[CentOS] RHEL, centos and seeing if i now understand this

Tue Jun 23 10:48:17 UTC 2009
Sorin Srbu <sorin.srbu at orgfarm.uu.se>

>-----Original Message-----
>From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On
Behalf
>Of Robert P. J. Day
>Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 11:57 AM
>To: CentOS discussion list
>Subject: [CentOS] RHEL, centos and seeing if i now understand this
>
>
>  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?

Yes, to me it does.

FWIW, we've gone the same way. Us being a "not as large" client. 8-) We've
basically been a RHEL-shop mostly until I took over the linux-adminning and
had to ask for money to renew the RHEL entitlements. The support that is
included there I've used once, and ever since resorted to general web
searches, forums and mailing lists like this one and to finally settled for
CentOS, except for a handful of RHEL machines we still keep because of
software legacy. We're a university department with two sub-departments that
I admin. I'm also the entire IT-department(...)=meaning doing our own
support.

As support goes, I've yet to call RHEL for support again. I'm happy to say
that the help and hints I've gotten from members on this list alone is worth
a helluva' lot than a cursory look would tell. Very high signal-to-noise
ratio that is.
-- 
/Sorin
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