On Sun, 27 May 2001, Russell Hires wrote:
> keep up with what RedHat is doing. And then they have to buy from
> RedHat. Kinda like some other company we know. The only difference here
> is that once RedHat makes a release, you are only bound to buy one copy
> then you can sell it for less. But what if you're a big company that has
> a contract with RH? Are you still forced to "upgrade?" What would the
> contract be for, anyway? Service and support? Could you just buy a
> support contract from RH, but not the software? Would they support you
I guess the premise of this rant confuses me. I have _never_
bought or registered a box set with Red Hat; and indeed the
only way I have ANY 'official' Red hat boxed sets is that I
have been given older boxed sets. Customers buying new Dell
units have received Red Hat 'official' CD's and subsets of the
documentation, along with Dell specific RAID controller doco
and CD's at no additional charge (compared, eg, against the
cost of having NT 2000 as an additional cost option. [that
PERC hardware raid is blazingly fast, BTW]
Yet I am active in Red Hat's development efforts and indeed
was invited by them to participate in their private pre-public
beta development efforts, because of my activity in that
community. (RPM, fetchmail, initscripts, doco, general errata
reports).
Consider: I use locally produced maintenance tools and
techniques, based in part on a direct competitor to their
up2date tool and service -- autorpm
I compete in a market they are moving into -- admin and
consulting -- and will gladly quote support on _any_ Red Hat
version (not just the 6.x and 7.x series which Red Hat will)
-- I support it all across the country for an existing
clientele, and use it extensively.
But back to RH -- they will happily listen to well reasoned
RFE's and modifications -- the Initsript options in 7.0 and
7.1 were mine, but the bugzilla's are not publicly available.
More recently, see:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25614
and then less /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
and type /end user account {enter}
and it is pretty clear where the language came from ...
The only money in Open Source seems to be in value added
services -- adding the value of assembling an inter-operating
distribution; setting it up and configuring it for others;
maintaining it for others.
> because the GPL was supposed to take some of the power
> away from the "Mages" (who kept code, and therefor power,
> a secret)
I don't see the GPL that way. It is about freedom - but one
cannot 'legistlate' through the private contractual law of the
GPL, the grant of skill and gift of understanding.
... when I was a 'glass-house' mage, and back even in the
'70's the answer was the same -- this is a meritocracy --
anyone who CAN learn is welcome to learn and enter the
mysteries -- but without that talent, and a willingness to
study and acquire true knowledge. all the paper certifications
in the world cannot convey it.
-- Russ
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