On Wed, 2003-08-27 at 05:27, William Hooper wrote: > If you are violating the license, you don't get support. If you don't get > support one has to wonder why you aren't using RHLP... Well, for similar reasons that ISVs like RHEL: less volatility. A stable platform is a boon for sysadmin support, too. Big enterprises are on the verge (or slightly over the verge) of deploying Linux on the desktop in a big way. The reasons for this are complex, but they simplify down to the fact that the cost savings of doing so are starting to outweigh the costs of the conversion. Part of the calculation is the relative cost of licenses vs Windows. Another part is the cost of support of thousands of Linux desktops vs Windows. With Red Hat's Enterprise strategy, the no-cost license is coupled with the most volatile and least supported alternative. While this is understandable from Red Hat's perspective, it makes it impossible to hit the sweet spot on large scale Linux desktop deployments. I have one Fortune 1000 client who is wrestling with this issue. They are rolling their own Red Hat based distro, and paying the price of chasing the consumer OS, while looking over their shoulder at the end-of-life dates for 7.x, 8 and 9. They have 1400 desktops rolled out, in a potential market of 16,000. I think Red Hat should drop license fees for their WS product. The window of opportunity is open for Linux on the desktop, due to the maturation of the technology, Microsoft's gouging on licenses, and the lack of compelling new technology upon which they can piggyback new proprietary lock-in strategies. This window will close as soon as something truly new shows up. Microsoft will implement it stuffed full of barbed hooks. If they still have 95% desktop share at that point, the game will be over, for this round at least. -- Howard Owen "Even if you are on the right EGBOK Consultants track, you'll get run over if you hbo@xxxxxxxxx +1-650-339-5733 just sit there." - Will Rogers
