Whoa whoa whoa whoa ... wait a second! Now I understand my query here on a Red Hat list about SuSE might not be appropriate, but I'm going to go ahead and
make it -- prompting for any corrections to my assumptions.
I am currently very much under the belief that SuSE CDs (at least through 8.x) are very much _not_ redistributable! Yes, you can pull down
a "redistributable" version via packages from the Internet, but I have _never_ seen a SuSE CD (or CD image) that wasn't either a "commercial shrink wrap" for a single (or finite number of) system, or an "evaluation."
SuSE's distro relies on non-100% redistributable components. Now you _may_ be able to install it on a number of systems with your purchase, but that is also the case with Sun StarOffice as well -- you can_not_ simply "redistribute" it freely.
Am I mistaken on SuSE???
I am running SuSE 8.2 Personal (also tried Mandrake 9.1 and briefly tried Debian Woody). I may be wrong, but I believe that YaST and YaST2 are not redistributable. Since YaST is the installer for SuSE, you end up with something you can not freely load on other machines. I -MAY- be wrong, but I think that is the whole reason behind not having downloadable SuSE ISO's, and why on the few occasions you DO find SuSE ISO's on a public FTP server, they are pulled quickly.
That's part of the reason I am here. I am looking for a desktop distribution that is freely distributable, easy to install, and that will have good user guides. I would hope with a community project, you do not pay for up2date - but use a similar tool - although I'm often wrong. I feel that with the backing of RH, Fedora will meet all those requirements. Since I'm downloading Severn ISO's right now, take my above comments as a rank amatuer newbie.
According to the SuSE rep, the Professional, Pro Upgrade and Personal CD-ROMs may be copied and distributed as long as there is no profit involved. That was this afternoon while I have been addressing these questions.
He told me specifically, that I could not install it on a computer and sell the computer. I can Give away as many copies as I desire to give away. We did not discuss the ISOs and internet distribution.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of griffisb@bellsouth.net Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 7:54 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions on SuSE incorrect?
Whoa whoa whoa whoa ... wait a second! Now I understand my query here
on a Red Hat list about SuSE might not be appropriate, but I'm going
to go ahead and make it -- prompting for any corrections to my assumptions.
I am currently very much under the belief that SuSE CDs (at least through 8.x) are very much _not_ redistributable! Yes, you can pull
down a "redistributable" version via packages from the Internet, but I have _never_ seen a SuSE CD (or CD image) that wasn't either a "commercial shrink wrap" for a single (or finite number of) system, or an "evaluation."
SuSE's distro relies on non-100% redistributable components. Now you _may_ be able to install it on a number of systems with your purchase,
but that is also the case with Sun StarOffice as well -- you can_not_ simply "redistribute" it freely.
Am I mistaken on SuSE???
I am running SuSE 8.2 Personal (also tried Mandrake 9.1 and briefly tried Debian Woody). I may be wrong, but I believe that YaST and YaST2 are not redistributable. Since YaST is the installer for SuSE, you end up with something you can not freely load on other machines. I -MAY- be wrong, but I think that is the whole reason behind not having downloadable SuSE ISO's, and why on the few occasions you DO find SuSE ISO's on a public FTP server, they are pulled quickly.
That's part of the reason I am here. I am looking for a desktop distribution that is freely distributable, easy to install, and that will have good user guides. I would hope with a community project, you do not pay for up2date - but use a similar tool - although I'm often wrong. I feel that with the backing of RH, Fedora will meet all those requirements. Since I'm downloading Severn ISO's right now, take my above comments as a rank amatuer newbie.
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 18:05, Buck wrote:
According to the SuSE rep, the Professional, Pro Upgrade and Personal CD-ROMs may be copied and distributed as long as there is no profit involved. That was this afternoon while I have been addressing these questions.
Which would be no different than RH's requirements. You can *give* away the discs all you want on the comparable installments of RH. When we are talking about Enterprise stuff, however, well see my other post for teh details.
Thus, when comparing RHEL to SuSE personal something is more than fishy. Of course, since we want as close as possible, to compare to Person/Professional we need to compare those to Fedora.
A. Can you give it away/freely redistributable? B. Can you sell it?
Fedora: A: Yes B. Yes
SuSE: A: Yes[1] B: No
Also note that personal does not come with Apache, LDAP client/server, NIS/NFS Server, "Development tools". Their guide also list sit as only having "Basic " "security software".
So again, it is not an accurate comparison. Looking at their "Support" ... two words come to mind: "dime" and "nickel" - and not necessarily in that order. Install a 2rd party app on personal and they quit "supporting" you. Select anything other than default, and they don't help you. http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/inst_support/support_overview.html
Bill
[1] You can't make any money whatsoever doing it, thus doing it for a client is out. This is for Yast, dunno about Yast2. Even then it is a maybe, it depends on what software is bundled with it. So far the only confirmation is from a *Sales* rep, not a legal rep.
Bill Anderson wrote:
A. Can you give it away/freely redistributable? B. Can you sell it? Fedora: A: Yes B. Yes
SuSE: A: Yes[1] B: No
[1] You can't make any money whatsoever doing it, thus doing it for a client is out. This is for Yast, dunno about Yast2. Even then it is a maybe, it depends on what software is bundled with it. So far the only confirmation is from a *Sales* rep, not a legal rep.
from "YaST and SuSE Linux licence terms": http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/licenses/yast.html
--cut-- 3 Dissemination "It is forbidden to reproduce or distribute data carriers which have been reproduced without authorisation for payment without the prior written consent of SuSE Linux AG or SuSE Linux. [...]" --end--
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
SuSE offers me the opportunity to start on what might be the bleeding edge and then keep it maintained for at least a full year.
Sure, I can't copy the disks and sell them on eBay, but I when my customer wants a server or upgrades, I sell them a retail box copy. What I save them in software, I can make up on in installation and service.
I truly love the public support for Red Hat such as this forum. I really did like the RHL model, but it's gone now. If they announce a substitute, it will be an option too. After this Red Hat upset, my partner and I decided to keep up with at least two Linux versions and keep a review on others.
What I mostly want in a Linux is to be affordable both to me and my customer, duplicatable on multiple computers, and to be maintained for an extended period of time. I just find maintenance a little too short with Fedora.
As for burning CD-ROMS and selling them, there is a market for that but I don't need to support that version.
Good luck
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Xose Vazquez Perez Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 10:44 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions on SuSE incorrect?
Bill Anderson wrote:
A. Can you give it away/freely redistributable? B. Can you sell it? Fedora: A: Yes B. Yes
SuSE: A: Yes[1] B: No
[1] You can't make any money whatsoever doing it, thus doing it for a client is out. This is for Yast, dunno about Yast2. Even then it is a maybe, it depends on what software is bundled with it. So far the only
confirmation is from a *Sales* rep, not a legal rep.
from "YaST and SuSE Linux licence terms": http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/licenses/yast.html
--cut-- 3 Dissemination "It is forbidden to reproduce or distribute data carriers which have been reproduced without authorisation for payment without the prior written consent of SuSE Linux AG or SuSE Linux. [...]" --end--
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 23:45, Buck wrote:
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
<SNIP>
Good luck
Buck
First off, we are the old men, (also 45, just last week), but I always liked bleeding edge. I was all over linux when I first learned of it. The first shrink wrapped was RHL 6.2. I also bought Suse, Caldera, and Turbo linux to try them all, but came back to RHL. I liked playing Tetris while Caldera loaded. I liked Suse somewhat, but it just missed for me, Turbo Linux was out there somewhere, but it was Red Hat that I settled on, and eventually embraced and became a RHCE. I know that you can buy RHEL and still have Red Hat, but it just isn't RHL as we knew it. Fedora may be a great project, but it isn't RHL. It isn't Red Hat. That is the only reason that I stated that I will have to evaluate Suse, Mandrake, et al, along with Fedora. The product I have been using, is going away. The suggested replacement is Fedora. Fedora is not Red Hat. So in essence, I am back to square one. I have been a blind loyalist for Red Hat, but for my home PCs, (work will always be Red Hat), I will investigate other versions. Of course, if Red Hat came out with 10, then I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be having this conversation, and we wouldn't be plowing through over fifty messages each morning debating the issue. But hey, tempis fuget. (For our non-latin speaking friends, time marches on.) Ed
Thanks, Ed,
Yes, we are the same age, but I am brand new to Linux. I first started to get into Linux about a year ago. I had a spare computer and wanted to learn it and use it. I read the reviews, checked out the local book stores, read the websites of what must have been a dozen or more brands and then looked at the list serves available. Probably every version has both Yahoo and MSN groups support but when I tried them I became overwhelmed with spam, so I had to rule that out as an option. I monitored three list servs lists and checked out the release frequency and availability of maintenance support. It became a toss up between Red Hat and SuSE at that time. Red Hat won because of the availability of resources including the books at the book stores, these list serve lists and the availability of ISOs on the internet.
