From: Collins Richey crichey@gmail.com

I roll my eyes when I hear how good and great and all-virtuous RedHat is,

On GPL. That's all. On GPL. IBM is praised while HP, Red Hat and Sun are demonized. Companies have their agendas, and we need to be _cautious_.

But one thing remains: Stallman's Moral Delima Which means that the only thing that matters in the end is GPL. As long as Red Hat is a 100% GPL company, nothing else matters.

Same deal with IBM. If they go 100% GPL, I'll love them too. Heck, I'd just be happy if they'd drop the CPL and IPL on their donations. They virtually have no GPL, at least Sun can claim some major ones.

and I roll my eyes when I hear some of the complaints about RedHat. As is always (at least since the time of ancient Greece) the case, somewhere in the middle lies truth. I'm just thankful that CentOS makes the RedHat software with all its benefits AND warts available to a wider audience.

Agreed. Did I ever disagree with that?

I'm essentially a believer in FOSS.

I prefer to use the term Freedomware, which doesn't need a definition to those not familiar. ;->

I would never purchase a shrink-wrapped RedHat were it still available, nor do I have any need for an SLA,

As is your choice. No one at Red Hat is forcing you to do so. Tiemann basically said in not so few words that they don't want you as a consumer, only possibly a user of Fedora Core if you wish.

but I'm very thankful that RedHat fully subscribes to the GPL and makes its SRPM's available.

Which is why, taking everything else away because it's "subjective" to many people from different views, is why Red Hat is a "friend" and not so much of a "partner."

As a wiser person than I said in another post, it doesn't help much to tell someone who is used to having a particular feature that he can't have that any more and why.

Of course it does. If they would have looked at early Fedora Core 2 development, they would have known what to expect. Then they would have known what to tell their clients, and how to come up with a solution that minimizes risk to existing operations.

Blaming Red Hat for something outside their control does nothing. Or should I put it this way, if you _complain_ about something, there is nothing wrong with someone else explaining why you shouldn't. You can't complain about me trying to explain things any more than someone who is just complaining in the first place.

Even less does it help to tell that person that he is an ignorant fool

I reserved the word "ignorant" until it got to the point that they just didn't care why, how or how to accommodate such very likely and similar changes in the future. At some point, if you choose to be ignorant, you are only hurting yourself.

and better off without that feature.

I _never_ said he was "better off without that feature." I *NEVER* SAID THAT! At least 2 _other_ people did, as well as the Red Hat rationales. I never said either way whether CIPE was good or bad -- I _purposely_avoided_ doing so!

This is what I really _hate_ about these lists. All of the sudden, _anything_ negative said by _anyone_ in a thread is attributed only to me -- and I'm the focal point for 100% of what people don't like.

REGARDLESS IF I SAID IT OR NOT! 100% GETS PUT ON MY NAME!

At this point, you are not bothering to accurate listen to what I actually said. There is a "method to my madness" and I'm pretty darn ethical in my approach. And that includes _reserving_opinion_ of whether or not something should or should not be included.

And just trying to understand why decision are made by others.

It's funny, people say I don't try to look at something from someone else's viewpoint. I'm quite the opposite. Whether it's a client, vendor or individual, I step into their shoes. In fact, one of the reasons I try to explain things is so people don't fall into the same assumptions again.

Because assumptions are the biggest problems of all. And I really think some people would rather hate than to stop and be tolerant of people and projects who typically don't have the same focus as they.

-- Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org