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Red Hat Software Businesses

Red Hat Announces Product EOL Calendar 543

Posted by timothy from the but-it's-not-forever dept.
BrunoC writes "Looks like Red Hat is getting a little Microsoftish and is quietly introducing its brand new 12-month-only Errata. Quoting The Reg: 'Red Hat's current death list EOLs RH 7.1-8.0 at the end of this year, while 6.2 and 7.0 get theirs as of the end of March.' You can read the whole article here." I don't see how this is "Microsoftish" -- the code Red Hat creates or includes is still GPL, and you can pay anyone willing to fix it. They're not required to support it forever :)
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Red Hat Announces Product EOL Calendar More

Red Hat Announces Product EOL Calendar

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  • That's correct.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by leerpm ( 570963 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:13PM (#5170206)
    They are a company afterall. You can't expect them to support all their products for an indefinite amount of time. They would go bankrupt!

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:19PM (#5170252)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:That's correct.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:42PM (#5170407)
      I totally agree. I have yet to install a distro from any Un*x company that I haven't paid for. Yeah, I'm sure plenty of people are saying "sucker", but I don't see it that way at all. I've been running RH for my mail/web/cvs server for a few years now (starting with 6.2) and really can't complain. Okay, I suppose my $$$ helps a bunch of lifer deadbeats that don't want to pay for anything....but I'll risk that whopping $180/yr (or so; whenever I decide to upgrade) to help a company that actually tries to do a good job. As far as I'm concerned, they have a good business model and the money I pay is certainly worth keeping them around... So God forbid they'd want to stay in business...that's so terrible :-P

      • Business desktops need to last a lot longer (Score:5, Insightful)

        by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @11:26PM (#5171790) Homepage Journal

        If you're trying to purchase a few dozen (much less a hundred or a thousand) desktop machines for corporate rollout, it's going to take you a few months to get the budget approved. Then you spend a month or two on the RFQ and RFPs, another month or so going through them, and another month or so finalizing the decision. Add on the order time, receiving time, and software installation/configuration time, and you're hitting 9-12 months before they're even hitting a user's desktop.

        So you've got a good chance that by the time your users first turn on a RedHat desktop, the support has been dropped.

        Congratulations, RedHat, you just knocked yourself out of competition for the corporate desktop. With Mandrake dead, that leaves SuSE as the only real contender for a corporate solution on the desktop.

        On the server side, consider that it typically takes at least a year for third-party vendors to certify a distro as "supported" for their products. Sometimes it even matters -- Sybase 12.5 would only run on a certain patch level of RedHat 7.1 last time I tried it (Mandrake 8.1, 8.2, and SuSE 8.0 could not even prepare the storage space for the database without crashing, much less run a server.)

        I know that most corps are going to have special contracts set up for support, but that doesn't help those of us on the development or consulting side of things who don't have the budget to pay for full AS licenses just to get a system that doesn't need to be rebuilt annually.

        If I want to rebuild systems annually, I'll go back to Microsoft-based development -- there's more work supporting that junk anyhow.

        I do buy full distros to support the vendors -- and end up spending far more on Linux distros per year than I ever did on Microsoft products as a result. I have RH 5.2, 6.2, 7.0, 7.1, Mandrake 7.2, 8.0, 8.1, SuSE 8.0 and 8.1 -- all full box sets at $75-100 each. Even when I don't install them, I buy kits just to help keep the companies I believe in afloat.

        I sure don't appreciate RH trying to rip me off as payback. Even with RH normal pricing, who in their right mind is going to pay $150 for a full current release of RH, for which you only get a few months update support, vs. buying a generic copy of the disks for $20 plus shipping and paying less than $150 for a full year of RH update support? Such nonsense would be why RH 7.1 was the last distro of theirs I bought or installed -- I don't believe in their model anymore.

        • Re:Business desktops need to last a lot longer (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rhavyn ( 12490 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @01:36AM (#5172422)
          Umm, that is why they released Advanced Server and are releasing a Corporate Desktop and Advanced Workstation products. Those come with several years of support.

          And their $150 box is probably going to go away, and there will just be the $40 box. You're better off paying $60 for a years worth of RHN and skipping the box set entirely anyways.

          Anyways, I would doubt that someone who doesn't even follow the company, use their product, or "believe in their model" to care about any of this in the first place (of even do some research about what Red Hat *is* doing for big companies before spouting off).

          • You missed a key point: I'm a consultant. I have to support what clients are using, which is largely WinNT/2K/XP and RedHat's distribution of Linux. I cannot afford to pay their corporate level pricing because I am a self-emplyed individual, not a consulting group that can leverage and distribute the costs among the profits from several consultants in the field.

