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Red Hat, SUSE Announce Educational Discounts 242
geoff313 writes "Good news week for Linux users in the education field, as both Red Hat and SUSE have announced that they will
provide academic discounts in an effort to attract "students and
educational institutions." According to this article published
on CNET, while both companies have decided to offer discounts,
they are each going about it a different way. SUSE has begun to offer
"schools, students, universities and nonprofit customers a discount of
more than 40 percent through two sales partners, CCV Software and Ricis." Red Hat, on the other hand,
plans to offer two new versions of its distributions, based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(RHEL) line. The first, aimed at students and named Red Hat
Academic Desktop, will sell for $25 and is based on RHEL WS. The
second, to be sold to schools and named Red Hat Academic Server, will sell for $50 and is based off RHEL ES. Both products will include online
updates (presumably through its Red
Hat Network) but will not include telephone support. Bulk pricing
is also available, and administrative licenses will be available
soon."
Not really clear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:2)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:2)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:2)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:2)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:2)
Re:Not really clear. (Score:2)
Really? Where can I download the latest SuSE?
Re:Not really clear. (Score:2)
It is still 8.2, perhaps that is your point. Is that the last SuSE release freely available?
Re:Not really clear. (Score:4, Informative)
What sucks is that they need a student ID, which my high school does not use (although, they could do what they did last time I needed a student ID - make a temporary one), and you must be a full-time college student to get the discount as a college student (I'm in a program where I go to college while I'm in high school, but I'm not going full-time to my college yet... ARRGH!)
I thought universities just downloaded it for free (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't get telephone support with these products, which I thought was the main reason to actually spend money on a distribution anyway, why not just download them for free?
Re:I thought universities just downloaded it for f (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I thought universities just downloaded it for f (Score:2)
Mandrake?
Re:I thought universities just downloaded it for f (Score:2)
18 months versus 60. What's to stop you from upgrading your distro every 18 months? Millions of people who use Windows are doing exactly that, for about $100 a pop.
LK
Re:I thought universities just downloaded it for f (Score:4, Interesting)
Rubbish. Slackware can be used perfectly well on an extended-lifetime basis, and so can Debian. In fact, I guess Debian has extended lifetime by definition, since new releases occur about once a decade :-).
Re:I thought universities just downloaded it for f (Score:2)
Support (Score:2)
Re:Because you can't download them for free (Score:2, Informative)
Technical support (Score:4, Insightful)
So you can buy it discounted with no support, or expensive with support. Why would anybody take the first option? There are plenty of free distributions with updates and no support...
I can give you free support in 2 words (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Enterprise Admin (Score:2)
Don't take this the wrong way, but the purpose of a LUG isn't to provide hardcore engineering-level help. That's what a support contract with the vendor is for. Generally, the purpose of a lug is to provide hel for novice to semi-advanced linux users.
Re: Enterprise Admin (Score:2)
You think that Redhat's support contracts will provide "hardcore engineering-level help"?
Re: Enterprise Admin (Score:2)
Yes. They are sometimes (not always) able to answer the simplest of questions. If it is at all nontrivial they are guaranteed to either get it wrong or not give any answer at all. Mostly they just don't help by either playing dumb or actually being horribly dumb.
Re:Technical support (Score:2, Informative)
As for students, this is a solid benefit. CS
Servers for the hoi polli (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is why Red Hat's sustained new attitude of "servers are for the elite" continues to puzzle me.
Some respectable fraction of these CS Majors need/want to work on servers (i.e. the RHEL ES version). They need what it offers, they want to be able to put it on their resume (e.g. "provided 'this useful campus service' using RHEL ES"), etc. etc.
At my school, companies fell over themselves to try to put their products in front of students, w
Re:Servers for the hoi polli (Score:2)
Why? Novell buying SuSE can be a good thing for this - my college uses a Novell/Win2K/NT4(on a few servers)/Mac hybrid network. That CAN become NoSE Server/Win2K/NT4(why them, though?)/Mac/NoSE Linux network, which is good for Linux (2000 more converts, anyone?).
Re:Technical support (Score:3, Funny)
Debian countered the Red Hat and SuSE announcements with a press release of their own saying that Debian will continue to offer a completely free Linux distribution to academic users so they can avoid the "pompous greedy sods" at those other two companies.
What a shame (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe RMS had a point.
To be fair (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a shame (Score:2)
Maybe RMS had a point.
Maybe you should have another read of what RMS wrote. Remember free as in speech, not as in beer?
