Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 23:43:13 -0600 (CST) From: Mark Hittinger <bugs@pu.net> To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: New RedHat update/support policy and impact on BSD Message-ID: <200303220543.h2M5hHPA051483@pu.net>
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I don't know if many people here are following what RedHat is in the process of doing. Lately they've been tightening up on the demo accounts that you can use to automatically download updates. They allow extensions to the demo accounts but the "load is too high" to allow the automatic download of updates - "please sign up for a paid account to access updates on a priority basis". If you know how to do grab updates manually it can still be done without too much trouble - for the time being. Apparently they have also changed their pricing of this support/update service to be around $179 per system for 5 years. For some sites with a large number of systems this is quite a hit even if it does provide 5 years of service. Its a big hit up front and speaking as a biased BSD guy I can say its not clear that RedHat will even be around for 5 years. Anyway I was lucky enough to listen to a conversation in a meeting today where this was discussed. People were considering switching to another "distro" (heh) and someone even mentioned switching to FreeBSD as a possibility which caused me to perk up and pay even more attention. It might be a good idea for advocacy types to pay attention to this as it unfolds. This might be similar to the airlines when they do a price increase. One will tiptoe out and do it. If others follow suit then others will increase prices and a new defacto price level is established. If others do not follow the airline that tiptoed out first has to back off because customers switch to other airlines. If other "distros" do not go down the road RedHat is heading many current RedHat sites will decide to go through the pain of switching to one of the other "distros". Some of them may decide to try BSD as an option. If all the other "distros" decide to make big bucks charging for security updates then more sites may try BSD. FYI! Oh I hate that word distro don't you? Later Mark Hittinger bugs@pu.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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