            I follow a lot of products I don't believe in and don't use, because it's my job to stay informed about the marketplace and the products my clients are going to be asking about.

            Most clients are not well informed. They've heard about Linux, they've heard about RedHat. They don't know enough to realize that because I work with a couple other distros on a daily basis I'll have no trouble working with RedHat -- they'll just see I don't run the specific older release of RedHat they have support for, and assume I can't do the job.

            Why won't I be running their release?

            Because I won't be able to afford to run the releases they're using, because I can't drop several thousand dollars to maintain multiple AS releases, even multibooting the same hardware. And without the corporate updates provided to AS, it won't be an option to just run outdated software -- I wouldn't be running the same patch levels, which means I wouldn't be able to replicate and isolate the software problems the client is having.

    • Really. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I mean, even Linus himself end-of-lifed the fantastic 1.2.13 kernel a long time ago.

  • thats too bad (Score:2, Insightful)

    by xao gypsie ( 641755 )
    seeing that i really enjoy using the most archaic versions of redhat i can get my dirty little hands on. i mean, i see how they are of some use, but i dont understand while people are getting antsy and making m$ related accusations...

    xao

    • Re:thats too bad (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Black Copter Control ( 464012 ) <[samuel-local] [at] [bcgreen.com]> on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:45PM (#5170843) Homepage Journal
      but i dont understand while people are getting antsy and making m$ related accusations...

      how about: 8/0 is obsolete in less than a year, but 8.1 isn't even out of beta yet!

      Unlike Windows, Unix people are often used to running their machine for more than a year without a reboot. When you have to upgrade your OS more often than you would (otherwise) have to reboot it, there's something wrong with the EOL calendar.

      My roommate (along with lots of other MS-bound friends) is still running win98. My box dual boots to '95. If this were done on the RH calendar, our OSs would have been EOL'd 5-7 years ago.

      NOT going to replace their OS every year. OS boasts aside, things still break in the move. If I weren't a geek I'd have absolutely no interest in going through migration sickness every 10-14 months. As long as this calendar stands, there's no way that I can realisticly encourage friends and clients to move to RedHat. For some of them, it's going to take more than a year to convince them to change over. Providing a moving target simply makes things that much harder.

      Can you understand the consternation of a non-geek friend running 7.1 being forced to move to 8.0 (the 8.1 beta refused to recognize his new HD) -- knowing that the OS is going to be obsolete by the end of the year? good reason to go ballistic.

      This is one big step away from getting a solid foothold on the desktop.

  • Er... (Score:3, Informative)

    by inode_buddha ( 576844 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:16PM (#5170224) Journal
    isn't this old news? I could swear I read about something like this in their "Under the Brim" newsletter at least a month ago.... oh, well. (shrugs)

  • Microsoftish ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:16PM (#5170226)
    Pardon me, but if using short product support policies is "microsoftish", then Redhat is more microsoftish than Microsoft itself. Last time I checked, support for Windows 95 was dropped on December 31 and support for Win2000 will be dropped in 2008. That's 8 YEARS per product with a possibility of extening support for corporate customers.

    I do not recall Redhat supporting any of their distro releases for 8 years.

    • Re:Microsoftish ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by weave ( 48069 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:18PM (#5170246) Journal
      Redhat 6.2 is currently supported. That's been out for quite a few years... But yeah, certainly no one is expecting 8 years, but just one year is way too short.

    • Re:Microsoftish ? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kindbud ( 90044 )
      Has RedHat even existed for 8 years? ...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...11...12... 13...14...15...16...17...18...19...20!
    • I do not recall Redhat supporting any of their distro releases for 8 years.

      Yeah, it didn't take them 8 years to fix all the problems & security issues. ;)

    • Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by intermodal ( 534361 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:27PM (#5170324) Homepage Journal
      It becomes microsoftish when an upgrade is not a free download away.

    • Re:Microsoftish ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Pros_n_Cons ( 535669 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:45PM (#5170428)
      You mean we can't download a free product and suck down bandwith from the company for the rest of our lives?! REVOLUTION! Maybe some people haven't noticed but Mandrake who we thought was doing great is all but dead, how Redhat pays thier bills I have no idea. Look people, It's time we allow some of these open source companies to ern some money, they have done alot for us and are still doing more than just about any other company. The only companys I can think of off the top of my head that do more for the people are charitys and ones funded by tax dollars. The only thing I would ask is that, when I buy redhat 7.3 the errata will last untill redhat 8.3. I look at everything inbetween as a sort of beta software, I have no problem spending $50 every year and a half, but not every 6 months.