I started learning RH and installing it, but I picked up a job that took more time and effort so I dropped it temporarily. I just came back a few weeks ago and, like you, I lost that which made Red Hat valuable to me. Like you, I am at square 1 but with no Linux experience behind me.
As for the bleeding edge, I have no problems with starting with the newest release, and I would probably keep one computer bleeding every time a new version was released, but I also need some installs to be stable for at least one year. Remember that I am an MS supporter. I have been putting up with worm, Trojan, virus and spyware attacks for years. Most of my work seems to be protecting the network or cleaning up after them. I keep hearing that Linux has less of these problems and I may be afraid of shadows. I don't know. I do like the up2date provided by the Red Hat Network and would love to see that for Fedora as well. Who knows, it might be enough to get it stable enough to operate and I may not need all the maintenance updates, but then I may.
SuSE offers a new version every spring and fall so I can install a version that has been released long enough to get most of the bugs out and then rely on the future maintenance releases to protect the computer from vulnerabilities. If I ever get it installed, I may find that it fits my needs. (Installing via FTP for a total newbie is not easy.)
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Edward Croft Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 9:17 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions onSuSE incorrect?
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 23:45, Buck wrote:
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
<SNIP>
Good luck
Buck
First off, we are the old men, (also 45, just last week), but I always liked bleeding edge. I was all over linux when I first learned of it. The first shrink wrapped was RHL 6.2. I also bought Suse, Caldera, and Turbo linux to try them all, but came back to RHL. I liked playing Tetris while Caldera loaded. I liked Suse somewhat, but it just missed for me, Turbo Linux was out there somewhere, but it was Red Hat that I settled on, and eventually embraced and became a RHCE. I know that you can buy RHEL and still have Red Hat, but it just isn't RHL as we knew it. Fedora may be a great project, but it isn't RHL. It isn't Red Hat. That is the only reason that I stated that I will have to evaluate Suse, Mandrake, et al, along with Fedora. The product I have been using, is going away. The suggested replacement is Fedora. Fedora is not Red Hat. So in essence, I am back to square one. I have been a blind loyalist for Red Hat, but for my home PCs, (work will always be Red Hat), I will investigate other versions. Of course, if Red Hat came out with 10, then I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be having this conversation, and we wouldn't be plowing through over fifty messages each morning debating the issue. But hey, tempis fuget. (For our non-latin speaking friends, time marches on.) Ed
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
On Saturday 04 October 2003 10:43, Buck wrote:
Thanks, Ed,
Yes, we are the same age, but I am brand new to Linux. I first started to get into Linux about a year ago. I had a spare computer and wanted to learn it and use it. I read the reviews, checked out the local book stores, read the websites of what must have been a dozen or more brands and then looked at the list serves available. Probably every version has both Yahoo and MSN groups support but when I tried them I became overwhelmed with spam, so I had to rule that out as an option. I monitored three list servs lists and checked out the release frequency and availability of maintenance support. It became a toss up between Red Hat and SuSE at that time. Red Hat won because of the availability of resources including the books at the book stores, these list serve lists and the availability of ISOs on the internet.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Edward Croft Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 9:17 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions onSuSE incorrect?
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 23:45, Buck wrote:
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
<SNIP>
Good luck
Buck
First off, we are the old men, (also 45, just last week), but I always liked bleeding edge. I was all over linux when I first learned of it. The first shrink wrapped was RHL 6.2. I also bought Suse, Caldera, and Turbo linux to try them all, but came back to RHL. I liked playing Tetris while Caldera loaded. I liked Suse somewhat, but it just missed for me, Turbo Linux was out there somewhere, but it was Red Hat that I settled on, and eventually embraced and became a RHCE. I know that you can buy RHEL and still have Red Hat, but it just isn't RHL as we knew it. Fedora may be a great project, but it isn't RHL. It isn't Red Hat. That is the only reason that I stated that I will have to evaluate Suse, Mandrake, et al, along with Fedora. Ed
Sounds like we have a couple of old men, lol. I'm 45 as well, with 46 staring me in the eyes (in November). Buck - if you have a LUG near you, ask for help in installing SuSE via FTP. I did, and got it running. I ended up purchasing the Personal version for the CD's and the manual (a good user's manual helps in a lot of small areas). I like SuSE, but it isn't doing it for me - so I'm looking around. Another alternative is to try out the SuSE newsgroup. A third alternative is to download the SuSE Live Evaluation CD to see if you like it. If so, then it might be worth purchasing it.
I also tried Mandrake. That installed easily and worked well - but I got upgade and install happy. Quickly broke it by pointing to different sources for RPM's, installing some packages via urpmi (and the gui grpmi), installed others via command line rpm, and still other via CVS. Oh yeah, built a few of my own RPMs, too. Not well, kind of messy - not about to do that again any time soon. You can mess up a system pretty quickly!
Oh yeah, I'm working on a printserver using Debian Woody. That seems a good fit for a 16Meg RAM, 1 Gig harddisk, 100Mhz machine. No GUI, just plain command line screen (and remote access via ssh). It's up and running, but I have more work to do.
To bring this back to the subjkect of this mailing list, I'm very interested in Fedora, and think it can fill a need. I like that it is based on Consumer's version of Red Hat. I also like that you can use apt for keeping up to date. Think I need another PC to mess with Fedora - it's my gut feeling that I will move from SuSE (and Mandrake) and possibly Debian to Fedora. I also think it will fit in well at the church I do volunteer LAN work for. I'm holding off for now, but plan on installing as soon as it goes GA. If I had a PC for breaking/fixing - then I would install Fedora now to get a feel for it. Bruce
BruceG wrote:
On Saturday 04 October 2003 10:43, Buck wrote:
Thanks, Ed,
Yes, we are the same age, but I am brand new to Linux. I first started to get into Linux about a year ago. I had a spare computer and wanted to learn it and use it. I read the reviews, checked out the local book stores, read the websites of what must have been a dozen or more brands and then looked at the list serves available. Probably every version has both Yahoo and MSN groups support but when I tried them I became overwhelmed with spam, so I had to rule that out as an option. I monitored three list servs lists and checked out the release frequency and availability of maintenance support. It became a toss up between Red Hat and SuSE at that time. Red Hat won because of the availability of resources including the books at the book stores, these list serve lists and the availability of ISOs on the internet.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Edward Croft Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 9:17 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions onSuSE incorrect?
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 23:45, Buck wrote:
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
<SNIP>
Good luck
Buck
First off, we are the old men, (also 45, just last week), but I always liked bleeding edge. I was all over linux when I first learned of it. The first shrink wrapped was RHL 6.2. I also bought Suse, Caldera, and Turbo linux to try them all, but came back to RHL. I liked playing Tetris while Caldera loaded. I liked Suse somewhat, but it just missed for me, Turbo Linux was out there somewhere, but it was Red Hat that I settled on, and eventually embraced and became a RHCE. I know that you can buy RHEL and still have Red Hat, but it just isn't RHL as we knew it. Fedora may be a great project, but it isn't RHL. It isn't Red Hat. That is the only reason that I stated that I will have to evaluate Suse, Mandrake, et al, along with Fedora. Ed
Sounds like we have a couple of old men, lol. I'm 45 as well, with 46 staring me in the eyes (in November). Buck - if you have a LUG near you, ask for help in installing SuSE via FTP. I did, and got it running. I ended up purchasing the Personal version for the CD's and the manual (a good user's manual helps in a lot of small areas). I like SuSE, but it isn't doing it for me - so I'm looking around. Another alternative is to try out the SuSE newsgroup. A third alternative is to download the SuSE Live Evaluation CD to see if you like it. If so, then it might be worth purchasing it.
