I'm a home user of CentOS (a desktop and a laptop) because I like the
quality of the product and I love the cost. I'm a great believer in
FOSS.
That being said, I know that some of you use CentOS for production
servers and (perhaps?) desktops as well. I've read at leat one comment
like "I have 20 CentOS servers."
My employer is a firm believer in RHEL - license costs are just a
business decision.
I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial
endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support,
etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users
are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.
What do you think?
--
Collins
When I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them,
it was the start of a new Arab world.... The Berlin Wall has fallen.
- Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt
Collins Richey wrote:> I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial > endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, > etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users > are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.Our reason is basically that we only use a very small part of the RHEL distribution. Pretty much the only reason we use CentOS/RHEL is for the kernel stability. We strip down the OS beyond even the "minimal" installation. Then we install our own RPMs on top of it. If RH were ever to offer a stripped down RHEL (for a reduced price), we would be more than willing to pay for that. We just can't justify the current price of RHEL when we use so little of it.
You're just asking to start a flame, aren't you? :) Personally, I run CentOS at home cause I can't afford a RHEL license. At work we use a mix or RHEL & CentOS. RHEL goes on all productions servers, CentOS goes on anything that's a test system. The 3 test systems are used to play with whatever we want to deploy, say we want to test XYZ product or try some new rules in iptables, we try it on the test system. But when it comes time to roll out XYZ product we buy a RHEL license and install it on one of the production servers. So basically, they want to pay for the (unused) support contracts that RedHat offers, but when it comes to test systems they don't want to pay for a license for those systems which aren't production. -- Matt Shields http://masnetworks.biz http://sexydates4u.com http://shieldslinux.com http://shieldsproductions.com On Apr 3, 2005 1:39 PM, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:> I'm a home user of CentOS (a desktop and a laptop) because I like the > quality of the product and I love the cost. I'm a great believer in > FOSS. > > That being said, I know that some of you use CentOS for production > servers and (perhaps?) desktops as well. I've read at leat one comment > like "I have 20 CentOS servers." > > My employer is a firm believer in RHEL - license costs are just a > business decision. > > I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial > endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, > etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users > are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work. > > What do you think? > > -- > Collins > When I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, > it was the start of a new Arab world.... The Berlin Wall has fallen. > - Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >
Collins Richey wrote:> My employer is a firm believer in RHEL - license costs are just a > business decision.As am I. Usually license costs are a business decision - in this case we have a perfectly legal and free alternative. Some people probably wouldn't be paying Red Hat even if CentOS didn't exist - they can choose other free Linux distributions. With that being said, some of my clients need Oracle and Novell software that requires them to use RHEL or SLES so it makes sense for them to purchase licenses and not go with CentOS. I don't think I'm off here by saying that if Red Hat decided they didn't want projects like CentOS to exist then that wouldn't imply an automatic, *drastic* increase in new RHEL subscriptions.> I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial > endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, > etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users > are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.Red Hat believes in the open source philosophy and thus offer their RHEL SRPMs to everyone - it's GPL software for the most part anyway. They would rather sell their support services. People who use CentOS want a free, open source operating system and our willing to support themselves rather than rely on commercial support. We help Red Hat isolate and fix bugs in their commercial offerings. I don't think either party is being selfish with this kind of symbiotic relationship in place.
On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 11:39 -0600, Collins Richey wrote:> I'm a home user of CentOS (a desktop and a laptop) because I like the > quality of the product and I love the cost. I'm a great believer in > FOSS. > > That being said, I know that some of you use CentOS for production > servers and (perhaps?) desktops as well. I've read at leat one comment > like "I have 20 CentOS servers." > > My employer is a firm believer in RHEL - license costs are just a > business decision. > > I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial > endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, > etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users > are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work. > > What do you think?---- I think asking this means that you have a lot to learn about GPL and various other F/OSS licenses and what distributions are. Red Hat contributes much to open source development but they have also come to being and fruition by their own exploitation (not meaning in a derogative way) of the open source software. Because it is open source, they are merely packaging that which is already available to them free of charge - restricted by the licenses of the software that they package. They are required to make the source code for their RHEL packages available in a manner that is prescribed by the various licensing restrictions of these packages and ultimately, they aren't really selling the software itself, but rather the support, maintenance, certification etc. for the software. Thus if you wish to accept characterizations of others regarding the usage of RHEL packaging that is your choice but it would seem that you are getting what you paid for with something like CentOS - you don't get support or certification...only the open source software which is available for free in so many other packaged distributions. Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does? Craig