    • Re:Microsoftish ? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:02PM (#5170533)
      End of life:
      Win2000 is March 31, 2008
      WinXP Pro is Dec 31, 2009
      WinXP Home is Dec, 31 2007
      Read more about the Microsoft Desktop Product life cycle Here [microsoft.com].
    • Mmmm...Microsoftfish. I love a fillet of Microsoftfish with a little lemon butter and basil garnish.

      [rereads] Oh, Microsoft-ish?

      Never mind.

      Belloc

  • tired of calls like this: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:17PM (#5170233)
    noob - "I am having a problem with USB..."

    RH person - "What version are you using?"

    noob - "Uhh... version 5.0 I think..."

    RH person - "FUCK OFF AND UPDATE YOUR SHIT MAN!!! IT IS FREE!!!"
    • No it isn't free. It costs time, labour, planning, etc... to update a large number of servers or desktops. Big corps will answer back, "well I guess I should have stuck with MS, at least they give updates for 5 to 8 years."

      Have you ever planned then executed that plan to update 10,000 or so computers? Licensing costs are not the big issue.

  • It isn't like anyone was paying for their distros anyway.

    The whole concept behind Open Source is that selling service is the way to make money. However, when no one is paying you and demanding your services even still, there's got to come a point where you realize that your "customers" are simply taking advantage of you.

    Bravo, Redhat. For finally realizing that money doesn't come from beggars. Now maybe my RHAT shares will be a shit [yahoo.com].

    • Re:When the OS is free, what can you complain abou (Score:5, Informative)

      by weave ( 48069 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:20PM (#5170270) Journal
      No one pays? My employer shells out a few grand a year for enterprise RHN...
    • Actually, they're cutting services for the only people who do actually pay for something. Very bad for business.

  • I wonder.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by leerpm ( 570963 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:18PM (#5170244)
    If it would be possible, or even legal, to setup a mirror site of their old support errrata. Thereby removing the costs of upkeep for Red Hat, but letting the community continue to support the older versions. This would be very useful for people running old versions on say firewalls and such.
    • Red Hat is not removing support nimrod!

      Its chaging its free upport policies..

      The paid support still covers said systems, duh!

      Try reading something before you blindly post liek some micrsoftie

      • Re:ah hey read it again (Score:5, Informative)

        by weave ( 48069 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:48PM (#5170453) Journal
        The paid support still covers said systems, duh!

        Not true, no errata for rh 8.0 and earlier after end of this year, even if you shell out thousands for RHN a year like we do. I confirmed this with my account rep.

        There *is* advanced server, but that's at least $800/year/server. A big difference... And even that is only for three years.

    • if they are using RH 5.2+ they need to upgrade no matter what. Don't continue to support that. It's a bad idea to keep distributions that old running. Too many programs that are vunerable.

      Laziness is no excuse.
  • Is that even a word?

    Yeah, I agree, I fail to see how this is really "microsoftish", I mean, sure, you're loosing some support, but the GPL doesn't guarantee they'd always support it.

  • Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:18PM (#5170248) Journal
    Here is an example of the rapid advancement expected when utilizing open source development. Proprietary users will think "Retiring a major OS in just a year? That's crazy" - while we Linux users have grown accustomed to such things.

  • OMG! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MisterFancypants ( 615129 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:18PM (#5170251)
    Really!? OMG!.

    Um, seriously. End-of-lifing a product is just a plain good idea, whether you're talking about open source, closed source, or something that isn't even computer software. In the real world, it costs way too much to keep a support infrastructure in place for a product that is only being used by a small amount of the population due to its having become "obsolete" (even if only as a marketing matter). While it sucks to be one of the people who still uses the product and doesn't want to upgrade, there's really no alternative but to cut people off eventually.

    • Did you read the article? They cut off Advanced Server after three years, and that costs at least $800 per server to license it. (They don't give binaries out for free for that, yes, I guess someone could sit there and compile every package manually from the source...)

      Business doesn't like this type of instability. Trust me, this won't do good for Linux in the enterprise...

      I have some redhat boxes hooked up to an EMC SAN. They only certify their drivers for certain releases, and it takes them about a year to certify. Currently, the latest RH certified is 7.2 for example.

  • Why support obsolete products? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jdgeorge ( 18767 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:19PM (#5170255)
    One of the virtues of free software is its rapid development/update cycle. Why would should a company based on this development model sell software as if it were never updated?

  • No (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:20PM (#5170265)
    I don't see how this is "Microsoftish"

    Maybe that's because you don't have to admin anything important. An annual upgrade treadmill is a huge burden on IT staffs that have to prototype and test rollouts for upgrades. There is a reasonable support timeframe between zero and indefinite and one year is not it.

    • Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twivel ( 89696 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:35PM (#5170364)
      True, Production Servers don't really work well with a 12-month release cycle. This is really a part of their push for Red Hat Advanced Server. I met a Red Hat rep on the Road Tour who said: "Red Hat Linux Is just something we produce for the community..." "Red Hat Advanced Server is the one you should use for production quality enterprise systems..."

      Twivel

  • Microsoftish? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MadocGwyn ( 620886 )
    Microsoft also still makes available all the online information (MSKB) for the discontinued OS's.
    And its a bit different with redhat, most of the components of old redhat releases are current projects still making releases, theres nothing stopping you from doing the upgrade yourself, chances are if you cant you can prob get your slightly geekier friend to compile and rpm it for you. With windows, think someone is still working on the windows 3.1 version of the networking components?

  • I spy with my "Microsoft" eye.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:22PM (#5170280)
    "I don't see how this is "Microsoftish" -- the code Red Hat creates or includes is still GPL, and you can pay anyone willing to fix it. They're not required to support it forever :)"

    I think the more important question is. Why is everyone so gung ho about seeing every RH action as "Microsoftish"? As many have already argued RH couldn't be another Microsoft. Has Microsoft scared us all so bad that we jump at the slightest movement by a commercial company? What about all the other commercial companies out there? Aren't they doing something "Microsoftish", or is it just RedHat?
    • Yes, I have to say I am a lot more concerned with IBM trying to co-opt Linux than I am Red Hat. Let's face it, IBM is a hardware company, and as soon as they bump up against something they don't like in the GPL we may see some behavior that will overshadow a lot of MS recent overtures.

  • Lifespan of servers? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Colitis ( 8283 ) <`zn.oc.kooltuo' `ta' `reklaw.jj'> on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:22PM (#5170283)
    Since three years warranty on server hardware seems to be not uncommon, possibly this is the thin air Redhat seem to have plucked this number from?

    It's nice to know that when you get your shiny new 8-way Xeon with untold amounts of RAM you'll be able to leave it in production for the span of its warranty without having to worry about re-installing due to the OS release on it being EOL'ed.

    Where this falls down is twofold: 1) servers are still useful well past three years, whether they're warrantied or not, and 2) some vendors for extra money will extend warranties up to five or so years (my employer has started buying Dell boxes with five year warranties pretty much as standard).
    • That's the point. They want you to buy the Advanced Server release. It will be supported longer.

      I buy my servers 1 year warranty. The bigger problem I have is the developers put on custom builds of everything and their documentation is shady. So, it's just another excuse to slap their knuckles and build the server in a way that is easier to upgrade.

      Then, when they want some new feature (last week's adventure was netatalk compatible with OSX), I'm not going to say "Goddammit this is fucking ancient! What the hell am I going to do with this?!?!?!?!"

      ah, but anyway.

      --mandi

  • I spy a troll! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Hack ( 637833 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:22PM (#5170285)

    Come on, Timothy, that was cheap :-) Of course it's "Microsoft-ish" because it forces companies who want support to upgrade. Yeah, sure, you still have the source code, but in a company that doesn't mean anything if you're not getting support. Half the reason why Red Hat is so popular (over the "free beer" Linuxes like Debian) is because when a company puts it on their systems, they can be assured of getting professional support. This is really important for the PHBs of the world - they don't want to hire some in-house hacker with tattoos and spikey hair to "support" their installation.

    Of course, even though it is Microsoft-ish, i don't think that's a bad thing. Forcing your clients to upgrade is better all round - it's better for the economy because it's creating sales which lead to more R&D spending, plus you can ensure your clients are running the latest version which should cut down on the bugginess or flakiness of their software. If Microsoft had had a more aggressive "push upgrades onto the client" scheme, all the internet problems we saw last week wouldn't've happened, because everyone would've been running patched SQL Servers anyway.

  • Microsoftish (Score:5, Insightful)

    by airrage ( 514164 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:22PM (#5170290) Homepage Journal
    Maybe the word 'quietly' is what's microsoftish. But actually Microsoft is quite vocal about end-of-life announcements hoping to spur new sales of the latest product suites. Actually, the poster really should reference Oracle, whom is the master of desupport notices; often on the order of 'this product will self-destruct in ten..nine..'.

    I guess Red Hat is being microsoftish by trying to make a profit (maybe someday), or trying to keep the majority of it's users somewhere in the middle of the bell-curve (you spend 90% of your time supporting 10% of your users who refuse to upgrade), or maybe it's the windowsupdate.com like ability to patch over the web.

    I think they're more Microsoftish than you may think, and I say 'right on!'.

