>
>
>>If you are referring to SuSE as a company working with me, your
>>incorrect...they have been very easy to work with. As you are aware, they do
>>not release their ISO's for Intel...you need to buy them. At the price they
>>charge, I'll eat the cost for my customer because I gave them a price, and
>>I'm sticking to it. Corporately, SuSE has a great channel program...at least
>>they have been great for me.
>>
>>
>
>I'm glad that's the case. Weren't they considering per box licensing
>some time ago? Who other than you supports SUSE in the area? If you sell
>SUSE to this school system and you decide to take your business and
>leave the state, who will support them? Maybe it's just that buy
>American side that says to give RH another chance, and stay as far from
>deb/slack as you can. (Unless they have dedicated support staff.)
>
I'll offer local support for SuSE! Seriously, anyone who can't support SuSE, can't support Linux. If you are that addicted to RedHat's custom tools, then you should not be allowed within 100 feet of any mission-critical system. This argument also highlights a weakness that could destroy Linux as a viable corporate platform. If people are focusing on any distro (even my beloved SuSE) to the point where the fact that a system is RedHat or SuSE or Debian is more important than the fact that it is Linux, then the wonderful robustness of the community turns into a fragmented fork-fest. Look at the UNIX fragmentation of the 70's and 80's; it can happen to Linux if we let it.
Tying your companies fortunes to RedHat is no safer than tying your companies fortunes to Microsoft. One of our strengths used to be, "It is Linux; it will survive the bankruptcy or animosity of any and all corporations." The moment you start churning-out RHCSEs who are as enslaved to RedHat as MCSEs are to Microsoft, you are crippling the engineer, and his customers. If you declare that it is significant that these people dominate the marketplace, then you are crippling anyone who believes you. Everyone repeat the following mantra until you lapse into nirvana, "Linux is Linux. I am a Linux Guru, not a corporate puppet. Linux is Linux..."
Finally, if 'buying American' is more important than choosing a distro that preserves your OpenSource rights, then choose Windows. Every red-blooded American knows that Linux is some commie plot from Finland :-)
--ronan
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