Re:What a shame (Score:2)
I guess it comes down to what I always complain about, which is geeks seeing everything in black and white terms. RMS may speak his mind, but I think this is a case where he has rationalized something. Call it what you will... I call it splitting hairs, lip service, rationalization, etc.
-a
Re:What a shame (Score:2)
The FSF makes a large proportion of their money from selling CDs. This was even more true before the Internet became popular, and the only way to get the latest versions of the GNU tools was to subscribe to the CD update service.
If you go to the FSF page today, the fact that they offer CDs for sale is not exactly displayed prominently. If you dig a bit deeper you see that they do sell CDs, but they make no attempt to disguise the fact that this is basically a donation, not a sale.
-a
Re:What a shame (Score:2)
Re:What a shame (Score:2, Insightful)
A point like "you can sell free software as you like, as long as you distribute sources too?"
I've never heard Stallman denying the possibility of making a buck out of free software. Insightful... Sheesh!
Re:What a shame (Score:3, Insightful)
This may be difficult for you to believe, but there is more to "academia" than the computer science program. The vast majority of college students and faculty don't know what the word "compile" means and would be interested in user support that goes beyond "RTFM, luser!" posts on USENET.
Free as in $25 (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, what a world, when Windows is cheaper for students than Linux.
Re:Free as in $25 (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is the product keys. The student needs to get a different product key every time the OS, program, etc is re-installed. So, say they're working on a Server 2003 build, and screw it up totally when setting up an Active Directory. They need to re-log into Microsofts MSDN-AA site, request another Key, etc...
All in all it's a grea
Site Licence Windows not really free (Score:5, Informative)
And if you read the article you would have seen that Redhat is also offering Universities a site licence deal: $2,500 for unlimited copies of WS. That's a hell of a lot cheaper than what your University paid for an MS site license.
Re:Free as in $25 (Score:2)
Re:Free as in $25 (Score:2, Informative)
any version of Windows, Office and Visual Studio
on the machine. If you don't have one, your "free" XP is as illegal as it is if you warezed it off the net.
Of course, your university pays something in the range of hundreds of thousands to millions of
dollars / year for the contract, but since that's
not out of your pocket (apart from tuition or taxes), it's obviously a real
Re:Free as in $25 (Score:2)
that's a bit naive (Score:2)
You probably end up paying several hundred dollars for Microsoft software through that channel and you don't even have a choice in the matter.
Re:that's a bit naive (Score:2)
Loss leaders, promotions, and beta-tests aren't "free" either. You may or may not pay money for them in the short term, but in the long term, you will pay for them.
In fact, the biggest cost in using Microsoft software at university is that you will be buying Microsoft software later on--tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime.
Free as in The First One's Always Free... (Score:3, Interesting)
The first one's always free, boyo. Guess what will happen when you graduate? Poof! Your license goes up in a puff of bits. You have two choices after that:
Re:Free as in $25 (Score:2)
I was considering upgrading my ageing win98 OS to XP using the student licencing system through my university. (Free Microsoft licences for students, etc etc.)
Then I read the agreement and discovered that I wasn't allowed to keep the CD, and that was the end of it. There's absolutely no way I'll install an operating system on my PC if I'm not allowed to keep the installation software. There was also the unease in locking myself into being forced to pay lots of money as soon as I'm no longer a student.
Re:at the local universities around here (Score:2)
How so?
They still sell and support a workstation product (Red Hat WS), and while they take the official position that it isn't read
Re:at the local universities around here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:at the local universities around here (Score:2)
As for Red Hat 9 losing money... How much is Fedora going to lose? After all, at least RH9 recouped some money through retail sales and paid support, and of course the hundreds of WS/ES/AS deployments it lead to. Whereas Fedora costs nothing, sells nowhere, has no paid support and is not likely going to result in nearly as many sales of Red Hat's high end commerc
Two big stupidity points (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice, but I'm (Score:2)
All the things in Eugenia's rantings are already solvedand I have best distro up until now, at least as far as it concerns me.
Anyway still nice that RH is extending support for commercial desktop.
Re:Nice, but I'm (Score:2)
I mean if someone is doing detailed distribution evaluation about system internals (like compiling and samba settings), that one should be at least computer literate.
