While it may appear that Red Hat's decision to drop those of us in the gap was an oversight, I am sure that management there gave it great thought. Our town went thru almost a transformation with masses of mergers and businesses changing the way they do business. In many cases, I had a relationship with someone in management or someone who did. In each case the management of those businesses weighed the affect it would have on their customer base. Many times I heard where the business expected to lose 15% of their business, or 25% of their customers or 10% of their profits due to the changes. But they also estimated a time of recovery and a level of growth over a 5 year period that would put them in a much better market position then compared to what they would have if they didn't make the changes. I don't think Red Hat made this decision without considering both the costs and the benefits. They would have to be total idiots to realize that they left this gap (in which I reside). Just like some of the decisions made by local businesses here, Red Hat will most probably lose me as a customer, not in protest or in anger, but because it would be a bad business decision for me to stick with them at this time. Many of you have been loyal to Red Hat and yet you are now without. But where should Red Hat place their focus? If more than 50% of their customer base provides less than 50% of their income, they should turn their attention towards the market of the lesser percent customer base and larger percent income (probably profit is a better word here.) I have no doubt that is what they have done. Those of us Gap-ites just need to seek an alternative solution to our problems. It's not like we have a lot of choice here. Note to Peter Boy: Sorry, this started out as a friendly comment to the remark about "the gap does really existst" and it turned into a vent. Don't take it personal or be upset. Thanks, Buck -----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-admin@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:fedora-list-admin@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Boy Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 3:21 AM To: fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Fedora and the System Administrator Am Fre, 2003-10-03 um 03.43 schrieb Bill Anderson: > On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 19:34, Miguel M wrote: > > Erik Williamson wrote 2003-10-02 > > > > >I inquired about what would happen if one was to (after one year) > > >simply > > >get the SRPMS that are released as updates, compile and redistribute to > > >existing machines... but that's a no-no. > > > > And what would happen if (after one year) one downloads > > the update SRPMS to existing machines and compiles independently the > > same packages in everyone of them? I'm a little bit puzzled about that long lasting discussion here. The GPL is intended to protect freedom of information about software and software technologies, it is intended to protect free access to those technologies. But the GPL is not intended to protect someone, who lets others work hard and spend a lot of money (here: RH's enterprise version), picking up that work for his own profit only. The GPL may not forbid such an behaviour (in favour to protect freedom) but it's not the intended course of action in general. And that discussion will not resolve the causes for this discussion. Nobody would discuss recompiling and redistribution of the RHEL SRPMS to that extent if there wouldn't be that gap between Fedora and the enterprise line (in terms of period of time for maintenance, stability and time) which lets small and medium businisses staying in the dust (or at least they feel so). Maybe the discussion is needed to convince people at Red Hat that the gap does really existst. Peter > > It doesn't matter either way. The SRPMS are covered by the GPL. The > SRPMS are available on the ftpsite. The RHN/Service you pay for is > support service and access to *binaries* of the updates. There is > nothing RH can do if you download a SRPM of a GPLed program and then > put it on other machines, built or not. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
