Austin Isler wrote:
Why drop the the RHL line if you just turn around and have products like RHPW. RHL became a familiar line, and I think it would have just been better to implement the features of RHPW into RHL and package it as that. (IMO)
Primarily because general end-users tend to want a very different sort of distribution than corporate users.
End users want an rpm for the latest stable KDE/postfix/whatever ready for download ASAP (See this list for plenty of examples) -and- serious bugs and security issues addressed quickly.
Corporate users want/need a more consistant and stable platform with bug and security fixes backported in, but no major disruptions or version changes. Software vendors in particular need to have a stable 'target platform' (for both servers and client systems) to compile and test their software on. Both want any updates to be carefully tested to ensure that currently deployed software continues to work.
It's nearly impossible to get ISV certifications on an ever-changing platform, which Fedora needs to be to satisfy many of us. This is the inherent dichotomy leading to the split of RHEL from Fedora and their decision to change the name and more clearly differentiate the two.
See also:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhelorfedora/
Where they describe the differences perhaps more eloquently than I can.
Disclaimer: My theories and opinions are completely my own.
