Bryan J. Smith wrote: > RHEL is about Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and 5+ year updates, and > not about milking you dry. For a $300+ product, you get free support > and the option to get guaranteed response times. Red Hat originally > tried to sell a Red Hat Linux 6.2 E[nterprise] with SLAs. But SuSE > Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 7 came out and showed that the industry > wanted a "separate enterprise product" and Red Hat followed suit. When I did try that support, it didn't give me a favourable impression. However, that's just my opinion. Others wil no doubt have really benefitted from it. What I really needed was the errata and updates rather than support, and an overall better overall lifecycle that RHEL promises and indeed, delivers. I could have gone down the Fedora route, but wasn't too thrilled with it's overall lifecycle. I'm a non-commercial user (but neither a charity or educational establishment) and that $300 per year is a lot of money to pay for a stable and constantly updated OS. You could argue I could use Debian or some other free distribution, but having been a Red Hat Linux user for many years it's what I know best and feel the most comfortable around. Now I didn't actually mind PAYING for RHEL, of course not, but I just find they need to find a sweet spot price for those that may not need the install/configuration support (like me), or the SLAs, but want the lifecycle the product delivers and the stability it offers. Is $340 per year worth it for that? I was paying £65 a year for the RHN for the last available versions of the Red Hat Linux and that suited me just fine. That price is now £184, and includes features I don't actually need or want. Of course CentOS has now came along, and that's meeting my needs just fine. Hence why I'm more than happy to make the odd donation when I can. > But by paying that money, you fund the largest commercial GPL company > and collection of GPL projects. Don't bash Red Hat, they are a very, > very good company -- 100% GPL-anal to the ultra-power. The only other > company that comes close is now SuSE, thanx to Novell's purchase -- > although Novell still a doesn't make their core goods GPL (whereas all > of Red Hat's developments are always 100% GPL). I'm not bashing Red Hat. Bashing Red Hat would be something along the lines of "Red Hat sucks; they've done nothing for the community; they're just another greedy organisation" which would be wrong on all accounts. Red Hat is also a business and needs to be profitable like any other business. I recognise that. I also recognise what they've done for the community as well. They are a good company. > And that's a good thing. But don't feel the need to bash Red Hat just > because you appreciate the CentOS project. I'm sorry to have come across 'bashing' Red Hat. Not my intention, most definately. M.