Comments on: The Enterprise Linux problem

By: AppBLOG » Blog Archive » Analyst: Ubuntu, community distros ready for the enterprise

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:46:32 +0000

[...] to Lyman discuss some of the reasons why companies adopt CentOS, I started to think about a blog entry I read last year that was written by SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill. SmugMug, which has lots of internal [...]

By: SmugBlog: Don MacAskill » Blog Archive » The Sky is Falling! MySQL charging for features!

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:47:56 +0000

[...] open source projects would make it easier for this cycle to ignite. Some of them, like Red Hat, refuse to even take our money. Talk about stupid. There are *lots* of businesses out there willing to pay for extra services [...]

By: Peter Bailey

Peter Bailey — Sun, 27 May 2007 03:11:23 +0000

Just FYI, Dell definitely allows customers to buy updates-only RHEL licenses with Dell servers/workstations. These subscriptions are referred to as “Basic” as opposed to “Standard” or “Premium”.

By: Enterprise Linux Log » Red Hat, SUSE, CentOS? Tough choices for open source fans

Thu, 17 May 2007 22:43:44 +0000

[...] While writing about Jim Klein’s decision to stop using Novell NetWare and SUSE, I searched for other stories on similar subjects. I came across Don McAskill’s thoughtful post on “The Enterprise Linux problem” on his SmugBlog. [...]

By: michal frackowiak

michal frackowiak — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:23:34 +0000

although this might not be applicable to your case since you are used to use RH-based distros there is also Debian. It is a very very good piece of Linux distribution and widely used in the server environment. I think it is worth mentioning here.

By: Dag Wieers

Dag Wieers — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 04:20:04 +0000

Let me clarify one of my statements for those that don’t know how CentOS and RHEL relate. When I said:

CentOS by nature can never be better than RHEL. CentOS does not fix software problems.

I didn’t mean to imply that CentOS is not fixing bugs, but I meant instead instead that CentOS depends on Red Hat to implement the bugs and bugfixes reported by CentOS. Why ? Because that’s the only way to be 100% compatible with Red Hat.

If CentOS would be fixing its own bugs instead of sending them to Red Hat and waiting for inclusion, compatibility would no longer be guaranteed. CentOS has been, and will be reporting bugs and bugfixes to Red Hat to improve its own products.

By: Ryan Schwartz

Ryan Schwartz — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 04:05:04 +0000

If you want to try Solaris again, but still have a Linux userland, you should take a look at Nexenta: http://www.gnusolaris.org/gswiki

Or just put most/all of the gnu stuff in from a package repository like Blastwave: http://www.blastwave.org/

By: Karl O. Pinc

Karl O. Pinc — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 04:48:01 +0000

Consider sending money to a project who’s software you use. Tell them you’d like a feature. Maybe it will show up and make all our lives eaiser. A few thousand dollars might just be enough to allow a developer to take the time to add something good. Or pay your own developer, get exactly what you want, and contribute it back.

After all, Red Hat employs some developers, but they work on what Red Hat needs, not what you need. Pay a FOSS developer and he benefits, you benefit, and the community benefits. It’s the mark of a good deal.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:13:32 +0000

Could someone provide a little more info on what Glenn mentioned above? Are VM’s or virtual guests a way around the initial problem discussed in the blog entry?

By: hughesjr

hughesjr — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:34:02 +0000

I want to remind everyone that Red Hat does not OWN the vast majority of the items that they put in RHEL. Do people who use RHEL feel SLIMY because they are not paying the Mozilla team for Firefox or the OpenOffice.org team for OpenOffice.

Red Hat rebuilds the majority of the software they use from other places … NOW, don’t get me wrong, they also pay / donate much $$$ and time/code to many of these projects.

Red Hat is very open source friendly and I recommend that people buy RHEL licenses for their critical services or if a 3rd party application requires it.

But CentOS does what it does because RHEL is using open source as their business model.

CentOS also solves problems and reports those to Red Hat … as well CentOS users find problems that CentOS reports to Red Hat if the CentOS team can’t solve the problem. Try a Search in the redhat bugzilla for “centos” and see how many things CentOS has contibuted to RHEL.

Open Source is good for everybody … and RHEL is a great product. Using CentOS where you are not using RHEL (for cost or other reasons) makes RHEL better … but the CentOS team certianly recommends that you also use RHEL where you need it.