[KLUG Members] Redhat enterprise support

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> What are list members experience about Red Hat Enterprise Linux support and
> services? 

I've never used RHEL, or their related support services.  YEARS ago I
did try calling their commercials support for an issue; and was not
impressed.

> It is worth paying huge amount of money for support? 

There is only one company worth paying support fees to: I.B.M.  

Everyone else, in my experience, is a bunch of hapless wankers.

> After reading
> article on lwn about Enterprise Linux: is it broken?
> (http://lwn.net/Articles/109527/)

You mean

"The Free Software developers created this software to empower everyone,
and for everyone to share. But today's Enterprise Linux is a lock-in
play, designed to draw the customer into expensive subscriptions and
single-vendor service. Customers are made to agree not to pass service
bulletins on to others. While this is within the letter of the licenses
that we crafted for our software, it's outside of their spirit."

Total crap.  It makes perfect sense to pay for a 'blessed' copy of an OS
for running a critical and extremely complex package like Oracle, DB2,
or SAP.  And having someone test every update and package release to
make sure it doesn't break certified applications (assuming you are
running a certified application) just makes good sense.  You aren't
paying for the free software, you're pating for (hopefully) an extensive
battery of test that probably consumed LOTS of someone's man hours vs.
lots of your own man hours.

"One can claim that these customers are paying premium amounts for the
Red Hat brand name."

Pphhhfffft.  Redhat's brand name isn't worth a shoe box of sand in the
enterprise market;  a promise that your application will run without
crapping every six hours is, however, worth quite allot.

"The per-CPU nature of RHEL subscriptions irks some people in the
community."

Lordy.  The very existance of RedHat irks some people in the community.
The Stallman's of the word are very easily irked; and they irk loudly.

"Debian's release cycle may be slow"

I just can't pass this one up,  "slow"?  How about, no, not 'glacial',
but, maybe, 'tectonic'?  Debian stable might contain the now current
version of OpenLDAP about the time the ice caps have completed their
melting.

"Fedora offers many of the features of RHEL without the price tag or the
wait"

What?!  Seriously, this guy should write for "Star Trek: Enterprise".  I
mean, where did this come from?  Fedora probably has MORE features than
RHEL,  RHEL isn't about 'features'.  But what knuckle ball is going to
run his enterprise instance of DB2 on Fedora Core?  One that will
probably be looking for a job soon.

"Companies like Progeny and Lineox, and projects like Fedora Legacy
offer support that picks up where the original distributor leaves off"

Define "support", please.  Support means XYZ doesn't work, with ABC
error messages,  pick up phone at 2:17am (local time), dial number, nice
young lady answers the phone (probably with a heavy accent), I state
"XYZ doesn't work, with ABC error messages",  I hear the click click of
fast fingers on keyboard,  perhaps someone else gets conferenced in,
more click click,  and young lady says "Ah, yes, you need to install
IPR#3647293; do you know how to install an IPR?",  I say "Yes, maam", I
hang up the phone, I download and install patch, and XYZ suddenly works
- I drink a caffinated toast to the young lady someone in the world
(probably somewhere with more sun and less ice) and then go back to what
I was doing.  That is support, and clearly NOT what this guy is talking
about.  Lets not equivocate terms, support is more than being able to
download package updates - whoop de do about that, I can build my own
RPMs if I want to.

"Enterprise subscriptions have helped to bring Linux into new situations
and fund the further development of free software, all without violating
any licenses or restricting anybody's choices."

Yep

"It is not at all clear that the community would be better off if the
enterprise products did not exist"

Or it could just would just dry up and wither, since the corporate
suger-daddies would suddenly have nothing to gain by participting.

> I wonder whitebox Linux initiatives worth following.

Not certain what you mean.

> Is it true that numbers of Red Hat supports call are found on popular Linux
> news group?

Not certain wat you mean.