Re:Nice, but I'm (Score:2)
Fact that Fedoa is RHEL testbed should tell you that you've messed up the facts, RHEL will track Fedora not the opposite
Use Debianbased Skolelinux instead (Score:2, Informative)
Well (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Admins dont have time to fuck around (Score:2)
Aimed at students, not admins. I think it's quite clear they'll be selling boxes in school computer shops ala Microsoft 'Student Editions'. Nothin' wrong with Redhat offering service contracts for school computer labs on the cheap, I just question the value for individual students of software that can be had more or less free _with_ updates (but without support). BTW, now that you've read the subject, how about reading the news post
Not software libre (Score:3, Insightful)
Just use something else, don't reward these companies. If you're thinking of taking Red Hat or SuSE up on these offers, look elsewhere. Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, from scratch, whatever. You're a student--you're time is cheap. And if you actually want to learn something from using Linux, none of the commercial distros are the way to go.
Re:Not software libre (Score:2)
I thought the point of a student was to get skills for the _real world_ ? More businesses roll out RH linux then they do LFS or gentoo. So why is the oppisite the way to go? politics? Sorry, I don't buy that. Redhat has high class certifications available, is the largest deployed distro and that makes it more inviting to most of us students.
Re:Not software libre (Score:2)
Re:Not software libre (Score:2)
You're probably talking about YaST, which is NOT proprietary. It's open source. You just can't redistribute it -- for money -- and leave SuSE's name in place. It's the same thing for Red Hat's distro. It's freely redistributable; you just can't call it "Red Hat."
And, while I'm at it, YaST is pretty cool. I've seen a lot of setup tools on Linux, and most just get in the way. YaST takes care of everything, and you don't have to clean up after
RedHat still kosher (Score:2)
If you don't want to agree to the terms of Red Hat's contract, don't. I'm sure copies of RHEL are readily available from other sources. Nothing in the contract prevents you from copying and distributing the software once you have it. The contract limits your right to *use* the software, which is not protected by the GPL (to stay within the domain of copyright law). It may be a little sneaky, but it doesn't make free software unfree.
In fact, Red Hat would be within their rights to provide the source on
forcing customers (Score:2)
What does "forcing" mean in your world?
Non-Profit and serious discounts! (Score:5, Interesting)
No thanks Redhat (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No thanks Redhat (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No thanks Redhat (Score:5, Interesting)
However, RH's move has made my business lose a lot of crediablity because RH had started to build a brand for Linux in the business market. The SMB's I work with are always looking for anything that help their bottom line. One bussiness would have saved an estimated $10,000 over the next three years in licing fees for OS's and Office Software. They are still going to use OpenOffice, only for Windows now.
I have to give kudos to M$ about one thing, they support products for 5 years and give 6 months notice its going away. People expect that after 5 years in the tech world, programs wouldn't be supported.
First off, it seemed like to me that 7.2 was around a while then 7.3, 8, and then 9 suddenly came out almost back to back. The about a year after 9 is released we get the, "This product will not be supported". The idea that Linux would have a longer support life for older versions longer than that of Windows was a selling point, and one that has turned into a myth. Ever try to find working RPM's for the latest PHP release for RH 7.3? After 3 hours of searching, I gave up and installed FreeBSD 4.8.
As a consultant, I was seeing Linux having a huge push onto corperate desktops by 2006. Especially in Europe and SE Asia. RH's choice to end the biggest brand in NA Linux was a major blow for the Linux adoptation in the US. Now with SuSE in the hands of a North American Company I wonder how much that will impeed their sucess. Part of SuSE's appeal in Europe, I studied in Germany for a year in a college that had 2 SuSE labs, and 1 Windows lab, I noticed how students were learning how to use Linux. Also, as the EU emerges as an economic giant, there was emerging this, "Use EU products" ideal going on and SuSE provided that ablity. It was a German product made in the EU that could give the Europeans a major leg up in providing leading edge software and technology to the rest of the world as the Anti-AMerican back-lash continues to grow.
Now I am not sure what direction things will go. Most people, including myself, are taking a wait and see additude with Novell. Its not clear if Novell is aiming for the Enterprise level, where they are already experts at delivering great enterprise software like eDirectory, or if they will continue the Desktop line. I am still waiting for Novell to make their Linux strategy clear. If they decide to push Linux into corperate desktops, then I beleive that will help to increase the adoptation of Linux in the business market. If not, it will set back Linux on the desktop at least another three to five years.
I had three potential clients looking at switching their desktops to Linux. These had 20 - 40 employees using computers. With one it was time to replace their AS/400 server and Desktops. Linux looked to be the way to go, but with the Linux limbo, we are looking again. They love IBM products and were going to go IBM eServers with RH Linux. However, this move has made them unwilling to trust RH. They see it has RH is either having business, ie cash flow, problems or "Well they did this, what is to keep them from being like M$ and say that six month later we'll have to use something else?". The other client decided to ditch Linux completely and all their Linux boxes will be replaced with 2k3 servers by Jan and all new Dell desktops.