  • I don't like this. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the_real_tigga ( 568488 ) <[nephros] [at] [users.sourceforge.net]> on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:22PM (#5170291) Journal
    One of the major reasons to choose RedHat is their reliability. Thouroughly tested software you can rely to have on your server for at least a year without having to worry about it except for bug- and securityfixes.

    Ok, 7.1 is rather old, but discontinuing support for 8.0?

    IMO professional distros should always support their latest, and their last major release, so in RedHats case 8.x and 7.3, and not drop support for 7.3 until 9.0 is out.

    After all, support is, like, the thing theiy make money in the first place!

    • Re:I don't like this. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cowbutt ( 21077 )
      Uh, but by the time 8.0 is EOLed (31 Dec 2003), it won't be the latest any more. In fact, 8.2 or 8.3 should be out by then.

      The unwritten rule of RH is that if you want stability, you use the last point release. This used to be x.2, but 7.3 complicated things a little. x.0 is regarded as a technology preview ("hey, we put lots of exciting new stuff in, and we're still working out what we broke!") and x.1 as a public beta ("uh, we think we've fixed all the howlers in x.0 now. Try this and let us know if there's anything that needs to be fixed in x.2").

      --

  • Duration of Support issues (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:22PM (#5170292) Journal
    I recall the article from a few days ago taking about the Microsoft OS installed in BMWs.

    The thing that comes to mind was the discussion the BMW exec had with a number of attendess at a tech conference. He point out that they are required to support cars with parts, etc for Ten Years. And the obvious question was how may people there were running things that were ten yerars old, nevermind able to get support for it.

    Now we get to End of Life issues. How long should software be supported? Ten years for something like software, Is this even reasonable? It's important for the embedded market, at least.

  • Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Insightful)

    by psychosis ( 2579 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:23PM (#5170300)
    I think that one of the major beefs against Microsoft is that they require you to PAY to upgrade to the latest version. I don't see that dropping errata support for something that will cost you a grand total of $0 (if you have fast net access) or a few bucks to get new discs from one of the cheapbytes-type places out there.
    Personally, I'd rather see them drop the old support in favor of providing a higher level of service to the paying customers. (This isn't a dig on their service, which I think is great - we're paying customers at work, and RHN is a tremendous tool.)

    • Re:Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Informative)

      by weave ( 48069 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:37PM (#5170377) Journal
      I don't mind paying $100/year/box like we do now for RHN. That's reasonable. But $800+/year for Advanced server is nuts. I can get (as an academic institution) Windows 2000 server for $350 perpetual, and Windows update is free. (ok, it doesn't include CALs, but we get them as part of our microsoft campus agreement)

      I just can't update all of my linux servers and desktops every year. There's too much going on, like going to 8.0 means moving apache from 1.3 to 2.0 for example (or downgrading once installed). It takes time to test everything before doing big migrations.

      Some people here might be able to fine tune their personal linux boxes with ease and see this as no big deal, but get into a corporate IT world where everything must be tested to death before even hotfixes or errata are applied, and then talk about dozens or hundreds of servers, and you'll understand that upgrading that quick isn't just possible.

      You think it won't matter? I'm an IT manager with deadlines, stress, labor resource issues, budget shortages, etc, and it concerns me greatly. Won't take much for Microsoft to make a pitch for a stable and predictable environment to people like me to sway us... If you don't think so, you don't understand corporate mentality...

      • Re:Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Interesting)

        by flacco ( 324089 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:29PM (#5170706)
        I sure hope to hell someone at red hat reads and takes to heart the parent.

        It was the availability of a cheap base price and an affordable RHN subscription that got me the green light to replace our NT servers with Red Hat servers. I expended a lot of political capital making arguments about savings in maintenance and deploring the Microsoft upgrade treadmill. Management was suspicious but in the end trusted my judgement as the "expert" opinion.

        I'm going to look like a fucking asshole if red hat puts us on the same high cost / upgrade treadmill program that I convinced everyone we were getting out of.

        Note to red hat: continue to provide an affordable RHN subscription and don't force us to upgrade our servers every 12 months. If you do, during one of those upgrade cycles, you will find yourselves alongside MS in the dustbin, and we'll move to another distro. Or, worst case scenario, management will no longer see the monetary benefit and decide to return to the comforting familiarity of Microsoft's eager clutches, and I'll be "that dick with no sense of judgement" for the rest of my career.

        • Re:Not a fair comparison (Score:4, Insightful)

          by weave ( 48069 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:43PM (#5170827) Journal
          I feel your pain. Now you will learn what old IT farts learn early on in their career. Sticking your neck out to do the right thing means getting shafted in the end. Eventually, after getting screwed a few times, you learn to play it safe and go with the flow. That's what kept IBM succesful for decades, and that is what is carrying Microsoft now.