I also tried Mandrake. That installed easily and worked well - but I got upgade and install happy. Quickly broke it by pointing to different sources for RPM's, installing some packages via urpmi (and the gui grpmi), installed others via command line rpm, and still other via CVS. Oh yeah, built a few of my own RPMs, too. Not well, kind of messy - not about to do that again any time soon. You can mess up a system pretty quickly!
Oh yeah, I'm working on a printserver using Debian Woody. That seems a good fit for a 16Meg RAM, 1 Gig harddisk, 100Mhz machine. No GUI, just plain command line screen (and remote access via ssh). It's up and running, but I have more work to do.
To bring this back to the subjkect of this mailing list, I'm very interested in Fedora, and think it can fill a need. I like that it is based on Consumer's version of Red Hat. I also like that you can use apt for keeping up to date. Think I need another PC to mess with Fedora - it's my gut feeling that I will move from SuSE (and Mandrake) and possibly Debian to Fedora. I also think it will fit in well at the church I do volunteer LAN work for. I'm holding off for now, but plan on installing as soon as it goes GA. If I had a PC for breaking/fixing - then I would install Fedora now to get a feel for it. Bruce
Only 42 here, I feel frisky!
New to the Fedora list, not new to Red Hat. Have tried SuSE and Slackware and Red Hat/Sparc. Nothing wrong with SuSE but I'm not sure they give you anything that Red Hat doesn't. Maybe a little bit better on the engineering, less on the documentation and options.
I'm looking at side work using linux for small businesses and churches and such. Still not sure where my recommendations are between RHEL and Fedora, but isn't RH9 going away?
Hmm... not much of an introduction, how's this: I loaded Fedora 'cause I had planned on it "someday soon" which became "today" when I was groggy and confused doing fdisk in one place and writing a boot disk in another. If you use "dd" for a floppy, the "of" should *not* be /dev/hda.........
leam been there, done that, wrote a recovery procedure.
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of BruceG Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 5:09 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions onSuSE incorrect?
On Saturday 04 October 2003 10:43, Buck wrote:
Thanks, Ed,
Yes, we are the same age, but I am brand new to Linux. I first started to get into Linux about a year ago. I had a spare computer and wanted to learn it and use it. I read the reviews, checked out the local book stores, read the websites of what must have been a dozen or more brands and then looked at the list serves available. Probably every version has both Yahoo and MSN groups support but when I tried them I became overwhelmed with spam, so I had to rule that out
as an option. I monitored three list servs lists and checked out the release frequency and availability of maintenance support. It became a toss up between Red Hat and SuSE at that time. Red Hat won because of the availability of resources including the books at the book stores, these list serve lists and the availability of ISOs on the internet.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Edward Croft Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 9:17 AM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions onSuSE incorrect?
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 23:45, Buck wrote:
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
<SNIP>
Good luck
Buck
First off, we are the old men, (also 45, just last week), but I always
liked bleeding edge. I was all over linux when I first learned of it. The first shrink wrapped was RHL 6.2. I also bought Suse, Caldera, and
Turbo linux to try them all, but came back to RHL. I liked playing Tetris while Caldera loaded. I liked Suse somewhat, but it just missed
for me, Turbo Linux was out there somewhere, but it was Red Hat that I
settled on, and eventually embraced and became a RHCE. I know that you
can buy RHEL and still have Red Hat, but it just isn't RHL as we knew it. Fedora may be a great project, but it isn't RHL. It isn't Red Hat.
That is the only reason that I stated that I will have to evaluate Suse, Mandrake, et al, along with Fedora. Ed
Sounds like we have a couple of old men, lol. I'm 45 as well, with 46 staring me in the eyes (in November). Buck - if you have a LUG near you, ask for help in installing SuSE via FTP. I did, and got it running. I ended up purchasing the Personal version for the CD's and the manual (a good user's manual helps in a lot of small areas). I like SuSE, but it isn't doing it for me - so I'm looking around. Another alternative is to try out the SuSE newsgroup. A third alternative is to download the SuSE Live Evaluation CD to see if you like it. If so, then it might be worth purchasing it.
I also tried Mandrake. That installed easily and worked well - but I got
upgade and install happy. Quickly broke it by pointing to different sources for RPM's, installing some packages via urpmi (and the gui grpmi), installed others via command line rpm, and still other via CVS. Oh yeah, built a few of my own RPMs, too. Not well, kind of messy - not about to do that again any time soon. You can mess up a system pretty quickly!
Oh yeah, I'm working on a printserver using Debian Woody. That seems a good fit for a 16Meg RAM, 1 Gig harddisk, 100Mhz machine. No GUI, just plain command line screen (and remote access via ssh). It's up and running, but I have more work to do.
To bring this back to the subjkect of this mailing list, I'm very interested in Fedora, and think it can fill a need. I like that it is based on Consumer's version of Red Hat. I also like that you can use apt for keeping up to date. Think I need another PC to mess with Fedora - it's my gut feeling that I will move from SuSE (and Mandrake) and possibly Debian to Fedora. I also think it will fit in well at the church I do volunteer LAN work for. I'm holding off for now, but plan on installing as soon as it goes GA. If I had a PC for breaking/fixing - then I would install Fedora now to get a feel for it. Bruce
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Thanks, Bruce.
If you are calling an older computer a "LUG" I have an IBM PC 300PL that I am using for that purpose. I have spent the last three days trying to get it to work. I just downloaded everything but the source code to a shared folder on my Windows computer but I still have a problem as I don't know what network card is in the IBM. This isn't the list for support on SUSE, (I am subscribed) so I won't ask for help here.
I'll check out Fedora when it is actually released. Right now I just want a working Linux.
Thanks again,
Buck
Buck said:
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of BruceG Sounds like we have a couple of old men, lol. I'm 45 as well, with 46 staring me in the eyes (in November). Buck - if you have a LUG near you, ask for help in installing SuSE via FTP. I did, and got it running.
[snip]
Thanks, Bruce.
If you are calling an older computer a "LUG" I have an IBM PC 300PL that I am using for that purpose.
[snip]
LUG = Linux Users Group
And please, Buck, trim your replies to only include the parts of the previous message you are talking about. I just about deleted this one thinking it was a dup (since there has been so much Fedora-test-list cross-posting lately).
On Sat, 2003-10-04 at 16:08, BruceG wrote:
Sounds like we have a couple of old men, lol. I'm 45 as well, with 46 staring me in the eyes (in November).
Move over to the slow lane. Here's 34 comin' through! Geez, I thought I was old to be working with computers...
I like SuSE, but it isn't doing it for me - so I'm looking around. Another alternative is to try out the SuSE newsgroup. A third alternative is to download the SuSE Live Evaluation CD to see if you like it. If so, then it might be worth purchasing it.
If you have a friend that has it, there's nothing preventing you from making copies. I may try getting someone to host a BitTorrent of the next release. I fear the implications, but if making copies is ok...
I'm coming around again to "Red Hat." I left -- after 4 solid years -- with all the mess back in the spring. Face it, they dumped their consumer distro back then, not now. I landed with SuSE. I had tried RH 8.0 and 9, but SuSE 8.2 just felt like what I expected RH 8.0 to be. SuSE 8.2 was -- to me -- RH 7.4. It's just rock solid.
So, I'm sold on SuSE... until they pull a "Red Hat" on me. On the other hand... I think I can smell something in the air when it comes to Linux distros. I've tried the whole Debian thing. I won't go into the specifics this time, but I see that Gentoo has adopted the stable/unstable concept for their distro. I think it's only a matter of time before Fedora does this. And if this happens, I can seriously see myself coming back to "Red Hat."
You know the dumbest part of why? Because their lists SUCK! I just joined this one today, and already I see the sort of in-depth commentary that I had grown to love on the old Red Hat lists. I think I'm going to be downloading the "real" release of Fedora when it becomes available. Maybe I'll wait for a "stable" branch. (Just calling Rawhide the "unstable" branch isn't enough for me.)
