Monday, March 16, 2009

Oracle urges Red Hat to give away its product

Red Hat is a symbol of the open source business model. I have proudly installed Red Hat Linux on several servers at work. I have successfully passed the RHCT exam and I will be taking the RHCE exam this coming June, paid by my employer.

Though after reading the article below maybe it is about time Red Hat changes its policy on downloading its enterprise product. After all Oracle allows you to download their product for free and several other companies do the same. Why shouldn't Red Hat an Open Source company do the same?

Red Hat can increase its user base by allowing users to download their enterprise version of Linux. In addition when these users see the value of Red Hat in their business they will immediately purchase a subscription.

Please read: Oracle Urges Red Hat Linux to give away its product

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

paying subscription is not free, it is like renting a product. Why would you want to rent a product if you want it for free. You contradict yourself from previous post about microsoft licensing and now you are a proponent of Red Hat subscription.

CoolBreezeOne said...

I appreciate your time in commenting on my post. I don't believe that I am contradicting myself. I have reviewed all 24 posts on this blog in case I did say something I did not mean. The only post I have said anything about Microsoft License 6 was Microsoft's Cold War Against Linux. When Microsoft first introduced License 6 to companies it was considered another Microsoft lock-in tactic. Microsoft already locked you into their Office suite, Server Operating system, Desktop Operating system and now License 6. License 6 was first introduced with the notion that this was going to be Microsoft's only license. The perpetual license model was going to be extinct. Companies immediately thought about the impact on their business if Microsoft could lock them into a license which could basically stop them from using their software and hardware until they renewed. As for consumers this meant that they would have to also renew their license at home and pay Microsoft to keep on computing. It was a terrifying time as Microsoft's power appear to be limitless. Most companies decided not to get into License 6 and Microsoft had to revise the License so that it appeared as if they were not being locked in. As you know many people don't trust Microsoft mostly because of their past borderline illegal practices.

As for Red Hat Linux's subscription service, why trust them? What happens if Red Hat tries to lock a company into their technology? You have choice. You can go with Novell and pay their subscription fee. You can download a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux called CentOS with free software and security update except it will be off by a week. You can download their community distribution for free except you only get a years worth of updates. And, finally you can install any of the popular free Linux distribution available like Ubuntu server for free. Linux is not own by any company and therefore can't be enforced like Microsoft proprietary software. So the end users win and the Linux companies win. This is not the case with Microsoft. You need to keep the company in check at all times. If it becomes to powerful you will be at a huge disadvantage when you can't make the yearly payments.

CoolBreezeOne said...

I believe I may have missed the underlining question, "Why would you want to rent a product if you want it for free?"

As a home user or small company you can get Linux for free. You don't need Red Hat Enterprise Linux you can choose Ubuntu or CentOS. They will upgrade and secure your server for free. Individuals and small companies don't need the assurance a large company is looking for. So if the server goes down it may not be a revenue breaker.

As for big companies that have millions of users connecting to their servers. You need to have support (Basic, Premium, Platinum) added to your Operating System of choice. In addition, certification and training for your employees is a must. As they must be able to resolve problems quickly. Did I mention that your OS must be blessed by your Hardware vendor (Dell, IBM, HP). All of this put together for large companies means that they need to pay a subscription for Red Hat or by a license from Microsoft.

Anonymous said...

That's where you are not correct a small business need all the revenue you can get. A down server in a small business mean lost revenue in email, web presence online transaction.


Only retail store or vendor partner require certification. Not every company require certification, I know that financial corporation does not require certification. Are you require to be certified where you work?

CoolBreezeOne said...

I was not required to be certified where I worked but I do have certification as a CCNA Instructor and RHCT. I believe that most companies today are looking for certification as a way to pick the best out of a group of excellent candidates.

In my previous post I did not mean that the employees were certified but that the company would pay for certification or training. This can make you a more valuable employee in the eyes of your company.

As for the small company losing a server sure it may have an effect in revenue. However, I feel that small companies that are not working directly online like a doctor's office or tax preparer can find manual ways of doing things until they are up and running. Depending on how busy they are.