Red Hat pulls out of the desktop race

M

macridah

root
How do you think the move by Redhat to pull out of the desktop race will affect Mac's?

"Leading Linux distributor Red Hat Inc. on Monday made clear its intention to focus on the enterprise space, telling customers that it will no longer be maintaining or releasing any of the its Red Hat Linux line after the end of April 2004. ... "


Back then, when mac's were 4% and linux was 1%, experts predicted that linux would overtake mac's market share--uh, i don't think so ..

i think they [red hat] realized after viewing panther, they can't compete as the alternative to windows desktop OS. Pather has been getting rock solid reviews and I see more "switchers" in the future. Even back then, I couldn't imagine none tech savy people using red hat, but ANYONE could get use to mac os x.

Red hat wants to concentrate on enterprise apps. The company I work for just realized the Redhat is NOT free, if you want patches--especially security patches or updates--you need to pay an expensive annual subscription fee. Then if you use open source apps, you need, or should get third party support. We tested mac os x server and the unlimited license fee, plus support makes the mac just as cheap or even cheaper--since apple supports the open source software they include. Another thing, apple adds much better gui's on the open source apps and management server, heck better GUI period.

"The move is designed to push customers to migrate to Red Hat's Enterprise Linux line of products, which carry an annual subscription fee."

just my 2 cents
 
Why pay for RedHat when there are literally squillions of other *NIX distros out there REALLY for free? I think its good that they provide support for enterprise users, but they should still provide a client release, with updates, but without the fancy support. what if a company wants to use cheap PC boxes, but doesnt want the hassle of MS everywhere? Whats wrong with a RedHat Server in the rack-mount, and RedHat Desktop Edition on cheap (500-1000 $AU) clients. Gives them that whole "total solution thing.."
 
Redhat was always on pc platform. I used it (when I had a pc), and installed it to several pcs. And I liked it.

Its competitor would have been XP (or other Windowses) and Mandrake (or other Linuxes on pc) .. I'll miss Redhat. :(
 
I will miss RedHat client as well. Having installed and used both RedHat and Mandrake, I always believed, in spite of its 800 pound gorilla existence, that RedHat was the easiest and cleanest of Linux distros.

As for how it may affect Apple, I don't think Linux has a long life as a consumer desktop OS anyway. There is no solidarity around user experience/interface and application installation is still confusing. OSX and Linux have very distinct consumer targets and I see little overlap.

Giaguara said:
Redhat was always on pc platform. I used it (when I had a pc), and installed it to several pcs. And I liked it.

Its competitor would have been XP (or other Windowses) and Mandrake (or other Linuxes on pc) .. I'll miss Redhat. :(
Click to expand...
 
Mandrake seems to be a system that rivaled Red Hat for the average user who would switch from Windows, not to mention some of these newer ones like Lindows.

Red Hat's business has always been focused around the support provided and the enterprise/business enviroment anyways, so it's a smart business decision on their part.

X indirectly competes with Linux due to the hardware, so I doubt it was a big factor.
 
I for one am very shocked at this...

I have and maintain a few Linux boxes that are all running Redhat 8 or 9. We've been supporting them (buying the CDs) since 6. And the hell if I'm going to spend (or ask my clients to spend) $800 to "upgrade" to their Enterprise Edition! WTH???!!!

Time to switch Linux Distros. Damnit! This really sucks! I hope this will come back to bite them in the :(
 
there's plenty of other fine distros. try SuSE, for example. or Mandrake. or Debian. or Lindows. the list goes on, and on, and on, and on...
 
Redhat was a pretty easy to use and widely used linux distro, however, Mandrake is basically identical to redhat and almost just as easy to configure and use. Linux distros still have a long way to go to be able to function as a replacement for windows on a pc platform though. The functionality and ease of use and GUI still need plenty of work before an "average joe" will be able to use it as effeciently(eh) as they use windows.
 
Isn't Novell picking up Suse for a cool 210 million?

fryke said:
there's plenty of other fine distros. try SuSE, for example. or Mandrake. or Debian. or Lindows. the list goes on, and on, and on, and on...
Click to expand...
 
Novell bought SuSe?
Maybe Novell has realised that a proprietary system is not the way to go, and is going to make Netware 7..8..9.. 10 (X? :D) a *NIX core with their own system libraries, daemons etc to run a Novell Network/NDS Tree...
Or maybe they just wanted to be able to use the fancy lizard logo...
 
The whole point of Linux and Open Source, is that you HAVE to make the source available for free. It just means you wont be able to BUY the CDs for NEXT TO NOTHING.
I looked on RedHat.com.
They DO have a complete Enterprise Solution, including a Desktop Edition. The only difference is, they sell it with support.
If you want it, dowload the ISOs, and burn em. You get the same product, but without support.
 
RedHat has announced the Fedora project. My guess is that YDL will base its efforts on that now. Fedora is the follow-up for Red Hat Linux. No support from Red Hat. Just like Pengu said. (It was true for the download versions of Red Hat Linux before...) But: Automatic software update engine. Just like Mac OS X. Works quite fine - or at least did on RH8-9, updates for Fedora Core 1, which has just been released, have not yet been released.
 
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