The best reason why is that I think people like me might have a shot at influencing the direction of the distro, through this list. I'm tired of being told to take these sorts of discussions someplace else on the SuSE lists, and I'm tired of the elitism of the Debian lists. If the Red Hat community comes home to roost in a Red Hat-backed organization like this -- that allows real outside influence -- this may just be a winner.
Oh yeah, I'm working on a printserver using Debian Woody. That seems a good fit for a 16Meg RAM, 1 Gig harddisk, 100Mhz machine. No GUI, just plain command line screen (and remote access via ssh). It's up and running, but I have more work to do.
Against my prejudices, I just installed Woody on a laptop. A P133 with 32 MB of RAM. Would anyone here expect to get a 2.4 kernel running on such a thing? I think there's a minimum 64 MB required by most defaults these days, and I _SURE_ wasn't waiting to compile a system on that box from some source-based distro! Eh. All I need is a minicom terminal and X client.
Regards, dk
David Krider wrote:
lists, and I'm tired of the elitism of the Debian lists.
Can't find it now, but in one of my old magazines (either LJ or Sysadmin) Debian had an ad that made me want to try it. Would have helped to have contact info, either electronic or physical.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 22:45, Buck wrote:
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
Old!?
My youngest just told us he's getting married this spring. My grandkids surf the net like pros. I even remember some time spent walking around Viet Nam. You're still a youngster! ;)
I'm looking forward to Fedora. I like the idea of walking the edge... on my home desktop that is. That said, I'm still going to take some precautions. I'm going to set my home server up on Debian stable. I don't have a need for the latest and greatest there. I may also dual boot with another distro (probably Debian testing). It may be a home machine, but I've still got real work to do on it so I want a backup desktop in case Fedora breaks something I need to use. Then again, I may just keep two Fedora installs. If an update breaks something, I can fall back to the other install until it gets fixed.
At work, on the other hand, I'm pushing for RHEL. Our IT people don't want to hear the word linux. In fact, some of the discussions on this list remind me of what I hear from them! "Fedora support isn't proven. It changes too fast. I need something more stable. etc." Replace Fedora with Linux and Red Hat Linux with Windows and I can hear them! (Please... I'm not comparing RH to Microsoft... just pointing out the similarity in the arguements I hear from the IT powers at work and what I've read on this list). I've almost got the people our IT folks report to convinced to give me a few old machines so I can set up a server and thin net with win4lin to run the windows stuff we 'have' to have (at least until I can show them they can be moved to linux apps). Security, not price, is their main concern. I guess you could say I'm not very high on our IT department's 'most favorite' list. Oh well! They don't sign my check and I don't have to report to them. But I digress...
For me, Fedora looks like it's going to be fun. For work, RHEL looks good. I do hope RH comes out with someting to fill the gap between the two, though. There is definately a need for a stable SOHO, edu and even home use RH distro. I would like to use it for my home server and for my wife's machine but the cost isn't worth it me.
What I would like to see is RH offer a RHS(oho)L. Every 12 to 18 months (ask your users RH) take the then current Fedora release and a subset of the extras and promise security updates for 6 months past the next RHSL release date for a $60 annual basic subscription to RHN. More than one box at your location? How about $100 for a multi box account plus $25 per machine. Too much to ask for? Beats me... I've never tried to do it!
Doug
I definitely stand corrected on being the "old man" in the group. There are certainly more of us than I expected.
Thanks to all,
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Doug B Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 10:48 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptions onSuSE incorrect?
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 22:45, Buck wrote:
For those of you who like to keep fresh blood on your hands, Fedora might be better. In this field, I am probably the old man (45) and I don't care to see blood too long, especially if its my own.
Old!?
My youngest just told us he's getting married this spring. My grandkids surf the net like pros. I even remember some time spent walking around Viet Nam. You're still a youngster! ;)
SNIP
Doug
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
On Sunday 05 October 2003 14:17, Buck wrote:
I definitely stand corrected on being the "old man" in the group. There are certainly more of us than I expected.
Gosh, at age 66 do I get to wear the "old man" button? (:-)
I changed the subject line because I'm making an offer.
I installed Fedora Test 2 on a spare hard drive and boot Fedora using the grub on my main hard drive that also boots Red Hat 9 or Windows 98SE. If anyone is interested, I will write up the steps and post them. There a a couple of hitches.
Please write up the steps and post.
I am interested.
Thanks, Ernesto
On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 19:32, Mike Payst wrote:
On Sunday 05 October 2003 14:17, Buck wrote:
I definitely stand corrected on being the "old man" in the group. There are certainly more of us than I expected.
Gosh, at age 66 do I get to wear the "old man" button? (:-)
I changed the subject line because I'm making an offer.
I installed Fedora Test 2 on a spare hard drive and boot Fedora using the grub on my main hard drive that also boots Red Hat 9 or Windows 98SE. If anyone is interested, I will write up the steps and post them. There a a couple of hitches.
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
On Sun October 5 2003 8:02 pm, Ernest L. Williams Jr. wrote:
Please write up the steps and post.
My goal was to try Fedora and not risk my existing OS installations (Red Hat 9 and Win 98SE) on my computer's primary hard drive (hda). I also wanted to be able to select Fedora from the grub screen. A spare 3.2GB hard drive is hdb on my computer and hdd is a drive used for mirroring.
1. I unplugged the signal cable to all hard drives except hdb. The hdb drive jumper was left as slave.
2. Booted up with Fedora CD 1. At the Disk Druid step, I created smallish boot (hdb1) and swap (hdb3) partitions and a large root (hdb2) partition. The automatic partitioning left root too small and with 512 MB RAM I don't ever need much swap space. Using a single root partition optimizes the use of slack space on this small drive. Be sure to make a boot diskette for insurance.
3. At this point, I booted Fedora from hdb with the other drives still unplugged (the grub screen had a single entry).
4. Before plugging in the other drive(s), changes need to be made to /etc/fstab on hbd since now both hda and hbd have partitions with identical labels and hda will take priority during boot. Edit /etc/fstab from a root shell look for "LABEL" and change the LABEL nomenclature to something like this:
/dev/hdb2 / ext3 defaults 1 1 /dev/hdb1 /boot ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb3 swap swap defaults 0 0
5. Shut Fedora down and and replug the signal cables to the other hard drive(s).
6. Boot up into your normal Linux and open a root shell.
7. Create a mount point (if needed) and mount /dev/hdb.
8. The next step is to update /boot/grub/grub.conf on hda with a section from the same file on hdb. I opened two gedit sessions and used cut and paste and then edited the section to this (on hda):
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2061.nptl) root (hd1,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2061.nptl ro root=/dev/hdb2 hdc=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2061.nptl.img
Note that "hd1" had to be changed from "hd0". The "root=/dev/hdb2" had to be changed from LABEL nomenclature.
9. That should do it. Shut down and reboot. The line Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2061.nptl) should be on your grub screen.
On Mon October 6 2003 7:35 am, I wrote:
- Create a mount point (if needed) and mount /dev/hdb.
Whoops. That should have been:
7. Create a mount point (if needed) and mount /dev/hdb1 (the Fedora boot partition).
Since my ISP's POP server is dead this morning, I can't see if anyone corrected my error.
On Oct 6, 2003, Mike Payst linuxgruven@nc.rr.com wrote:
On Sun October 5 2003 8:02 pm, Ernest L. Williams Jr. wrote:
Please write up the steps and post.
My goal was to try Fedora and not risk my existing OS installations
FWIW, what I do is similar but simpler. I don't bother to unplug disks or anything like that, I just tell the installer to use a different /boot and / partitions, tell it to install the boot load sector in the first section of the partition, as opposed to in the MBR, and I have a setting in my `stable' grub install (the one that comes up by default) that chain-loads the unstable boot loader. Something like this:
title Test release root (hd1,0) chainloader +1
The only minor inconvenience is that, in order to boot Fedora Core, I have to go through two boot loaders, but with appropriate defaults, I can just turn the machine on and go have some coffee :-) The advantage is the zero maintenance cost: upgrades, installs, etc, don't require me to go modifying the stable boot loader configuration in any way.
