Re: A paid Red Hat Edition
You can have a FREE Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
It's called CentOS. http://www.centos.org
It's RHEL in all but name and various bits of branding (logos and stuff like that).
Scared Red Hat will go after CentOS and shut it down? That's how Microsoft would handle a similar situation, if somebody found a legal way of distributing free Windows.. Microsoft would start with threats of legal action. If that didn't work, parallel attacks:
1) Actual legal action, starting off with a restraining order stopping the distribution (if they could get it). Even if Microsoft had no chance of winning the case on legal merits, they'd take legal action simply because with deep enough pockets you can force the other guy to throw in a winning hand.
2) Bribing/blackmailing governments to get the law changed to remove the loophole that was being exploited.
3) Attempt to hire the guys behind it with a contract that stopped them redistributing Windows for free. If Microsoft can get away with suitable wording in the contract that bars them from ever redistributing free Windows if they no longer work for Microsoft, fire them shortly after hiring them.
How did Red Hat deal with CentOS? They hired the guys behind it. Hired them to continue doing it. CentOS (free RHEL in all but name) is supported financially by Red Hat. Red Hat are paying people to give away RHEL-in-all-but-name.
Crazy? Nope. Apart from getting mega kudos out of it, RH benefit in another way. CentOS gets RHEL onto home desktops. Initially desktops of techies who have some old hardware and like playing with stuff just for the hell of it. From there it spreads to the friends and relatives of those techies. And from all those it can gain workplace acceptance: techies tell bosses there's an alternative to Microsoft; non-techies inform bosses they know how to use those alternatives. Bosses then pay for RHEL because they like the warm, comfortable feeling that comes from support and Red Hat are the people best able to support RHEL.
Red Hat is not a software company that also offers support, it's a support company that also offers software it knows how to support. CentOS is a loss leader, a marketing strategy. A strategy Red Hat stumbled over rather than planned, but they've embraced it anyway. Get ordinary people using CentOS and eventually companies will pay for RHEL.
Got an old machine that's gathering dust? Give CentOS a try. Or Ubuntu. Or Debian. Or whichever Linux distro takes your fancy. On really old h/w you might need CentOS 6 (still supported and being updated). With CentOS 7 you'll probably want to install Mate or Cinnamon because CentOS 7 comes with Gnome 3, which bears too many similarities to Windows 8 for comfort.
If I'd written something like this four or five years ago, there would have been many nasty replies and near-infinite down-thumbs. These days it will get a better reception (I hope). And the reason opinions have changed is Microsoft themselves. Vista, Win 8, spyware OS, shitty licensing, forcing updates on people who don't want them, tricking people into updating by perverting the way dialogue boxes behave, etc. Microsoft's bad behaviour has become so egregious and so blatant that even former enthusiasts have turned against them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