          I'm in the same boat. Sure, I can divert more of my tech staff to spend the extra time on a constant upgrade cycle, or manually patching older revs, but then that plays right into the hands of Microsoft's argument that Linux is more expensive in the long run because it's more of an effort to run it.

          I thought I hit bliss city when I saw RHN. Management of all of my linux boxes, desktops and servers, with a few clicks on a web page. I eagerly got the funding to pay for it. Now, if it's only good for a year or I have to pay high dollars for AS, I start looking like the fool for switching.

  • Well had they posted MY story instead.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:27PM (#5170323)
    This ISN'T microsoft-ish. Microsoft atleast supports their products for a little while. What this is, is a company screwing the living hell out of the community that's supported it. I've sat here and sold personal version after personal version alot with errata accounts to clients because a) cheaper b) would be supported for quite some time with good security updates and wouldn't always require upgrades to continue to use their other products.

    Now I have to turn around and tell them that Redhat changed it's game plan and convert each one of these clients over, or let them continue to pay me to constantly upgrade their network just to keep them within their errata entitlements. I for one....basically said to hell with redhat about 5 hours ago (incidently right after I submitted my story that /. apparently didn't like). I've started installing Gentoo on my workstations here already and within the next 4 weeks my redhat boxes will be gone as well.

    Face it people, the people like "us" have made redhat and they just turned their back on us for the corperate world.

    Don't get me wrong, I have NO problem with end of life, but 1 year for what's there now. The woman I spoke with at Redhat (yes I did research it directly with the company not just reading what nimrods say) she said that after this first round, there's going to be another change. Anyone using personal or the "free" version (and probably the professional) will ONLY be eligable for errata during the time that the release they are using is current. As soon as they release another version, errata for the older is gone. In other words, since redhat releases usually twice a year....that would me 2 upgrades a year just to keep yourself up2date. Screw that.
  • and you can pay anyone willing to fix it.

    If you have the money. Unfortunately many small to medium businesses don't have the money, or shouldn't have the money allocated towards this sort of expense. In many cases it's just cheaper to stay with a reasonable recent version of whatever software you are using.

  • RedHat's whole business is support (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geekee ( 591277 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:36PM (#5170370)
    "I don't see how this is "Microsoftish" -- the code Red Hat creates or includes is still GPL, and you can pay anyone willing to fix it. They're not required to support it forever :)"

    But isn't that what you're paying RedHat for when you buy support from RedHat? By cutting their support, they're cutting the one service that paying customers actually want (unless they buy the software as a donation). MS just patched NT4, which has been out since '95 or so, and you're criticizing MS and excusing RedHat. Give me a break.
  • So after December 31 the only option available will be only Advanced Server, which is not free?

    I stay (at home) with Gentoo [gentoo.org] - it doesn't seem to go a proprietary way anytime soon. Redhat might be a good option for enterprise servers, but not for home or SOHO users.

  • Will I still be able to grab updated packages from rpmfind.net and other places to upgrade programs that have security holes?

  • Right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CaptainZapp ( 182233 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:38PM (#5170389) Homepage
    I don't see how this is "Microsoftish" -- the code Red Hat creates or includes is still GPL, and you can pay anyone willing to fix it. They're not required to support it forever :)

    Yeah, as the product responsible for Linux I can sure see myself explaining this to my boss (who is very pro-free software): Er, yeah mate. We just hire a bunch of hippies if Red Hat support runs out on the server products we run. I'm sure Oracle will be more then happy to support our home modified kernel sources. Sure a great career move on my side.

    Sorry, this is just plain dumb and makes me wonder if Red Hat indeed is a good choice for this company. We are talking of a major divison of one of the biggest logistics companies worldwide.

    A one year time frame is just plain unacceptable in a corporate environment.

    I think it very much depends how Red Hat handles this on their enterprise level support contracts.

    (I read the part about the three year life cycle for their "advanced server" products. Which ,imo are just a scam in the first place).

  • redhat lifecycle - tie to RHCE validity? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mokeyboy ( 585139 ) <mark.keir@gmail.com> on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:40PM (#5170398)
    Why not tie the EOL for redhat desktop products to the vailidity of of the RHCE for it? For corporates, its going to be very hard to get approval for certification training if you know the EOL of the product is less than the period of the certification (I recall the figure of 2 major releases being mentioned by the instructor). This could damage RedHat's rep in the training market (one of their key publicity points in the last few years).
    I'm surprised that people are still running RH6.0. It's far less secure than 7.x or 8.0. The desktop (and server environment) are much better as well. Sure there are some libc5 legacy apps but there's really no excuse for a server to be running it. Upgrade or do a fresh install and use the newer features (like journalling, LVM, iptables, 2.4 series kernels etc) because they make an immense difference. RH7.2 really should be a minimum if you are serious.
  • and you can pay anyone willing to fix it. They're not required to support it forever :)

    Since the code is otherwise free, service is the *only* thing you're paying for - it should be top notch.