On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 07:53, Alexandre Oliva wrote: <snip>
title Test release root (hd1,0) chainloader +1
The only minor inconvenience is that, in order to boot Fedora Core, I have to go through two boot loaders, but with appropriate defaults, I can just turn the machine on and go have some coffee :-) The advantage is the zero maintenance cost: upgrades, installs, etc, don't require me to go modifying the stable boot loader configuration in any way.
Assuming your "stable" release is something like RH9, do you have separate "home" directories for the two releases, or how do you deal with the potential differences in your dotfiles and other configurations across releases?
just curious, Scott
On Oct 7, 2003, Scott Seagroves scott@ucolick.org wrote:
Assuming your "stable" release is something like RH9, do you have separate "home" directories for the two releases, or how do you deal with the potential differences in your dotfiles and other configurations across releases?
I use the same home directory. In general, after installing a new release, I log in on a test box in the new version, reboot it into the old version, log in and see that nothing breaks. If something does, I file a bug report, take a snapshot of the relevant config files in the home directory for emergencies, and life goes on :-)
Buck you're no way close to old. Coming up on 63. If people thing that they have problems with RHEL they should consider the little extra hoops I have to jump through. We have a purchasing system that excels in red tape. To order something of the web using a credit card is impossible unless you want to use your own and loan the state money. To purchase from one vendor it take a mountain of paper work. I needed ove twenty copies of ES. Wanted the basic edition but that required a download and payment by card. Finally had to order the standard version through an "approved reseller". I can't wait until next year when I try to figure out how to pay for the renewal :-)
On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Buck wrote:
I definitely stand corrected on being the "old man" in the group. There are certainly more of us than I expected.
Thanks to all,
Buck
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On Monday 06 October 2003 02:54 am, Dave Tetreault wrote:
Buck you're no way close to old. Coming up on 63. If people thing that they have problems with RHEL they should consider the little extra hoops I have to jump through. We have a purchasing system that excels in red tape. To order something of the web using a credit card is impossible unless you want to use your own and loan the state money. To purchase from one vendor it take a mountain of paper work. I needed ove twenty copies of ES. Wanted the basic edition but that required a download and payment by card. Finally had to order the standard version through an "approved reseller". I can't wait until next year when I try to figure out how to pay for the renewal :-)
On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Buck wrote:
I definitely stand corrected on being the "old man" in the group. There are certainly more of us than I expected.
Thanks to all,
Buck
Well Dave, you beat me! I'm 56.
Mike W - -- Registered Linux - 256979 NRA Life ARS: W0TMW
On Monday 06 October 2003 02:54 am, Dave Tetreault wrote:
Buck you're no way close to old. Coming up on 63. If people thing that they have problems with RHEL they should consider the little extra hoops I have to jump through. We have a purchasing system that excels in red tape. To order something of the web using a credit card is impossible unless you want to use your own and loan the state money. To purchase from one vendor it take a mountain of paper work. I needed ove twenty copies of ES. Wanted the basic edition but that required a download and payment by card. Finally had to order the standard version through an "approved reseller". I can't wait until next year when I try to figure out how to pay for the renewal :-)
Dave,
I share your problems with ordering RHEL. I have griped and griped and griped about it but RH really doesn't care.
From my perspective they have a less than optimized business model.
It should be a no-brainer to hire someone to sit there and accept the PO's from government sources (schools, military, states, universities). Moreover, it's SUPER stupid to require a signed license agreement. In court the acceptance given at install time is all they need to handle people that violate it. By requiring a specific signature from someone (particularly someone who is placing an order on behalf of someone else, as purchasing departments do) you are putting an individual in an awkward position. Paper pushers don't want their job put on the line because someone else wanted something that their boss decides they shouldn't have signed. Better to not risk it.
IMHO it is extremely poor judgement to place burdens and hurdles between a consumer and a product. The introduction of those burdens lessons the value of the product IMMEDIATELY. Thus, sales and profits are negatively impacted.
This is made even worse by the fact that the incremental cost to selling software is so low. What this means is that most of the money from each turned away sale (most= ~90%) would have contributed directly to their profitability.
Still worse is the fact that turning away customers in this stage of product development (mostly early adaptors) is going to cost them customers in the future. The customers that they turn away with these hurdles are customers that they have most likely lost to their competition for good.
By turning away customers with these hurdles I have often wondered if RH is afraid to grow. Perhaps their management look at problems other growing companies have had and are trying to do things differently.
Of course there are ways through the hurdles but it's not made clear on their website or working with there sales teams.
I also am not sure I understand the dumping of the RHL product line. Again it is a poor business choice. Spawning off Fedora makes sense. Dropping RHL though?
In the driver seat at RH my decision would have been spawn off fedora and at yearly intervals take Fedora and Call it Red Hat Home Linux, whatever. Give that RHHL a 2 year maintance life instead of the 9-12 months of Fedora with a $50-$80 price point.
Then instead of alienating a group of people you are opening your product line offering to a wider market. Considering they already have a good foothold into this home user/basic workstation user market for Linux it seems to me to be the better option.
Perhaps the decision was made on a different level though. Perhaps the decision was made on the basis of increasing their user counts for the RHWS product line. Perhaps that's a good idea in the short term, but, in the long term they will need to return to the home user market to grow their product line.
The question is will the millions of RH users that have had the rug pulled out from under them by RH dropping RHL leave a lasting memory for when RH does decide to enter the home market again.
I guess someone at RH figured we would be ok with it.
-Chris
"There are only two things that are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 11:03, Chris Spencer wrote:
I also am not sure I understand the dumping of the RHL product line. Again it is a poor business choice. Spawning off Fedora makes sense. Dropping RHL though?
1) Retailers do not want products that change in less than 18 month time-frames. You have to deeply discount and also take buybacks etc from a lot of them. Red Hat was losing money from this.
2) Retail sales never took of as much as enthusiasts (inside and outside of the company) have said they would.. Sales of products above 40.00 never reached a point where you could make money off it. You can easily see this by looking in the back dumpster of Best Buy when a new release comes out... tons of shredded boxes.
3) Support costs from the retail market are several times higher than that of the commercial market. The product isnt as simple as a washing machine, but a vast majority of the people buying it expect it to be. Returns from unhappy customers probably also weighed into it.
4) A good majority of the people I have talked to who are complaining about it have only bought handful of boxed sets (if any) and then used those to install it on hundreds of computers. It was good for their OEM or consultant business but bad for Red Hat because they were spending tons on development but seeing little in return.
5) Even if Red Hat were to keep a consumer edition and support it for 2 years from point of delivery.. look at what other costs are involved:
FTP/WWW colocation internet costs. Probably $1 mil/year for the bandwidth, power, machine maintenance. And from what I have seen.. those prices are going up and not down. 2-4 Maintenance engineers and 3-6 QA staff. Maintenance engineers are a special breed because they have to remain focused on old 'crap' that might be fixed in a newer edition but with a complete new API/ABI so you cant go to it without breaking 200 other apps. Cost to company counting benefits, taxes, overhead, and other items.. 175k->250k per engineer. Take the conservative numbers... 875,000.00/year. There are additional costs in sales force(staff of 3-6), technical support (staff of 12 minimum to deal with just the amount of tickets 6.2 produced.), keeping a maintenance lab, shipping of defective product, creation of the product, discounts for various partners, and things like that. If you take a more conservative interval of ~1/year, you end up with about 2 mil/year in those costs.
On a 40.00 boxed set, the original manufacturer sees $2-$5 after continueing manufacturing costs, channel costs, distributer costs, and about 10 other things I cant remember. An 80.00 product does not see this increase to 42-45.. but to about $10-$20.. this is because for small producers (and unless you reach the sales of Microsoft, Hasbro, etc you are a small producer) the costs for pushing it into the market are higher because Best Buy is assuming it is going to lose money on it so they want a bigger cut.
Also I think this doesnt take into the taking back 'damaged/unsold' goods that most small producers have to have in their contracts. The last numbers I saw was that on average that was 60% of all product shipped into the retail market. I cant remember how that is added into the cost structure (or if I have already done so.. so I wont try to add it in again)
So if we take the optimistic cut of $20.00 per boxed set and a conservative costs of ~4 million/year.. you will need to sell at least 200,000 boxed sets in a year. If you have lower price point or higher costs.. then the numbers increase quite a bit. I do not know how those numbers compare to Red Hat sales...
