[WBEL-devel] Re: How to get the RHEL Errata?

[Vlad Mazek]

That is a very good point - packaging vs development. Remember, they didn't
kill the Redhat Linux because they couldn't make money off of it but because
they could not grow the business by selling people a $60 copy of Linux that
would work for 5 years. At this point they had to choose between the
nickel-and-dime business model or proprietary unix business model.

I do not think you will see proprietary compilers, java installers or
anything of the sort because that takes money to develop and in return
brings in $0 revenue. What is more likely is that they try to create
different support levels - $ for ftp, $$ for up2date, $$$ for RHN Managed,
$$$$ for something else. In the worst case scenario, they could only allow
registered Redhat Linux Enterprise customers access to the errata.

-Vlad

Vlad Mazek (vlad@ownwebnow.com)
OwnWebNow Corp.
Phone: (877) 546-0316 Fax: (954) 839-8737
Web: http://www.ownwebnow.com

-----Original Message-----
From: whitebox-devel-admin@beau.org [mailto:whitebox-devel-admin@beau.org]
On Behalf Of David E. Cox
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 10:19 PM
To: Sebastian Welsh
Cc: whitebox-devel@beau.org
Subject: Re: [WBEL-devel] Re: How to get the RHEL Errata?

Redhat's business is packaging, not development.  Spec files and platform
compatibility patches are much more their core business then bug chasing in
the applications themselves.  So as self-hosting rebuilders go to work,
redhat's bugzilla fills with good deep bug reports on the build process.
They get an army of folks actually digging through their code making sure it
all works.  The sales loss is marginal as the suits are still going to buy
redhat. You just can't explain to them whats happening late at night down at
the public library.