I know that I can not professionally recommend Red Hat Linux because I no longer trust them and the reputation blow I have taken has caused some personal Angst. In fact, this was the final blow for me and Linux for most applications. Those needing a kiosk solution I will recommend the linux-based FirecaseOS and needing a flexiable embedded OS will get the nod to look at Linux, but I am now recommending FreeBSD for Servers and Apple Macintosh OS X for Unix desktops.
Re:No thanks Redhat (Score:2)
I've had several people ask me if I knew of any good Linux solutions for Kiosks, and I've had to tell them I don't, so this sounded like something to look into. However, I can't find anything about FirecaseOS with a cursory few searches online. Does FirecaseOS have a homepage, another name, anything I'm missing about it?
Re:No thanks Redhat (Score:2)
Re:No thanks Redhat (Score:2)
Re:No thanks Redhat (Score:2)
We had one client that ran internet and media Kiosks. He had one competitor in this area. We switched him over to the Linux Based Firecast OS for kiosks and digital signage. It worked great for him and saw his service calls drop by some 70%. His competitor in the area was running software on top of Win 2k. By using the Linux only model, our client's software cost were $350 less per unit and the savings on maintaince allowed our client to under cut his competition by about 25%. His competor f
Re:No thanks Redhat (Score:2)
I guess you just have no clue what a service-level agreement is, do you? When RedHat sells you that software, they formally promise you that they WILL support it for 5 years.
In this case, since it's based off RHEL, supporting the academic versions is absolutely free for them, since they're already doing it for their core customers.
I'd like to
The Martian Chronicles qoute comes to mind (Score:2)
(for those that don't know, a Martain gave a human the deed to half of Mars. That quote is what the human said after the Martain left)
Discounts... what "services" do you really get (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see how/why its beneficial to sell Linux educational discounts for their desktop distro when I can get it for free from the 'Net or for that matter get a different distro for free.
OTOH, I'm using Windows XP Pro right now. I purchased it through my university's bookstore for about 50% off (it was $120 Can if I recall). Its was a great deal and I took advantage of it.
Now why cant they do that for the consumer (Score:2)
How nice for them. (Score:2)
I keep seeing folks say there is no free Redhat... (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, what Redhat has done is forked their distribution, providing what they call 'Redhat Enterprise' as a 'stable' fully supported (and thus with a dollar cost associated with it) distribution targeted at businesses, and 'Fedora' [redhat.com], a 'development' platform for use by open source contributors and linux enthusiasts (a free downloadable distribution). Items that Redhat sees as valuable for the 'Enterprise' will be rolled from Fedora into the Redhat Enterprise product.
Redhat is pushing their 'Enterprise' product as being gold-plated and stable for businesses, and by definition, conversely that 'Fedora' is a toy. That is probably not very accurate an assumption - and serves to put more money in Red Hat's bank account more than anything else. Of course, the money will be coming from businesses - so who cares?
Currently I am running Redhat 8.1 and Slackware on my machines. I am seriously considering going 100% Slackware if Fedora turns into a seriously uncompatable fork - compared to other stable distributions. On the other hand, Fedora might free developers to build some really neat things into the distribution for desktop home users - such as industrial strength WineX out of the box for Gamers etc... It might just be the shot in the arm that linux on the desktop needs to gain momentum. I guess what I am saying is 'we shall see'.
Re:I keep seeing folks say there is no free Redhat (Score:2)
I am running Fedora and wanted XFCE4. But because It's so new there were only Redhat 9 RPM's available. so I downloaded all 24 rpm's into a directory and did 'rpm -Uvh *'. They all worked without a hitch, I've been running it for a week or so. It appears that it will be the same as a new point release. Some stuff breaks, most of it still works.
Re:I keep seeing folks say there is no free Redhat (Score:2)
Sorry I'm not perfect, unlike you.
Re:I keep seeing folks say there is no free Redhat (Score:2)
Calm down, people. (Score:5, Insightful)
SuSE is the best n00b distro I know. They've got dead tree docs included that make up for almost an entire Linux library, their support is fair, square and actually has a clue and their YaST install procedure rocks. You get a stack of CDs and a DVD (with all the stuff on that again, so you can easyly hand out a copy and keep another).
And, for a distro-look customized appearance, their desktop is way cool too.
THAT's what distros are all about. And THATs precisely what you get a discount on if you're a poor student looking into the OSS world. If that's still to much, fair enough. Go download the distro, copy it from a friend (legal that is, of course) or switch to debian, gentoo or whatever. But then you won't have that stack of books and no hotline keycode either. Of course.