In the driver seat at RH my decision would have been spawn off fedora and at yearly intervals take Fedora and Call it Red Hat Home Linux, whatever. Give that RHHL a 2 year maintance life instead of the 9-12 months of Fedora with a $50-$80 price point.
There is little stopping others from doing this with Fedora. Of course they will have to help absorb the costs of updates for the 2 years. And push to get it into channel, and all the other things that are mostly money losers.
Let me clear up a few things. Where as I think they should keep a consumer product I don't think it makes sense to put it in best buy or any of the other major distributors.
You are absolutely correct that the cost is very high.
Now as to the cost of producing the product. You are accounting for an organization that doesn't have the infrastructure in place. Because of this your estimates are not conservative, they are overstated.
I will address a few points.
- A good majority of the people I have talked to who are complaining
about it have only bought handful of boxed sets (if any) and then used those to install it on hundreds of computers. It was good for their OEM or consultant business but bad for Red Hat because they were spending tons on development but seeing little in return.
This does not change with them working with Fedora or not.
As far as whether this is of a benefit or harm to RH it is arguable. It is, however, the nature of producing a product based on free/libre and open source software.
This is the market that Red Hat is in.
For this reason they make their money on subscriptions to RHN. I own 8 subscriptions for RHL and 3 for RHES at work. I am happy to be paying for the service.
FTP/WWW colocation internet costs. Probably $1 mil/year for the bandwidth, power, machine maintenance. And from what I have seen.. those prices are going up and not down.
These costs are incremental based on the number of subscribers. Since they have the architecture in place already your costs are likely high. Moreover, when you consider Fedora is freely available over the same network your arguments have little weight.
2-4 Maintenance engineers and 3-6 QA staff. Maintenance engineers are a special breed because they have to remain focused on old 'crap' that might be fixed in a newer edition but with a complete new API/ABI so you cant go to it without breaking 200 other apps. Cost to company counting benefits, taxes, overhead, and other items.. 175k->250k per engineer. Take the conservative numbers... 875,000.00/year.
I will give you a fixed cost of 175k-250k for this. My email however said that they would simply take a current Fedora version and make it the home product line. Therefore they need only maintain it for 2 years as the product would already have been well tested as Fedora w/6-9mo under its belt.
There are additional costs in sales force(staff of 3-6), technical support (staff of 12 minimum to deal with just the amount of tickets 6.2 produced.), keeping a maintenance lab, shipping of defective product, creation of the product, discounts for various partners, and things like that. If you take a more conservative interval of ~1/year, you end up with about 2 mil/year in those costs.
The core team is in place already to deal with these costs. The additional costs of the specific product line should be very low.
Also I think this doesnt take into the taking back 'damaged/unsold' goods that most small producers have to have in their contracts. The last numbers I saw was that on average that was 60% of all product shipped into the retail market. I cant remember how that is added into the cost structure (or if I have already done so.. so I wont try to add it in again)
If it's a direct product this is minimal and incremental based on the number of SHIPPED copies. Personally I don't care if it's download only so long as they fix their PO process.
There is little stopping others from doing this with Fedora. Of course they will have to help absorb the costs of updates for the 2 years. And push to get it into channel, and all the other things that are mostly money losers.
You are right. Except for the fact that they don't have the infrastructure in place to do it and they aren't already deeply tied to the project.
I believe the costs for Red Hat are much closer to $200,000 annually + $5 / RHN subscription.
This wasn't a cost or profitability decision. It was made because they wanted to increase the user base of RHWS. Their motivating factor is lost sales.
In time we will see if the increased RHWS subscriptions are better than the bridges they burned with desktop users.
Remember every person that is offended to a point of complaining costs on average 10 people later.
-Chris
"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." - Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 14:04, Chris Spencer wrote:
Let me clear up a few things. Where as I think they should keep a consumer product I don't think it makes sense to put it in best buy or any of the other major distributors.
So sort of move back to the pre-6 days when you could only get it online or through some computer store that bought it on-line.. or even further where there is no physical copy.. just what you get off of RHN?
That might be feasible if you also limited bandwidth to only RHN paying customers.
You are absolutely correct that the cost is very high.
Now as to the cost of producing the product. You are accounting for an organization that doesn't have the infrastructure in place. Because of this your estimates are not conservative, they are overstated.
Actually, all my costs were with infrastructure in place and on-going. The big old database servers, netapps, and other stuff are all bought.
FTP/WWW colocation internet costs. Probably $1 mil/year for the bandwidth, power, machine maintenance. And from what I have seen.. those prices are going up and not down.
Actually I was going by the bills for ongoing colocation at a smaller facility and upgrading it to a newer one. There are a LOT of computers behind RHN to keep it going, handle the load etc.. I have good idea that the initial creation of RHN cost a lot more than 1million. The netapps that support just the regular FTP/WWW cost that much.
These costs are incremental based on the number of subscribers. Since they have the architecture in place already your costs are likely high. Moreover, when you consider Fedora is freely available over the same network your arguments have little weight.
The cost of Fedora downloads is probably considered overhead into this.. bandwidth isnt free and therefore has to be accounted somewhere.
2-4 Maintenance engineers and 3-6 QA staff. Maintenance engineers are a special breed because they have to remain focused on old 'crap' that might be fixed in a newer edition but with a complete new API/ABI so you cant go to it without breaking 200 other apps. Cost to company counting benefits, taxes, overhead, and other items.. 175k->250k per engineer. Take the conservative numbers... 875,000.00/year.
I will give you a fixed cost of 175k-250k for this. My email however said that they would simply take a current Fedora version and make it the home product line. Therefore they need only maintain it for 2 years as the product would already have been well tested as Fedora w/6-9mo under its belt.
Maintenance is expensive.. I do it and you cant just take the latest and greatest to do it right without pushing out a completely new distro to consumers every 6 months... at which point you arent maintaining it.. you are just telling people to go to latest fedora.
There are additional costs in sales force(staff of 3-6), technical support (staff of 12 minimum to deal with just the amount of tickets 6.2 produced.), keeping a maintenance lab, shipping of defective product, creation of the product, discounts for various partners, and things like that. If you take a more conservative interval of ~1/year, you end up with about 2 mil/year in those costs.
The core team is in place already to deal with these costs. The additional costs of the specific product line should be very low.
These are ongoing costs.. initial costs were much higher.
Also I think this doesnt take into the taking back 'damaged/unsold' goods that most small producers have to have in their contracts. The last numbers I saw was that on average that was 60% of all product shipped into the retail market. I cant remember how that is added into the cost structure (or if I have already done so.. so I wont try to add it in again)
If it's a direct product this is minimal and incremental based on the number of SHIPPED copies. Personally I don't care if it's download only so long as they fix their PO process.
They have a process now? That was always a work in progress as different customers had different PO requirements.
The problem with direct 'product' is the storage and then shipping and handling costs. Red Hat was very much in this model up until 6.0. It went through about 3 outsourced shipping/handling companies as the volumes grew. You can either bring it all in house which would be a new cost center of initial infrastructure, or you can use 3rd party groups but lose a lot on that.
There is little stopping others from doing this with Fedora. Of course they will have to help absorb the costs of updates for the 2 years. And push to get it into channel, and all the other things that are mostly money losers.
You are right. Except for the fact that they don't have the infrastructure in place to do it and they aren't already deeply tied to the project.
I believe the costs for Red Hat are much closer to $200,000 annually + $5 / RHN subscription.
On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 17:08, Paul Morgan wrote:
On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 13:08, Stephen Smoogen wrote:
Returns from unhappy customers probably also weighed into it.
Huh? It's easier to walk naked through a south Texas cactus patch than to return opened software.
PS. It won't matter anyway after every off-the-shelf PC mobo has a WinBIOS that requires MS OS. (http://www.wininformant.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=40448) </sarcasm>
Stephen Smoogen wrote:
...
I also am not sure I understand the dumping of the RHL product line. Again it is a poor business choice. Spawning off Fedora makes sense. Dropping RHL though?
