[CentOS] CentOS for commercial use
Aleksandar Milivojevic
amilivojevic at pbl.ca
Mon Apr 4 16:56:34 UTC 2005
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.
--
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca> Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator 1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276 Winnipeg, MB R3T 1L7
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