid for with something like CentOS - you don't get support or certification...only the open source software which is available for free in so many other packaged distributions.
I raised the characterizations as others only to elicit comments such as yours. I'm more interested in community support than paid support or certification. But I'm also interested in all viewpoints about CentOS.
Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does?
Probably, when you get right down to it, mostly work with the kernel and paying the salaries of some kernel hackers, although the assembly of rather well crafted releases certainly qualifies as work.
Thanks for your input, but please don't assume that I am ignorant of the way open software and licensing works. I'm very fond of CentOS (a believer in the community support model), and I'm looking for ammunition to support it in every way possible.
On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 12:55 -0600, Collins Richey wrote:
Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does?
Probably, when you get right down to it, mostly work with the kernel and paying the salaries of some kernel hackers, although the assembly of rather well crafted releases certainly qualifies as work.
Thanks for your input, but please don't assume that I am ignorant of the way open software and licensing works. I'm very fond of CentOS (a believer in the community support model), and I'm looking for ammunition to support it in every way possible.
---- 1 - the kernel is GPL
any customizations that Red Hat makes and distributes MUST be released to the community per the GPL license. That is the point of the GPL license. To their benefit, they are using the kernel which includes code by others who have likewise contributed.
2 - assembly - aye, there's the rub
of course there's a lot of community involvement in the development and testing of the assembly - that's presently called Fedora. It used to be called Red Hat Linux.
I am not criticizing Red Hat's efforts nor their contributions. They are symbiotic to Red Hat's formation, growth and profitability as a corporation. Likewise, they have substantially benefited from a code base that they didn't contribute to either. Where would they be without sendmail and apache?
As for the concept of ammunition - CentOS is a distribution and is only different from Debian or SuSE or Gentoo in that it uses RHEL packaging methodology. The concept that CentOS is doing something improper by using RHEL packaging is somewhat of an insult to the people that do the packaging for CentOS and unduly credits Red Hat for ownership of that which they cannot own.
Craig
Craig White wrote: <SNIP>
I think asking this means that you have a lot to learn about GPL and various other F/OSS licenses and what distributions are.
Red Hat contributes much to open source development but they have also come to being and fruition by their own exploitation (not meaning in a derogative way) of the open source software.
Because it is open source, they are merely packaging that which is already available to them free of charge - restricted by the licenses of the software that they package.
They are required to make the source code for their RHEL packages available in a manner that is prescribed by the various licensing restrictions of these packages and ultimately, they aren't really selling the software itself, but rather the support, maintenance, certification etc. for the software.
Thus if you wish to accept characterizations of others regarding the usage of RHEL packaging that is your choice but it would seem that you are getting what you paid for with something like CentOS - you don't get support or certification...only the open source software which is available for free in so many other packaged distributions.
Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does?
Red Hat does the integration work of many different software packages. Ever done Linux From Scratch? Some things just don't work without choosing versions and patching.
Red Hat selects versions and performs patching to ensure that everything works together. From there they begin backporting security and bugfixes as well as supplying their own. And, based on the changelogs for the kernel and other packages, many of the patches that Red Hat creates are passed upstream for all to benefit from.
Even though they may not write the initial F/OSS software that their distribution is based on, they do perform the testing and patching that is necessary for their distribution to function. They also fund the security certifications and try to ensure some projects, like SELinux, get supported and implemented (I know of no other distro that has SELinux policies, however limited, already in place for general use).
So, I would say that Red Hat does perform 'major work'. Is it as 'major' as the work of the initial software developers? That's debateable and quite immaterial. Red Hat builds their work on the work of others. CentOS builds its work on the work of Red Hat. That's the open source way. We all produce something more (sometimes even greater) with each addition and revision.
--Shawn
Thanks to all who responded (and may still respond). I got the answers I needed and much food for thought.
On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 15:36 -0400, Shawn M. Jones wrote:
Craig White wrote:
<SNIP>
I think asking this means that you have a lot to learn about GPL and various other F/OSS licenses and what distributions are.
Red Hat contributes much to open source development but they have also come to being and fruition by their own exploitation (not meaning in a derogative way) of the open source software.
Because it is open source, they are merely packaging that which is already available to them free of charge - restricted by the licenses of the software that they package.
They are required to make the source code for their RHEL packages available in a manner that is prescribed by the various licensing restrictions of these packages and ultimately, they aren't really selling the software itself, but rather the support, maintenance, certification etc. for the software.
Thus if you wish to accept characterizations of others regarding the usage of RHEL packaging that is your choice but it would seem that you are getting what you paid for with something like CentOS - you don't get support or certification...only the open source software which is available for free in so many other packaged distributions.
Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does?
Red Hat does the integration work of many different software packages. Ever done Linux From Scratch? Some things just don't work without choosing versions and patching.
