On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 23:53, Chad Perrin wrote:
> I use Firefox as my preferred browser and MEPIS as my preferred LiveCD
> distribution. Of course, I don't really use LiveCDs much, and Debian
> Testing is what I use for "permanent" installs. I agree, though -- both
> Firefox and MEPIS are excellent products and well worth supporting.
Since someone else opened the door ... I figured I'd tell my view ...
I run Fedora Core (FC) and official Fedora repository package releases.
I let Red Hat do the financial supporting for me.
I now get a community-focused distribution system that is not only more
reliable than my paying RHN before it, but it has opened up a far
greater realm of packages than was possible.
And not only is does this distribution model work for Fedora, but even
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) too.
Some people complain that Fedora Core doesn't have the support that Red
Hat Linux (RHL) did. And what support was that?
All Red Hat _ever_ offered for Red Hat Linux was _only_ installation-
time support and vendor product certification. They tried service level
agreements (SLAs) with Red Hat Linux 6.2"E" and no one bought them. And
vendors only ended up certifying every 2-3 "revisions" since they didn't
want to do so every 6 months.
And to add insult to injury, this also gave Red Hat the added _headache_
of supporting 6-7 revisions simultaneously for 3+ years, because
companies no longer upgraded to the "last revision" of .2 or .3 in a
series, but "standardized" on a .0 or .1 revision for various reasons.
Once the SuSE Linux Enterprise line was released, Red Hat's clients
dictated they follow the same 18-month cycle as SuSE. So we got RHEL
with 18 month release cycles based on the current .1/.2 revision of RHL,
with updates to match newer revisions.
Fedora was just the fallout of what RHL has always been, with a few
caveats. The biggest one for the name change was the trademark issue
that is _not_ Red Hat's fault. No other company has let their name be
copied over and over with no strings attached, and it became an issue
where the USPTO could declare the name "Red Hat" as "public domain."
In Fedora, there is no more EOL -- only "Legacy" and "Suspended" -- this
_includes_ older RHL versions that _do_ have _continued_ updates (as far
back as RHL 7.3!).
Red Hat now tags things as "Legacy" so they say "if this ain't the last
.2/.3 release in a series, get off it soon." We've already seen this
with RHL 7.3 (CL2.3) _still_ being supported (the RHL7 series is over 4
years old now), while RHL 7.0-7.2 (CL2.0-2.2) are _dropped_, along with
RHL 9 (CL3.1) and FC 1 (CL3.2), RHL 8 (CL3.0) has been _dropped_.
So now Red Hat only supports 1-2 "Current" releases, like FC2 (CL4.0)
and FC3 (CL4.1), and then the last 2 "Legacy" releases that are the
"last .2/.3" in a series, like RHL7.3 (CL2.3) and RHL9/FC1 (CL3.1/3.2).
I'm sure Red Hat will be dropping RHL9 (CL3.1) soon as FC1 (CL3.2) is
the last ".2" release in the series.
If companies need otherwise, then they can pay Red Hat. That's why RHEL
exists.
Fedora Core packages are just as well tested with the _exact_same_ model
as Red Hat Linux before it. Instead of Rawhide-Beta-Release, it's
Development-Test-Release -- even the Red Hat developers on the Fedora
lsits still call Development "Rawhide," and sometimes slip and call Test
"Beta."
Fedora is just the community distribution model, free of the trademark
issues. All the same releases that come through FC go into RHEL, so you
can build RHEL without the trademark headache by sticking with FC. The
whole reason for FC is to give you the "community release" without the
trademark issue -- something that WBEL and other, from SRPM "RHEL
rebuilt" things only end up fighting.
That's not me talking, but major, Fortune 100 companies. We _know_ that
RHEL _is_ FC, just like RHL was before it.
Anything that is _not_ a _verbatim_ package from FC in RHEL has an "EL"
tag in the revision. Other than the kernel (which contains select,
non-commodity hardware support that may not be in the Fedora kernel
yet), 9 times out of 10 its is _missing_ things from the Fedora version
(e.g., like locale, RHEL typically doesn't support all the languages
that FC does, so it doesn't ship that support in the "EL" version).
I like community distros.
Lucky for me, I prefer the community distro that has a _completely_
GPL-centric commercial entity paying for it all.
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights. ... That idea of community rights is firmly rooted in the 'Communist Manifesto.'" -- Michael Badnarik----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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