  • check out the 2.1 AW license...it's kinda stiff :) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Raleel ( 30913 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:45PM (#5170429)
    http://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhlaws_ita_us.html? location=United+States&

    especially the report and auditing section.

    I support a lot of redhat machines.I appreciate that they ahve to make money and all, but really. I don't call them and ask for support. i don't use the RHN. i run a mirror.

    I did call once and ask for support...I got tossed back to HP!

  • LWN had some discussion on this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sits ( 117492 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:45PM (#5170431) Homepage Journal
    Way back in December LWN covered this [lwn.net] and I think Alan Cox voiced his thought that people (not RedHat) may try and make a business out of support 6.2. Now there's an idea...
  • It's redundant, but I'm posting anyway! :D

    I really think it's a bit hypoctritical to infer that RedHat is in the wrong by wanting to rid itself of the shackles of 6.x support. Find a bug in any piece of GPL software, and the first thing you'll hear is "We don't want to know unless you compile from the nightly CVS".

    If most GPL software (software from GNU itself thankfully excluded) is only supported for 24 hours then I think that both RedHat and Microsoft do a good job in comparison.

  • quietly? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bearl ( 589272 )
    ..and is quietly introducing its brand new 12-month-only Errata.

    "Quietly??" Hardly. I've received notice of this at least three times in the past couple of months from various RH newsletters. I even considered writing to let them know I had gotten the message. It's been on their errata web page for over a month (at least since 8.0 has been out).

    I guess this shows you CAN'T count on people to get the message unless you beat it into them, or perhaps this whole article is a RH troll to actually get the message out??

    I now expect to receive several other explanatory e-mails from RH after this slashdot article.

  • RHCE irony... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @07:56PM (#5170501) Journal
    OK, so they now say Redhat 8.0 etc releases are "consumer" releases only. You're supposed to use Advanced Server 2.x in business.

    But the RHCE program is geared towards this same "consumer" release. Current RHCE is for Redhat 8.x version and you have to get recertified every other (consumer) major release number. So, what good is RHCE? You get certified to run your home Linux box then?

  • This isn't that bad for a geek running a home box and willing to go through the upgrade cycle every year, but it's pretty bad to be EOLing a product (8.0) at the end of the year which starts with it's replacement is only beta.

    I know some sites are still running Solaris 5.2 (which was de-emphasised about 5 years ago). It takes some companies almost a year to get their software really stable. Forcing them to replace their OS on a yearly basis is going to discourage movement to redhat

    From a marketing (as well as technical) point of view, theis seem s like a really bad idea(tm).

  • This is pretty much obvious to me. (Score:3, Informative)

    by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <daniel@hedblom.gmail@com> on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:13PM (#5170599) Homepage Journal
    Since Redhat doesnt make loads of money exactly from keeping out of date systems alive they havent go any incentive to keep those old systems running. Looking at statistics would probably show that very few run older versions of redhat. You can still use the PRO versions and get longer lifecycles if you run a business. For redhat to keep systems released every year up at no cost isnt good business and we dont want them to go titsup do we?

    The incredibly fast development of linux right now is making older versions obsolete very fast. If you want to run something really old you should use debians stable version since it is rock solid and dont tread on the edge like most other distros right now.

  • Good to be out in the open... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Spoing ( 152917 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:45PM (#5170848) Homepage
    If Red Hat has a formal EOL policy, then it can be changed. With no policy, there is no assurance of service. I expect that if this causes any real hassles, Red Hat's policy will change.

    That said, Linux has an extreme level of upgradability. Using Red Hat specifically, I ran version 5.1 and upgraded it using newer and newer packages and custom kernels. The result, before I decided to restart from scratch, was mostly based on RH 7.

    Even a kernel update -- custom or packaged -- usually does not require user level software changes. When it does, the updates are usually backward compatable so you have a fall back option. This means that if someone runs RH 6, and a local exploit or bug is found in the kernel or other software, they can update to a version that will not have the hole.

    Is upgading single packages painless? Not necessarily, though the painful parts are usually because of package dependencies with non-critical programs. Having a mix of packages from different 'versions' is entirely possible as long as you handle the upgrades in a conservative manner; update only what is necessary not every package on the system.

