Fedora vs RHEL

Paul W. Frields stickster at gmail.com
Mon Apr 15 15:49:17 UTC 2013


On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 10:42:56PM -0700, Edward M wrote:
> On 4/14/2013 7:22 PM, Thomas Cameron wrote:
> >Alternatively, you can get a self-support subscription for
> >commercial use for $349:
> 
>      Give $349 to RedHat just for talking to myself(self- support):-);
>      Using either centos or Oracle linux, one also gets self-support
> without a fee.

Again, you're making an apples-to-oranges comparison.  The cost for
Red Hat is not just about access to a downloadable product you can
install and run.  If that were the case, yes, $349 would not be a good
deal.  But that's not all you're getting, which is why Red Hat
consistently talks about providing higher value in the subscription
model than just bits. Rather, the value includes things like:

* Certification on hardware
* Ecosystem of applications certified on the platform
* Access to top-rated customer support portal resources
* Vendor response to security issues and other errata

If your use case is "I run Linux at home because I think it's
awesome," that $349 may not be worth it for you.  But for people
running a business, it may very well be, even in a self-support model
-- for instance, if your business runs an app that needs to run on a
certified platform; or if you are public internet-facing and want the
fastest access to important security fixes that may not be available
as immediately on rebuild OSes.  This isn't a slam on rebuild OSes,
which I use sometimes myself.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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