Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> ?
> Red Hat servers still provide 100 percent free updates for all community versions of Linux, including all the way back to Red Hat Linux 7.3.
> Just because you can't pay for priority downloads, or they don't call it "Red Hat(R)" anymore for serious legal issues, does not mean it isn't free or Red Hat does not provide them.
> It is in Red Hat's own best interest to provide updates for CL2.3 (RHL7.3) and CL3.1/3.2 (RHL9/FC1) as they correspond directly to RHEL2 and RHEL3, respectively.
> The only 2 things Red Hat is guilty of 1) Wanting to make sure the trademark "Red Hat(R)" was not declared public domain by the USPTO and 2) Stop having to maintain updates for 6-7 concurrent revisions when the last ".2" (or ".3") revision in a release would suffice (and businesses who think otherwise can pay for it).
>
>
More to the point, I have no problem with RedHat wanting to charge money
for a service they provide. The major problem with the software
industry -- a problem created by a software-as-product profit model
primarily pioneered by Microsoft in the '80s -- is that the services
provided by programmers and other IT professionals have been drastically
devalued. By redefining the software industry such that software is a
product to be sold, rather than software design being a service to pay
for, the industry has ensured the current state of affairs wherein
programmers in the United States are obsolete. Tearing RedHat a new one
for daring to charge for a service rendered while offering the RedHat
"product" essentially for free, as opposed to the Microsoft method of
charging outrageous prices for the software "product" and offering a
certain amount of support service for free, simply adds to the apparent
legitimacy of software-as-product profit model that is the antithesis of
Open Source (and otherwise free) philosophy in the IT industry.
Where RedHat makes little or no pretense of treating their OS as an
exclusive property, instead attempting to draw revenue from services
associated with the software they provide, the Microsoft intellectual
property method of revenue generation involves pretending their software
is equivalent to a physical product, to be sold in units "produced".
Their provision of free service relating to the product is only enough
to maintain some facade of respectability for the supposed product
itself. It is, in effect, equivalent to warranty service provided by
car manufacturers. It is also something only financially sustainable in
the long run as a corollary to the software-as-product profit model.
If RedHat wants to move toward a more service-oriented profit model, I
say more power to 'em. I don't much like the design philosophy behind
their installer (anaconda) and default OS configuration, and ultimately
don't like RedHat-based Linux OSes very much in comparison with other
distros, but I certainly can't fault this particular aspect of their
profit model. Others, in fact, should follow suit.
If someone wants badly enough for there to be a free repository for
update packages and patches, they can always simply copy the open-source
software onto another server and offer it themselves. There's no reason
to get angry at RedHat for not wanting to offer that somewhat expensive
service for free under their own name. BS pointed out (above) that the
guys at RH are just protecting their trademark, but even if it was also
a limitation of services provided to a for-profit provision, I don't see
any reason to paint them as bad guys for it. It would be far worse to
see them start producing closed-source software at per-unit prices,
enforcing copyright the way Microsoft does, and providing updates for
"free" (also the way Microsoft does). Don't ya think?
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