  • Hello....McFly!?!?! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lspd ( 566786 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:53PM (#5170896) Journal
    It's suprising that some folks are just now finding this out. I noticed this a while back while trying to get a decent fix for the fubar xinetd package Redhat is pushing on its pre-8.0 distros.

    I was really suprised by this since a long lifespan is the one thing that RedHat had over Mandrake (Mandrake's product lifespan is 2 years from date of initial release..) I don't know about the rest of you, but I have servers running right now with 2 years of uptime..some are in the same city as me, some are colocated in other cities. I can't upgrade these systems without either flying to the colocation site or having them mailed to me.

    I came to precisely the same conclusion as the folks in this article. If you're using Linux on a server, it's stupid to use anything other than Debian. The commercial distros NEED you to upgrade, whether or not there are any compelling new features in their new versions. The Debian developers could care less about you buying a new set of CDs every six months.

    It's pretty funny that RedHat seems to be following right in Mandrake's footsteps here. It will be a great boon for virus writers if they really do drop support for all those 7.2 installs out there...but I can't imagine that serious sysadmins will put up with this for very long.

  • This is terrible for Linux in real businesses. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by treat ( 84622 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:55PM (#5170908)
    Real businesses, with thousands of servers, can not upgrade every year. Besides the actual time to do the work of upgrading, there is testing that must be done when you have real money at stake, downtime caused by the upgrade, etc.

    I work for a real company. I can't use an unsupported operating system. I can't upgrade every machine every year. I can't even upgrade to the latest and greatest (e.g. RedHat 8 and Solaris 9 are out of the question), because it is too untested. These are the business realities, not factors that I or any other individual have control over. A single incident (e.g. a server crashes and whatever sort of failover is in place does not work) can cost more money than my yearly salary. A single hiccup (e.g. a 1 second network outage for a single machine) can cost more than my paycheck.

    Sun at least makes guarantees that binaries that worked on previous versions of Solaris will work on new versions. (If they pass a test suite). RedHat makes no such guarantee.

    I thought I was making real progress to replacing Solaris servers with Linux servers. But with this announcement, I don't know what to do. If I deploy RedHat, I am adding a substantial (and mostly hidden) cost and risk. RedHat seemed like the logical choice, but my next course of action is going to be to investigate alternate supported Linux distros (IBM, Sun).

  • Come on guys, this is silly. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mdechene ( 607874 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @08:59PM (#5170935)
    Red hat is doing this because they don't have the resources to support 6 different versions of their O/S full time. These are just errata updates. If having the errata (security, bug fixes, performance issues) is important enough to you that you're going to care, then you can:

    (1) Download the latest RH and buy RH support for it (because this is really just about support),
    (2) Hire your own admin to stay abreast of these issues, or do it yourself. (But this is why people pay for RH service, so this isn't a likely option, or
    (3) Contract out to another company to step in and do errata updates on EOL'd RH distributions. It's legal, but probably expensive, unless a bunch of people band together to do it.

    Anyways, as the argument goes for contributing back to the linux codebase . . . It doesn't make any sense for a company to update programs without trying to get their updates put back into the codebase. Same thing is going on here. It doesn't make sense for RH to back-patch all of these older programs just for errata updates. Too much time and effort that could be spent on the real task: creating more advanced and better working programs. You don't see many people doing updates to Linux Kernel 2.0.39 these days, do you? Wonder why that might be. . .

  • Maybe I'm missing something (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Russellkhan ( 570824 ) on Monday January 27, 2003 @09:09PM (#5170989)
    But it seems like a really stupid move to me.

    Isn't RedHat trying to woo big corporate/enterprise accounts? From what I know of the corp/enterprise attitude (admittedly not a lot), they don't wnat to have to upgrade the whole OS on a yearly basis in order to stay up to date.

    I do realize that the packages themselves will very likely be upgraded and that any admin can go get them and apply the updates himself, but isn't up2date and its associated collection of updates in one easy to find place one of the biggest selling points?

    How is RedHat not shooting itself in the foot on this one? Someone please explain it to me, I'd really like to know.

  • Go start a support company (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bryce ( 1842 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @01:00AM (#5172277) Homepage

    If it's true that companies want support for their installations so they don't have to upgrade, then I'm betting that it's worthwhile enough that someone could start a little company providing support to old RH installs.

    Think about it; you don't have to do NEW development as you might if you were doing a full distro - RedHat is paying for that. The bugs are going to be identified and repaired by others - you just have to patch up the software and send it out. Wouldn't need to be that big of a company, either, I'll bet - half a dozen techies and a few biz types would probably do it.

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