Red Hat at 30: Biggest Linux company of them all still pushing to become cloud power When you turn 30, you're not a kid anymore. For some of us, 30 is a traumatic birthday. For Red Hat, which turned on March 27, it was a cause for celebration. From a business that got started in one of its co-founder's wife's sewing room, it became the first billion-dollar pure-play open-source company and then the engine …
"The change also upset many users who felt Red Hat was abandoning its original customers. However, enterprise clients had a different perspective."
The decision to charge an annual subscription per CPU core resulted in the start of Scientific Linux, which was fun while it lasted. The story of all that is out on the Web somewhere. (PUIAS/Springdale linux was already there)
Irony in view of one of the founder's appreciation of supercomputers running Linux.
Well good luck to them. I think Red Hat, of all companies, will recognize the customer's right to decide for himself, and not foist a cloud environment on people who have no use for it.
We're talking Linux here. I hope that that means that customers are intelligent enough to not go for cloud simply because everyone else is.
Then again, we're also talking human beings - worse, managers - so I'll accept that I might be disappointed.
It would be nice if the article was written by someone who actually knew what they were writing about.
That 0.02% share of Widlfly comes from a site that compares a Java application server to HTTP servers like Nginx and Apache HTTPD. Like comparing apples to oranges.
Just copy'n'pasting whatever comes first on googling, eh?
Indeed. It was a weird reselling chain.
Red Hat got its Motif licenses from Metro Link which in turn got their license from OSF. So what was odd was that for updates, you had to go directly to Metro Link even if purchased from Red Hat.
Its amazing that we can take Motif so forgranted these days. We just have instant access to it for free and now no-one wants it because it is "old". It was a massive pain in the butt to get hold of it back in the day when it was desirable.
.....in 1999 I got REALLY pi**ed off with M$. I bought Red Hat Retail 5.2.
....and I've been using RH6.0, RH7.0, RH8.0, RH9.0 (fantastic)....and Fedora 5 till Fedora 37.
Pity about GNOME........hate it.......XFCE hits the spot!
So maybe commentards may not like RH or IBM........but RH or IBM are MUCH better than the latest from Redmond, WA.
Just saying!
My first Linux distro was Redhat 4. It looked interesting, but not really ready to be a daily driver. Mandrake a few years later was the first one I managed to do actual things with.
These days, I mostly use FreeBSD, but when I use Linux, it tends to be either Debian stable or Linux Mint.
> Always seemed rather unfriendly, and an attitude of 'This is the way it's done'.
If by that you mean when it comes to package selection I guess it comes from Red Hat's business model, they sell support, so if there are 20 packages that more or less do the same thing it's cheaper to only support 1 or 2 otherwise you've got to train your staff to know all of them. This is different to the Debian community model where if there is an active community about a package then it is OK to include since it doesn't cost anyone anything.
RedHat have a arrogance to them and this facade of OpenSource makes them no better than the other large tech companies working in the OpenSource space for profit.
Take OpenShift - they took Kubernetes wrapped it in forked OSS software (istio etc.) made it demonstrably worse by not tracking upstream or contributing back making the move from OS 3.x > 4.x more complicated then just switching distros. This pig headedness and not playing nice by actuall contributed them back lost them a lot of business.
Also the per core licensing that requires licensing machines being deployed in DC's stinks of Microsoft play here.
Don't get me wrong they have driven some really important linux projects but they are not the warm fuzzy opensource bastions the 'Merican linux podcasters like to tout, because USA USA.
Love it or hate it, a support model is necessary in some sectors in order to be able to carry out certain lines of work. Shifting licensing to per-core wasn't strictly necessary to have a support model in place, however; and the alternatives to RedHat if they are awake could easily steal market by offering relevant support at a per instance level.
Relying on bedroom programmers and community contributions is all well and good, but sometimes you need a legal entity to whip in response to something not behaving as it should.
There is no reason any other distro could not be offered with such services, though few do despite the obvious funding opportunity.
From above--
“I'm not sure why you continue to spout the RH company line on this.”
Because that’s how he “writes”, and has always written, articles.
Also from above--
“It would be nice if the article was written by someone who actually knew what they were writing about....Just copy'n'pasting whatever comes first on googling, eh?"
Because that’s how he “writes”, and has always...never mind
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We're supposed to believe anything from someone who, many years ago when he was a ZDNET "feature writer" (⁈) and ZDNET's "LINUX EXPERT", no less, made the outrageous claim that the "...absolute, best laptop EVER..." is a Chromebook.A CHROMEBOOK! !
This, folks, is from a self-professed--with a lot of help from ZDNET-- "Linux Expert" who could never, and I do mean NEVER, explain (in the days way before the UEFI nonsense) how to perform a simple install of a Linux distribution, from a thumb-drive, on a Windows machine. Proof is available, Nichols; the internet has a very good and very long memory.
It's way, way past time to move on, El Register, and try and retrieve what credibility you can salvage, if that’s at all possible when continuing to use use questionable word-mills.
Start by hiring writers who actually know something. And HAVE known something for years, and have not been--and are not--merely ‘skating’ along.
Oh, I almost forgot, Nichols:---how are you and Red Hat getting along when running Red Hat on your absolutely best-of-all-time, EVER, laptop: the Chromebook.
How does your favorite, best-laptop-of-all-time work when running Red Hat, hmmm?
Inquiring minds want to know. We're all waiting for an answer, but if your history at ZDNET is any metric, we'll be waiting a very long time.
Well...
Not exactly RedHat Linux but the next best thing, Alma Linux. Built from the RHEL Sources so close enough.
I have it running on a 2015 15in MacBook Pro. The only issue I had OOTB was with the trackpad. A bit of tweaking with the Gnome GUI and it is fine. OTOH, XFCE works properly OOTB...
I also have it running on a 2012 Mac Mini. This runs my website. Again no issues.
TBH, If I had to use a cloud service, I'd use RH/IBM rather than Google (slurp central), Microsoft (No thanks) or Amazon (Evil Empire).
The number of hack attacks my website gets from AWS hosted services (and AWS seem very reluctant to do anything to stop them) and MS Azure is crazy. Avoid at all costs.
Haven't make up my mind, yet, between AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux.They both, from all reports, appear to be extremely good.
Rocky Linux has the edge, in my book, though, because it is developed and maintained by the same, exact person--or group (Rocky McGaugh was one of the original group)-- responsible for CentOS; while AlmaLinux was, and is, developed and maintained by a corporation. Having a corporation behind a major application/distribution is precisely what has a lot of people on edge regarding Red Hat--as well as a lot of other applications.
No matter what IBM says--and most certainly, no matter what the (now) 'Red Hat shell' says, Red Hat--and, in particular, all the 'machinations-to-come'--will never result in the CentOS as you used to know it..
...think I've just convinced myself to go with the original creators of CentOS--and Rocky Linux...
This post has been deleted by its author
I have "proper" Red Hat around to check how it goes. A couple of times they've broken their update process - broken certificates, DNF that didn't. At least once they reverted the certificate without telling anybody particularly.
One RHEL release had a bug where you couldn't complete the initial install without contacting subscription servers which was impossible in the installer itself for that point release. I could demonstrate that it
was broken because the corresponding CentOS installed perfectly. As someone on self-support, I had the devil's own job actually reporting that one and being taken seriously
Quality control just isn't quite there even when the amount of covered software is small and updates (relatively) infrequent.
Just my €0.02
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