... 5) ... So if we take the optimistic cut of $20.00 per boxed set and a conservative costs of ~4 million/year.. you will need to sell at least 200,000 boxed sets in a year. If you have lower price point or higher costs.. then the numbers increase quite a bit. I do not know how those numbers compare to Red Hat sales...
Stephen,
Your reply reflects a misconception that i think needs discussion. (Whether or not here is the place, i don't know - probably it would be better happening in some sales channel meeting with Red Hat - but here goes...)
You have confused the operating system Red Hat Linux with the boxed set Red Hat Linux. Despite their names, they are two different things. One is an OS that people install on their computers, the other is a pretty box and a manual and 30 days of installation support that people buy off the shelf at a retailer.
Most people associated the two - hence the confusion - but that only shows that RH had strong brand recognition, not that they were actually the same.
Most of us who have been complaining about the product being dropped were complaining about the loss of the *operating system*, not the loss of the *boxed set*. We existed mostly on downloads and RHN subscriptions anyway.
There are two issues - the /development/ of an OS and the /distribution/ of that OS. If i can claim to represent the .edu/.org/home-user folks who have been bemoaning the demise of RHL, i would say this about the recent changes: nearly all of the discussion about cost-effectivness has been about distribution, not development.
If RH were losing money on the development of RHL, they will likely still be doing so with Fedora, probably even more so, given that coordination with the developer community takes more time than internal coordination, and the releases will be more frequent. (Also add to that the cost of the extra development needed to produce RHEL.)
If Red Hat were losing money on the distribution, they could change that without affecting the development. The OS development has no necessary affiliation with the distribution channel; they could take away the latter and still allow us to keep the former.
The argument that RH are now going to be financially viable because they are not developing RHL any more really isn't convincing. There is something else happening here to which those of us outside are not privy that is controlling this decision.
(As an aside, i suggest to RH that a good way to fix the distribution problem would have been to change your trademark policy and allow resellers to reproduce a set of ISOs and call it Red Hat Linux, bundle it in whatever packaging they chose (probably with a selected set of logos that are approved for use by resellers), with or without printed manuals, and drop the centralised installation support (resellers or retailers could offer it at their discretion). That way resellers could make the boxed sets and the only thing you'd be responsible for would be giving them the ISOs - all of the other distribution costs could be left to them. Don't forget that you did win an award (last year?) for being the best product to resell - that will be all gone in the brave new world of RHEL.)
On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 17:17, Paul Gear wrote: [snip]
(As an aside, i suggest to RH that a good way to fix the distribution problem would have been to change your trademark policy and allow resellers to reproduce a set of ISOs and call it Red Hat Linux, bundle it in whatever packaging they chose (probably with a selected set of logos that are approved for use by resellers), with or without printed manuals, and drop the centralised installation support (resellers or retailers could offer it at their discretion). That way resellers could make the boxed sets and the only thing you'd be responsible for would be giving them the ISOs - all of the other distribution costs could be left to them. Don't forget that you did win an award (last year?) for being the best product to resell - that will be all gone in the brave new world of RHEL.)
Doing so would destroy the RedHat name brand. I've worked with and for many smaller 'resellers' (not linux resellers per say, since I have that covered on my end) over the years. Very few of them are competent, or have enough competent staff. For some reason they stay in business because their competition is equally incompetent.
Edward Muller wrote:
On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 17:17, Paul Gear wrote: [snip]
(As an aside, i suggest to RH that a good way to fix the distribution problem would have been to change your trademark policy and allow resellers to reproduce a set of ISOs and call it Red Hat Linux, bundle it in whatever packaging they chose (probably with a selected set of logos that are approved for use by resellers), with or without printed manuals, and drop the centralised installation support (resellers or retailers could offer it at their discretion). That way resellers could make the boxed sets and the only thing you'd be responsible for would be giving them the ISOs - all of the other distribution costs could be left to them. Don't forget that you did win an award (last year?) for being the best product to resell - that will be all gone in the brave new world of RHEL.)
Doing so would destroy the RedHat name brand.
I don't see how that would be any different to the situation they're in now. They have destroyed the product entirely, not just their name brand. (I know you could argue that RHEL still has the name brand, but those who are familiar with the product would not equate it with RHL, and brand loyalty is based on familiarity.)
If "the name" is such a big deal, it could have been renamed to preserve "Red Hat .*Linux" as their brand, and the product could have been contiuned under another guise.
On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 08:17:08AM +1000, Paul Gear wrote:
Stephen Smoogen wrote:
...
I also am not sure I understand the dumping of the RHL product line. Again it is a poor business choice. Spawning off Fedora makes sense. Dropping RHL though?
... 5) ... So if we take the optimistic cut of $20.00 per boxed set and a conservative costs of ~4 million/year.. you will need to sell at least 200,000 boxed sets in a year. If you have lower price point or higher costs.. then the numbers increase quite a bit. I do not know how those numbers compare to Red Hat sales...
[snip]
The argument that RH are now going to be financially viable because they are not developing RHL any more really isn't convincing. There is something else happening here to which those of us outside are not privy that is controlling this decision.
Such an argument would be specious which is probably why I haven't seen it brought forth anywhere in these forums before. I wonder what messages you have been reading that I haven't? The argument that is incontestible is that RH needed to concentrate on the bottom line before it was too late. And I think you will see that RH wants to play nice with the "freeloaders" as well as the enterprise people. Give Fedora some time.
Jack Bowling wrote:
...
The argument that RH are now going to be financially viable because they are not developing RHL any more really isn't convincing. There is something else happening here to which those of us outside are not privy that is controlling this decision.
Such an argument would be specious which is probably why I haven't seen it brought forth anywhere in these forums before. I wonder what messages you have been reading that I haven't?
Nearly everyone who has tried to justify it has done so by saying that RHL was not a profitable product, and assumed that the boxed set and OS were tied to each other.
The argument that is incontestible is that RH needed to concentrate on the bottom line before it was too late.
If you say so. I think it's funny that Red Hat often took the time previously to say that they were profitable (certainly every time i went to a presentation i heard this), and now they're saying that they weren't then but they will be now...
And I think you will see that RH wants to play nice with the "freeloaders" as well as the enterprise people.
True, and i'm glad they are. :-) The issue for me (and many other people) as that i'm not either.
Give Fedora some time.
I'm not talking about Fedora's quality, i'm talking about its target market and stated objectives (http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html). I'm sure Fedora will do just fine - i just don't think it's appropriate for the markets to which i'm referring (which coincidentally happen to be the ones in which i currently use Red Hat Linux).
It doesn't matter how much time i give it - my problems with it will be related to its objectives. Criticising Fedora for not having a 12-18 month release cycle and not offering the right support options would be like criticising a bicycle for not being a 4-door sedan.
On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Paul Gear wrote:
Such an argument would be specious which is probably why I haven't seen it brought forth anywhere in these forums before. I wonder what messages you have been reading that I haven't?
Nearly everyone who has tried to justify it has done so by saying that RHL was not a profitable product, and assumed that the boxed set and OS were tied to each other.
Being a publically traded company, our quarterly financial results are publically available, and one curious as to Red Hat's profitability merely need to hop on Google or their favourite financial site and investigate the truth rather than fabricate things hypothetically.
The argument that is incontestible is that RH needed to concentrate on the bottom line before it was too late.
If you say so. I think it's funny that Red Hat often took the time previously to say that they were profitable (certainly every time i went to a presentation i heard this), and now they're saying that they weren't then but they will be now...
This is bogus. Red Hat financial profitability is public information. It's not subject to opinion really. Just go look at public records. I don't see anywhere that we have said we are not a profitable company. Quite the opposite in fact, and our public records should show this quarterly.
A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right. Q: Why should i start my reply below the quoted text?
Now that is classic! I love it! ;o)
Mike A. Harris wrote:
... This is bogus. Red Hat financial profitability is public information. It's not subject to opinion really. Just go look at public records. I don't see anywhere that we have said we are not a profitable company. Quite the opposite in fact, and our public records should show this quarterly.
Maybe it wasn't a Red Hat employee who gave me that impression. I don't claim to be an expert on RH finances (although i've just read your 2002 10k report http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/NSD/RHAT/reports/RHAT_06170210k.pd... and it seems to indicate consistent net losses). Folks have been suggesting that RH *had* to make this move at the risk of going under.