On Sunday 03 April 2005 10:39 am, Collins Richey wrote:> I'm a home user of CentOS (a desktop and a laptop) because I like the > I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial > endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, > etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS > users are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.Ethics? There's no decision to be made. As others have pointed out, RedHat based their business on open source software and they continue to play by the open source rules. One of those rules is they give back to the community for anyone else to use for any reason, as long as _we_, those other users, abide by the rules as well. Community vs vendor support? That's a bit easier for us. In the years we've been using Red Hat Linux we've called Red Hat (the company) twice for support. One time they helped us; another time they said that help for that issue was beyond the scope of what they offered. And that's twice over many years, lots of systems and lots of versions (the first support request was for version 6.2, the second for 7.2). So it just made sense for us to use a community-supported alternative when it one became available that meets our specifications. Jeff -- Jeff Lasman, nobaloney.net, P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA 92517 US Professional Internet Services & Support / Consulting / Colocation Our blists address used on lists is for list email only Phone +1 951 324-9706, or see: "http://www.nobaloney.net/contactus.html"
Collins Richey wrote:> I would like to know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial > endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, > etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users > are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work.The major work is done mostly by community. Red Hat, or any other distribution, is built from free software that is developed and maintainted by many volunteers who are not affiliated (or paid by) Red Hat in any way. Yes, there are people paid by Red Hat who also contribute, but still, vast majority of work is done by community. What Red Hat sells is support. And really, there is nothing else they can sell you. So, I don't consider people using RHEL clones to be leaches. They are simply not buying part of the system that they don't need. Even with commercial software (Windoze, Oracle, etc), support is something you pay extra annually on top of what you pay for the software itself. If you want it, you pay for it. If you don't want it, you don't pay for it. And you know, consulting, support, training, and certifications is a big and profitable business on its own. Even Microsoft is probably making way more money on it, than on selling Windblows OS. You can make a very good money out of it, and if Red Hat as company is managed as it should be, than Red Hat doesn't need to worry about its financial future. Frankly, I don't really understand their business decision not to release RHEL distribution for free. Those who need support would buy support anyhow. Those who don't need support can choose some other just as good distribution anyhow. Somebody who started using some other distribution isn't going to buy support from Red Hat. Somebody who uses RHEL (clone), might decide to spend some extra $$$ for support/training/whatever. I don't consider Red Hat's bugzilla system to be part of "paid support". If I find a bug when using CentOS, that the bug exists in RHEL, and if I report it, fixing it will lead to better product for Red Hat's paying customers too. Happy customers = more referrals = more profit. Each time I stumble on non-trivial security related or data corruption bugs (as the bug in NFS system I recently reported) when using CentOS, I report it to Red Hat. Usually I'll mention in bug report that I stumbled on it when using CentOS (if I don't forget, happens sometimes). It is than on the Red Hat to decide if they are going to do something about it, or wait till one of paying customers is bitten by it. I haven't heard anybody being called a leach for downloading and installing Solaris 10 (which is free for commercial use too, for those of you who don't know it, and it is planned to go open source sometime this year) on his/hers Intel box, and not paying for Sun support (or buying Sun hardware). If Sun who actually did all development work themselves (and put way more money into making it) is not calling people "leaches", I would be very dissapointed to hear it from Red Hat who "only" (OK, it isn't as simple as "only", making a distribution is a big job on its own, but you get the point) packaged something that other people spent countless man-hours to make. -- Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca> Pollard Banknote Limited Systems Administrator 1499 Buffalo Place Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276 Winnipeg, MB R3T 1L7
Collins Richey wrote:>> endeavors justify the decsion - ethics, community vs. vendor support, >> etc., etc. I've heard many comments to the effect that we CentOS users >> are just leaches, since RedHat does the major work. I would like to >> know how those of you who use CentOS in commercial > >Collins, I'm sorry if I am unable to follow the question of ethics here. At what point did Red Hat's efforts in the open source community become magical and change the ethical environment Red Hat lives in for people downstream of Red Hat? Your question pre-supposes that because CentOS is downstream of Red Hat then somehow it is different than Red Hat being downstream of the Linux kernel developers & others (fill in other names as you see fit). Red Hat is downstream of well over 99.99% of the 'major work'. Red Hat has built a business around using freely available software. As part of the licence provided by upstream authors who created, enhanced, and often support the software Red Hat is required to make the software source others created and they use for their business available to others to use as they see fit (within terms of licence). Exactly the same as Red Hat taking the source from upstream and using as they see fit (WTOL). Commercial vs. community support is not an ethical choice. Neither is Red Hat's leveraging the efforts of the community to build a commercial enterprise. The community knowingly provided their efforts to others to do exactly what we, and Red Hat are doing. regards Dave HornfordAssociates.com
> > For you boss it may be a question of scale & risk > management. Spending > > money on RH means never having to explain why she thought > 'some kid in > > a basement could support our business' in an outage review. > > > > Yep, most of the responses I've gotten support the conclusion(s): > > 1. A support contract is good for CYA (and perhaps not > more?). If it feels good, do it. Most ingrained business risk > analysis types do not understand community support in the > first place. Having a contract in place gives them a (not > necessarily justified) warm fuzzy.It's accountablity. The case where I work is that management wants someone to point a finger at if something doesn't go right. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.