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CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

lists.centos.org

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Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#41

Post by pilom »

codezero wrote: post #34
redhatstory wrote: post #23

In the beginning, there was Red Hat Linux[1]. It was sold in boxes at stores such as CompUSA (remember?) but was also available for free download from Red Hat. Then, Red Hat decided they could make more money by spinning off Red Hat Linux into a separate enterprise-only product called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which they declined to make available for free in a ready-to-install binary form. Fedora[2] was also…

I wonder if they are also doing this so they can get an idea of who the user base of CentOS is and also try to convert them to paying customers.

My guess is they are feeling the hit from Oracle Linux's business model and wanted the flexibility to compete directly.

Oracle Linux's distribution model is that you can take CentOS, change a couple repositories and make it Oracle Linux. Then if you want support, you can pay for it. With Red Hat, RHEL and CentOS before today were separate products with separate release schedules and separate userbases. This move gives Red Hat the opportunity to act more like Oracle Linux if they choose to.

Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#43

Post by codezero »

pilom wrote: post #41
codezero wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they are also doing this so they can get an idea of who the user base of CentOS is and also try to convert them to paying customers.

My guess is they are feeling the hit from Oracle Linux's business model and wanted the flexibility to compete directly. Oracle Linux's distribution model is that you can take CentOS, change a couple repositories and make it Oracle Linux. Then if you want support, you can pay for it. With Red Hat, RHEL and CentOS before today were separate products with separate release schedules and separate userbases. This move give…

Oh, wow, I didn't even know that. This sounds much more likely. Thanks!

Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#44

Post by justincormack »

pilom wrote: post #41
codezero wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they are also doing this so they can get an idea of who the user base of CentOS is and also try to convert them to paying customers.

My guess is they are feeling the hit from Oracle Linux's business model and wanted the flexibility to compete directly. Oracle Linux's distribution model is that you can take CentOS, change a couple repositories and make it Oracle Linux. Then if you want support, you can pay for it. With Red Hat, RHEL and CentOS before today were separate products with separate release schedules and separate userbases. This move give…

Surely no one uses Oracle Linux unless they are running Oracle?

Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#45

Post by jlawer »

pyre wrote: post #27
McGlockenshire wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additional useful highlights: > - Some of us now work for Red Hat, but not RHEL. > - Red Hat is offering to sponsor some of the buildsystem and initial content delivery resources > - Because we are now able to work with the Red Hat legal teams, some of the contraints that resulted in efforts like CentOS-QA being behind closed doors, now go away and we hope to have the entire build, test, and delivery chain open to an…

Why would the build, test, and delivery chain be subject to Red Hat's legal team? Did the process to remove Red Hat's marks from their GPL'd source trigger trademark issues?

I think the problem is that if they missed a trademark then CentOS was distributing Redhat's Trademarks putting them in a sticky legal position.

Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#47

Post by 1angdon »

lvillani wrote: post #7

I really wish that, when RHEL/CentOS branches from Fedora to make a new release, they would also keep and provide a snapshot of Fedora's repository at that time, just like what Ubuntu does when they sync with Debian Sid (i.e.: packages in 'main' and 'restricted' repos are supported, all other packages in the Debian archive are imported and made available in 'universe' and 'multiverse' repository for your convenience)…

OT: Software Collections lets you get Python 2.7 and even 3.3 on RHEL and CentOS 6 :)

Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#48

Post by bmelton »

justincormack wrote: post #44
pilom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is they are feeling the hit from Oracle Linux's business model and wanted the flexibility to compete directly. Oracle Linux's distribution model is that you can take CentOS, change a couple repositories and make it Oracle Linux. Then if you want support, you can pay for it. With Red Hat, RHEL and CentOS before today were separate products with separate release schedules and separate userbases. This move give…

Surely no one uses Oracle Linux unless they are running Oracle?

It' almost certainly designed to take advantage of enterprise customers that are already paying Oracle support dollars in some fashion or other, with the slightly advantageous notion of being able to collapse another support provider.

Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#49

Post by this_user »

johnchristopher wrote: post #46

What would the consequences/benefits be for the Fedora project ?

RHEL and CentOS are aimed towards enterprise customers, Fedora is for individual users. I don't think there's any kind of real competition or even overlap between CentOS and Fedora. In addition, Fedora is basically a community project (although led by RH). It seems unlikely that RH would be able to shut down or materially alter the Fedora project even if the wanted to. In the worst case scenario the community could just branch the code and form a new organisation to lead its development.

Re: CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

#50

Post by cookiecaper »

justinmk wrote: post #39
redhatstory wrote: post #23

In the beginning, there was Red Hat Linux[1]. It was sold in boxes at stores such as CompUSA (remember?) but was also available for free download from Red Hat. Then, Red Hat decided they could make more money by spinning off Red Hat Linux into a separate enterprise-only product called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which they declined to make available for free in a ready-to-install binary form. Fedora[2] was also…

Red Hat is one of the most prolific single-entity contributors to open source in the history of open source. I find it really odd that some FOSS people regard Red Hat as some sort of evil corporation that should be the target of said FOSS people's flung shit. By the way, what did Firefox do to live down its IceWeasel[1] infamy? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat

The Firefox trademark dispute is not the same thing. Red Hat was attempting to keep their product from the open-source homebrew market -- they wanted to charge money for their software, and did this as far as the license would allow. Red Hat was as hostile as legally permissible to anyone trying to circumvent this, like CentOS.

Mozilla simply claimed that the Firefox trademark cannot be applied to any codebase that Mozilla, the trademark owner, hadn't officially sanctioned. They began to actively prosecute those cases because some people were modifying the Firefox source to contain malicious code and calling it "Firefox", misappropriating Mozilla's trademark. Because Debian issues a version of Firefox that contains unofficial patches, they cannot legally call their distribution "Firefox", since Mozilla hasn't officially blessed that exact codebase.

tl;dr Red Hat was trying to make money from users, and Mozilla wasn't

Disclaimer: I personally fully support making money from users and reject freedom 2 as a true fundamental of "free-as-in-freedom software". I'm just explaining why some people in FOSS dislike Red Hat, as it pertains to the CentOS backstory, and why nobody cares about Mozilla's brief trademark dispute with Debian.

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