Anyway, that's not the main point i was trying to address. It was the issue of the tie between the OS and the boxed set.
Mandrake understand this distinction. Here is their products page: http://www.mandrakestore.com/mdkworld/index.php?storereferer=&LANG=en_US... Notice that you can buy both boxed sets and just CDs.
A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right. Q: Why should i start my reply below the quoted text?
Now that is classic! I love it! ;o)
Daniel Barron (of Dan's Guardian) has a similar one; see, e.g.: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dansguardian/message/4748 You can insult top posters with a very wide range of comments by simply starting with the A and finishing with the Q! :-)
On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 20:54, Paul Gear wrote:
Mike A. Harris wrote:
Anyway, that's not the main point i was trying to address. It was the issue of the tie between the OS and the boxed set.
Mandrake understand this distinction. Here is their products page: http://www.mandrakestore.com/mdkworld/index.php?storereferer=&LANG=en_US... Notice that you can buy both boxed sets and just CDs.
Well, given that Mandrake filed for bankruptcy earlier this year...
The kind of begging that I have seen Mandrake do to try and get their users to send them some money is kind of undignified, and doesn't look good if you are trying to get your company taken seriously but the kind of people who sign the cheques for your new and reliable linux based network.
When was the last time you saw Mandrake being used on a server in anything larger than a small business anyway?
James Keasley wrote:
... Well, given that Mandrake filed for bankruptcy earlier this year...
Yes - it's strange that they still seem to be running web sites and releasing distros.
... When was the last time you saw Mandrake being used on a server in anything larger than a small business anyway?
That's exactly the sort of system that i've been talking about, and exactly the sort of system that is no longer economically feasible with RH.
Am Do, den 09.10.2003 schrieb Paul Gear um 22:43:
James Keasley wrote:
... Well, given that Mandrake filed for bankruptcy earlier this year...
Yes - it's strange that they still seem to be running web sites and releasing distros.
To be serious: they didn't file for bankruptcy but seeked protection under a similar regulation as the US "chapter eleven". So they could continue to operate their business. They announced some weeks ago they will leave the "chapter eleven" status at the end of this year.
Hope they will be successful.
Peter
On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 15:52, Peter Boy wrote:
Am Do, den 09.10.2003 schrieb Paul Gear um 22:43:
James Keasley wrote:
... Well, given that Mandrake filed for bankruptcy earlier this year...
Yes - it's strange that they still seem to be running web sites and releasing distros.
To be serious: they didn't file for bankruptcy but seeked protection under a similar regulation as the US "chapter eleven". So they could continue to operate their business. They announced some weeks ago they will leave the "chapter eleven" status at the end of this year.
Actually, that *is* bankruptcy. What you referenced is bankruptcy act *Chapter 11*. This is the business counterpart to Chapter 13 in the personal world. So yes, they did indeed file bankruptcy.
Not a slam, just the facts, man.
Am Fre, 2003-10-10 um 00.58 schrieb Bill Anderson:
To be serious: they didn't file for bankruptcy but seeked protection under a similar regulation as the US "chapter eleven". So they could continue to operate their business. They announced some weeks ago they will leave the "chapter eleven" status at the end of this year.
Actually, that *is* bankruptcy. What you referenced is bankruptcy act *Chapter 11*. This is the business counterpart to Chapter 13 in the personal world. So yes, they did indeed file bankruptcy.
Not a slam, just the facts, man.
You may have read my post: *similar* regulation. Mandrake is a french company you may know, which is a country east of the eastern coast line of the american continent with its own jurisdiction :-). The regulation is a temporary moratorium, prerequisite is enough capital assets to resume normal business after the end of the moratorium without substantial lost for their creditors (in contrast to bankrupcy - at least in Europe). But anyway, it's not an important issue for this list, I suppose.
Peter
On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 14:54, Paul Gear wrote:
Daniel Barron (of Dan's Guardian) has a similar one; see, e.g.: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dansguardian/message/4748 You can insult top posters with a very wide range of comments by simply starting with the A and finishing with the Q! :-)
Dan's Guardian is a great package and works well with squid and privoxy. I personally layer all three on my home network to protect the kids: pc's-->dg-->sqid-->privoxy-->internet.
It would make a nice addition to the FC release. GPL license info: http://dansguardian.org/?page=copyright2
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 20:43, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
[1] You can't make any money whatsoever doing it, thus doing it for a client is out. This is for Yast, dunno about Yast2. Even then it is a maybe, it depends on what software is bundled with it. So far the only confirmation is from a *Sales* rep, not a legal rep.
from "YaST and SuSE Linux licence terms": http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/licenses/yast.html
--cut-- 3 Dissemination "It is forbidden to reproduce or distribute data carriers which have been reproduced without authorisation for payment without the prior written consent of SuSE Linux AG or SuSE Linux. [...]" --end--
The way I read that, it means you can't copy their discs, nor distribute unauthorized copies. It says nothing about giving the originals away.
Sorry, I have been only talking about the low-end stuff.
What do you call that area?
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bill Anderson Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 10:32 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are my assumptionson SuSE incorrect?
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 18:05, Buck wrote:
According to the SuSE rep, the Professional, Pro Upgrade and Personal CD-ROMs may be copied and distributed as long as there is no profit involved. That was this afternoon while I have been addressing these questions.
Which would be no different than RH's requirements. You can *give* away the discs all you want on the comparable installments of RH. When we are talking about Enterprise stuff, however, well see my other post for teh details.
Thus, when comparing RHEL to SuSE personal something is more than fishy. Of course, since we want as close as possible, to compare to Person/Professional we need to compare those to Fedora.
A. Can you give it away/freely redistributable? B. Can you sell it?
Fedora: A: Yes B. Yes
SuSE: A: Yes[1] B: No
Also note that personal does not come with Apache, LDAP client/server, NIS/NFS Server, "Development tools". Their guide also list sit as only having "Basic " "security software".
So again, it is not an accurate comparison. Looking at their "Support" ... two words come to mind: "dime" and "nickel" - and not necessarily in that order. Install a 2rd party app on personal and they quit "supporting" you. Select anything other than default, and they don't help you. http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/inst_support/support_overview.htm l
Bill
[1] You can't make any money whatsoever doing it, thus doing it for a client is out. This is for Yast, dunno about Yast2. Even then it is a maybe, it depends on what software is bundled with it. So far the only confirmation is from a *Sales* rep, not a legal rep.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 22:01, Buck wrote:
Sorry, I have been only talking about the low-end stuff.
Then you need to clarify that, especially in a thread talking about enterprise distributions.
One can easily get confused as the root thread has more branches than the Mississippi and several other rivers combined.
Buck
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bill Anderson Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 5:12 PM To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: RE: RE: Fedora and the System Administrator -- are myassumptionson SuSE incorrect?
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 22:01, Buck wrote:
Sorry, I have been only talking about the low-end stuff.
Then you need to clarify that, especially in a thread talking about enterprise distributions.
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 17:20, Buck wrote:
One can easily get confused as the root thread has more branches than the Mississippi and several other rivers combined.
All the more reason to be specific. ;)
On Fri, 2 Oct 2003 20:32 , Bill Anderson bill@noreboots.com said:
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 18:05, Buck wrote:
According to the SuSE rep, the Professional, Pro Upgrade and Personal CD-ROMs may be copied and distributed as long as there is no profit involved. That was this afternoon while I have been addressing these questions.
Which would be no different than RH's requirements. You can *give* away the discs all you want on the comparable installments of RH. When we are talking about Enterprise stuff, however, well see my other post for teh details.
Thus, when comparing RHEL to SuSE personal something is more than fishy. Of course, since we want as close as possible, to compare to Person/Professional we need to compare those to Fedora.
A. Can you give it away/freely redistributable? B. Can you sell it?
Fedora: A: Yes B. Yes
SuSE: A: Yes[1] B: No
Also note that personal does not come with Apache, LDAP client/server, NIS/NFS Server, "Development tools". Their guide also list sit as only having "Basic " "security software".
As somebody who once thought of moving (only my home stuff), I'm pretty sure the former "personal" versions had all these things (I've not looked at the CDs for a good while), so it _appears_ that SUSE has "changed" as well...
Alan Thew
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