Red Hat selects versions and performs patching to ensure that everything works together. From there they begin backporting security and bugfixes as well as supplying their own. And, based on the changelogs for the kernel and other packages, many of the patches that Red Hat creates are passed upstream for all to benefit from.
Even though they may not write the initial F/OSS software that their distribution is based on, they do perform the testing and patching that is necessary for their distribution to function. They also fund the security certifications and try to ensure some projects, like SELinux, get supported and implemented (I know of no other distro that has SELinux policies, however limited, already in place for general use).
So, I would say that Red Hat does perform 'major work'. Is it as 'major' as the work of the initial software developers? That's debateable and quite immaterial. Red Hat builds their work on the work of others. CentOS builds its work on the work of Red Hat. That's the open source way. We all produce something more (sometimes even greater) with each addition and revision.
I agree that RedHat does perform a major work ... in generating the SRPMS to build the source. That can be very time consuming, and they do a great job. However, they are building source from other people with those SRPMS and they have to release them ... that is the way the GPL works. They didn't write the software, and they have to release it.
I do take exception to someone saying that it is "easy" to build the distro from RedHat's source RPMS ... because it is far from easy.
Several of the SRPMS must be modified to remove trademarks, others must be modified to make the distro feel like CentOS and not RHEL.
Then, several of the SRPMS don't build correctly in the standard environment, and require special switches or environment variables to build correctly.
When building multi-lib arches, there are special setups required ... and other such things.
If this was easy, everyone would do it ... we are currently trying to build the ppc arch (ppc64 and ppc32). It is not easy :)
On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 15:36 -0400, Shawn M. Jones wrote:
Even though they may not write the initial F/OSS software that their distribution is based on, they do perform the testing and patching that is necessary for their distribution to function. They also fund the security certifications and try to ensure some projects, like SELinux, get supported and implemented (I know of no other distro that has SELinux policies, however limited, already in place for general use).
Well actually AFAIK SELinux was funded by USA tax dollars and done mainly by the NSA. There is rumor that they use it themselves for which they will neither confirm no deny because such information is classified.
Yes RH is on the bleeding edge using SELinux in a mainstream commercial distro. There are some growing pains with this, pioneering means you get arrows in your back, though it also can transfer advantage too.
Regards, Paul Berger
On Sunday 03 April 2005 10:39 am, Collins Richey wrote:
I'm a home user of CentOS (a desktop and a laptop) because I like the I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
Ethics? There's no decision to be made. As others have pointed out, RedHat based their business on open source software and they continue to play by the open source rules. One of those rules is they give back to the community for anyone else to use for any reason, as long as _we_, those other users, abide by the rules as well.
Community vs vendor support? That's a bit easier for us. In the years we've been using Red Hat Linux we've called Red Hat (the company) twice for support. One time they helped us; another time they said that help for that issue was beyond the scope of what they offered.
And that's twice over many years, lots of systems and lots of versions (the first support request was for version 6.2, the second for 7.2).
So it just made sense for us to use a community-supported alternative when it one became available that meets our specifications.
Jeff
Collins Richey wrote:
I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
The major work is done mostly by community. Red Hat, or any other distribution, is built from free software that is developed and maintainted by many volunteers who are not affiliated (or paid by) Red Hat in any way. Yes, there are people paid by Red Hat who also contribute, but still, vast majority of work is done by community.
What Red Hat sells is support. And really, there is nothing else they can sell you. So, I don't consider people using RHEL clones to be leaches. They are simply not buying part of the system that they don't need. Even with commercial software (Windoze, Oracle, etc), support is something you pay extra annually on top of what you pay for the software itself. If you want it, you pay for it. If you don't want it, you don't pay for it.
And you know, consulting, support, training, and certifications is a big and profitable business on its own. Even Microsoft is probably making way more money on it, than on selling Windblows OS. You can make a very good money out of it, and if Red Hat as company is managed as it should be, than Red Hat doesn't need to worry about its financial future. Frankly, I don't really understand their business decision not to release RHEL distribution for free. Those who need support would buy support anyhow. Those who don't need support can choose some other just as good distribution anyhow. Somebody who started using some other distribution isn't going to buy support from Red Hat. Somebody who uses RHEL (clone), might decide to spend some extra $$$ for support/training/whatever.
I don't consider Red Hat's bugzilla system to be part of "paid support". If I find a bug when using CentOS, that the bug exists in RHEL, and if I report it, fixing it will lead to better product for Red Hat's paying customers too. Happy customers = more referrals = more profit. Each time I stumble on non-trivial security related or data corruption bugs (as the bug in NFS system I recently reported) when using CentOS, I report it to Red Hat. Usually I'll mention in bug report that I stumbled on it when using CentOS (if I don't forget, happens sometimes). It is than on the Red Hat to decide if they are going to do something about it, or wait till one of paying customers is bitten by it.
