[WBEL-users] RH Desktop

[Kirby Bohling]

On Tue, May 04, 2004 at 06:13:59PM -0400, Bernie Hoefer wrote:
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> Kirby Bohling wrote:
> - ---
> > out of RedHat 9 to a supported platform.  Fedora's nice, but it's
> > intentionally designed to be so bleeding edge that you're insane to
> > use it as a platform for production use.  I also am unwilling to
> - ---
>      Although I know what you're getting at, I wouldn't word it quite
> the way you did.  "...intentionally designed..." makes it sound like the
> Fedora leadership planned a way to thwart people from using it in
> production use.  However, if one reads the Fedora Project's objectives,
> <http://fedora.redhat.com/about/objectives.html>, (especially objective
> #5, and non-objectives #1 and #2), one will see Fedora Core just isn't
> meant for production use.  In other words, it is not that they are
> thwarting people, it just not the right tool for the job.  No one is to
> blame for that.

When I said intentionally designed, I meant, it was a feature of the
design, and not something someone outside of RedHat can change.
s/intentionally/specifically/g, with the implication, that it
wasn't an incidential, or a happenstance decision, it was a
deliberate design decision.  I agree it's the right tool for the
job in a lot of ways.

There are a number of design decisions about Fedora that really
annoy me.  That it's clearly meant to be kept perpetually in beta.
I'm willing to be a beta tester, but at some point, I'd like to
enjoy the finished product being stablized for longer them 6-12
months at a time.

<snip... we agreed section>

> 
> - ---
> > no sanely priced option for personal use.  Sorry, but I'm not going
> > to pay RedHat $100-$150/year/machine for a crappy non-server edition
> > of Linux.  I'm surely not going $250-750/year/machine to use on my
> - ---
>      Aw, now let's be nice.  :-)  I wouldn't call RHEL 3.0 WS "crappy"
> just because it is intended to be a workstation instead of a server.

	Sorry, I'm used to full linux installation.  "crappy" is probably
the wrong characterization.

	Linux IMHO, is a "crappy" OS without it's full tool set.  What
makes Linux wonderful is the full tool complement so you can do
anything and everything with.  It's incredibly flexible, that's the
power.  Think of that "crappy", as applying to Linux, not to RedHat
in that sentence.  That's more the sentiment of what I meant.  Their
Professional Desktop is a fine product, but it isn't what I think of
when I want a Linux distro for my home machines.

<snip... Stuff about EULA being strongly worded..>

<snip... we agree about security updates for non-supported people
would be a nice product>

>      If I may say so, you do sound a little bitter about what Red Hat
> has done.  I see the reasons why, and don't blame you for those
> feelings.  I was like that, too, but I softened up recently after
> reading a little more about Red Hat's decision.  I still don't agree
> 100% with it, but at least I can empathize with their situation.

	I'm not that bitter per se.  I'm actually mad at them, because
there is now no way I can usefully contribute to them in a way that
has any benefits to me.  I used to religiously buy OS upgrades.
Heck, I'm not sure I've even installed 1/3rd of the versions of the
products I paid for.  I paid up, because it was how I could support
RedHat.

	I've filed bugs.  I've submitted patches.  I've made feature
requests.  I've beta tested stuff.  I can't get a copy to do those
things any more.

	I'd much rather contribute to them, then Whitebox.  However,
Whitebox is a place that will let me contribute, and get something
useful back.  So here I am.  I can see that Whitebox has virtually
no chance of leaving me in a lurch the way that RedHat did.

>      If you can grab a copy of issue #1 of Red Hat's _Wide Open
> Magazine_, check out the "The Fedora Project:  True Confessions"
> article.  It does a good job of explaining the situations that lead up
> to Red Hat sponsoring the Fedora Project and offering only
> enterprise-grade software.

	I've read that before.  I understand from a business perspective
why they did what they did.  It makes perfect sense to me.

	The only reason I am having a problem, is they are unwilling to
tell people, you didn't pay for the kind of support you want.  Read
their justifications for it.  In the end, if they had just told
people, if you want 24x7 support, you need to pay for it, they could
have continued doing exactly what they used to do.

	Instead they catered to the people who bought the wrong product,
and dropped the product that a lot of people wanted, and faithfully
paid for.  They dumped a product line with bunch of good, and loyal
users for people who didn't read the label on the box that said "30
days of installation support only".

	That's also why I feel that RedHat isn't being entirely honest.
I think they were making too good a product that too many took
advantage of for free, and it was hard to make money at it, and were
not making enough money.  Instead they said: "Our product isn't
making our customers happy", so we made two others to make our users
happy.  That's pure marketing spin.  It's something that annoys me.
There were probably 10 or 100's of thousands of completely satisfied
RedHat customers.  I can understand from a marketing perspective why
they say what they do.  However, that makes me feel that the name
"True Confessions", isn't very accurate.

	Thanks,
		Kirby

PS:  I'm really sorry if this is going too far off topic for a
WhiteBox listing post.  At least I'm not trolling to get users to
try and use a different source rebuild of RHEL.  I promise all
responses to this from now on, are off list.