RTFA!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Our univ. is on RH 9.0 now, and they use the free Pink Tie CD's. After the reports of Fedora's instability, the SysAdmins have kind of 'rebelled' and are asking for RH WS for the systems they admin. This agreement for $2,500 makes perfect sense in this scenario. The Uni already has substantial support people, and are going to require RH resources very very infrequently.
So RTFA before you assume the RH solution is going to be more expensive...
Great timing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple of days ago, Slashdot announces an interview with the CEO of Red Hat. I ask, more or less, "Why the hell don't you have educational discounts?" The question goes to +5, which presumably means it gets forwarded to CEO Szulik. Other posters from educational institutions follow-up my post, to the effect that they are already planning to abandon Red Hat rather than eat the steep price hike to Red Hat Enterprise.
And now, Red Hat has educational discounts.
Hmm, Mandrake is free for Everyone . . . (Score:2)
Kind of makes you want to become a member [mandrakeclub.com].
don't bother (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than financing RedHat and SuSE through purchase of their software, help with a true community effort: Debian. Take over management of a package, host a mirror site, write some documentation, etc. That way, Linux will remain free not just in theory but in practice.
Re:don't bother (Score:2)
"Don't pay for Linux services, get your Linux for free and give up your own time and effort." It should almost go without saying that that isn't going to work for everyone.
Re:don't bother (Score:2)
Sounds like bollocks to me. Please support this assertion. Why would paying Red Hat for support lock you in to them in future?
It's about time! (Score:2, Insightful)
The Linux bigwigs really ought to be paying attention to schools. I'm glad RH and SuSE are finally making an effort.
It's been said before (and I'll say it again) that OSS is a perfect fit for schools. No licensing worries/overhead, ability to learn about and solve one's own problems, and freedom galore.
What's been holding Linux back in schools, however, is mainstream educational software. I'm studying to be a high school teacher and, somehow, learning HyperStudio is a "must". HyperStudio is designed for
Stop Whining. (Score:4, Insightful)
What did you expect, Redhat paying you to use their dist?
Also it IS still free, you can D/L and use it but you have to do it yourself. The only thing missing is the ready made isos. You be lazy?
I for one think it make perfect sense to pay for packaging and support. Pay someone to do it or do it yourself.
If this is such a hard thing to accept then by all means leech on someone like debian, mandrake, whatever and tuck your common sense away in some dusty closet until they goes tits up out of funds.
If we want linux to be around kicking we need to give something back. Whining and leeching and not doing anything is just heartaking to watch. Pay back either by code or anything and stop this piggybacking. Stop asking what linux/RMS/RedHat does for linux and ask yourself: "what the fuck have i done for linux?".
If RH sucks you can build your own dist out of their rpms even, just stop this whining.
Damn, its like a kindergarten here sometimes.
College Linux (Score:2)
Discounted Linux (Score:2)
Nice (Score:2)
-Erwos
Red Hat's $99 Pro. Workstation also fills void! (Score:2, Informative)
However, a Google cache of the page [216.239.41.104] shows the relationship of Professional Workstation to the rest of the RHEL line.
The Red Hat Professional Workstation isn't available online, or through Red Hat, but through a few selected retail channels. Buy.com has it for $82.57 [buy.com], which
THANK YOU!!! (Score:2)
I think so (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if they had charged maybe 75 bucks instead of 300 bucks and included X hours of phone support, X hours of over-the-internet support, and 2 years of automatic patching that would be fairly cool, especially for people who are paying MS 300 bucks every 2 years for a shit OS and no support. But 300 dollars and 1 year of support? They could do better.
Re:Evaluation (Score:2)
Can you elaborate on this? I'm not aware of any compatibility issues between RH9 and Cisco routers. Frankly, I'm wondering how there could possibly be issues.
-1 Troll (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Evaluation (Score:2, Insightful)
Not that I like Windows or it's "networking", but it sounds like your sysadms are morons.
If you're talking about VPN compatibility with RH9, FreeS/WAN IPSec works beautifully. I wouldn't waste the effort on the SSL VPN, it's such a hit to have a protocol stack like this: IP-TCP-SSL-PPP-TCP You'll find the Cisco IPSe
Re:But... (Score:2)
Shhh!
You'll ruin their business model!
Re:But... (Score:2)
Peter: I'll take it! Hello, China? I have something I think you want, but it'll cost you. That's right, all the tea.
Re:About time, I hope there are no per cpu charges (Score:2)