I haven't heard anybody being called a leach for downloading and installing Solaris 10 (which is free for commercial use too, for those of you who don't know it, and it is planned to go open source sometime this year) on his/hers Intel box, and not paying for Sun support (or buying Sun hardware). If Sun who actually did all development work themselves (and put way more money into making it) is not calling people "leaches", I would be very dissapointed to hear it from Red Hat who "only" (OK, it isn't as simple as "only", making a distribution is a big job on its own, but you get the point) packaged something that other people spent countless man-hours to make.
I used RH9 on all my commercial servers previously to Centos, and I bought paid copies for each even though I could have just downloaded it because I wanted to support the cause. However Red Hat then dumped me high and dry with no further release after RH9 leaving me a huge bill to upgrade to RHEL for each machine, for support that I had never used in the past anyway....so Centos was a perfect choice....
So I don't see myself as leach moreover I see my self as an astute business man not paying for something I don't need. I have contributed to the community and will help with any question posed that I feel I can answer adequately. This is far more valuable than paying some commercial organisation driven by share holders selling me something I don't want or need...
Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
Collins Richey wrote:
I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
The major work is done mostly by community. Red Hat, or any other distribution, is built from free software that is developed and maintainted by many volunteers who are not affiliated (or paid by) Red Hat in any way. Yes, there are people paid by Red Hat who also contribute, but still, vast majority of work is done by community.
What Red Hat sells is support. And really, there is nothing else they can sell you. So, I don't consider people using RHEL clones to be leaches. They are simply not buying part of the system that they don't need. Even with commercial software (Windoze, Oracle, etc), support is something you pay extra annually on top of what you pay for the software itself. If you want it, you pay for it. If you don't want it, you don't pay for it.
And you know, consulting, support, training, and certifications is a big and profitable business on its own. Even Microsoft is probably making way more money on it, than on selling Windblows OS. You can make a very good money out of it, and if Red Hat as company is managed as it should be, than Red Hat doesn't need to worry about its financial future. Frankly, I don't really understand their business decision not to release RHEL distribution for free. Those who need support would buy support anyhow. Those who don't need support can choose some other just as good distribution anyhow. Somebody who started using some other distribution isn't going to buy support from Red Hat. Somebody who uses RHEL (clone), might decide to spend some extra $$$ for support/training/whatever.
I don't consider Red Hat's bugzilla system to be part of "paid support". If I find a bug when using CentOS, that the bug exists in RHEL, and if I report it, fixing it will lead to better product for Red Hat's paying customers too. Happy customers = more referrals = more profit. Each time I stumble on non-trivial security related or data corruption bugs (as the bug in NFS system I recently reported) when using CentOS, I report it to Red Hat. Usually I'll mention in bug report that I stumbled on it when using CentOS (if I don't forget, happens sometimes). It is than on the Red Hat to decide if they are going to do something about it, or wait till one of paying customers is bitten by it.
I haven't heard anybody being called a leach for downloading and installing Solaris 10 (which is free for commercial use too, for those of you who don't know it, and it is planned to go open source sometime this year) on his/hers Intel box, and not paying for Sun support (or buying Sun hardware). If Sun who actually did all development work themselves (and put way more money into making it) is not calling people "leaches", I would be very dissapointed to hear it from Red Hat who "only" (OK, it isn't as simple as "only", making a distribution is a big job on its own, but you get the point) packaged something that other people spent countless man-hours to make.
Peter Farrow wrote:
I used RH9 on all my commercial servers previously to Centos, and I bought paid copies for each even though I could have just downloaded it because I wanted to support the cause. However Red Hat then dumped me high and dry with no further release after RH9 leaving me a huge bill to upgrade to RHEL for each machine, for support that I had never used in the past anyway....so Centos was a perfect choice....
So I don't see myself as leach moreover I see my self as an astute business man not paying for something I don't need. I have contributed to the community and will help with any question posed that I feel I can answer adequately. This is far more valuable than paying some commercial organisation driven by share holders selling me something I don't want or need...
Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
I fall into this category as well. My company purchased RH licenses and support for versions 4.2-9.0 and then I felt we were held hostage to upgrade to RHEL when RH EOL'ed the regular releases. In all that time, I don't think I EVER called RH or used their official support mechanisms since it was just easier/faster to tap the usual community sources. But I felt like we needed the "official support" in case we got bitten in the ass by a problem unsolvable by the community support structure. That never happened. So when the choice of completely switching distros or going to an offshoot like CentOS was before me, I decided that I didn't want to re-learn where everything resides on another distro. Switching over to something in beta like Fedora just wasn't an option. I tried whitebox and then CentOS. Ultimately, I decided that CentOS was a better fit for our organisation. And I haven't looked back. I've been very happy with the CentOS distro and the level of support available. I plan on sending them a fat "thank you" check in the near future.
Best regards,
C
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