Re: Forw: FW: Red Hat has NOT dropped Alpha

[Maurice Hilarius <maurice harddata com>]

With regards to your message at 03:03 AM 10/26/01, Peter Bech. Where you
stated:
> seem something is going
> on....
First off, it appears there is some confusion here, and
maybe Compaq and Red Hat are not doing such a good job of communicating
lately. I also received more info earlier this week, but was debating on
passing it on, as I did not want to discourage people. I did some more
digging and called up a few people at Red Hat to confirm what I was being
told, and nobody there could deny or confirm it, so this is still a bit
"up in the air"
I DO want to point out that this message posted to axp list as quote in
the following is "supposed" to be confidential. Read the header
message, for goodness sake!

Requoted from Peter's message:

"
>  ********************************************************************
>  This e-mail is COMPAQ CONFIDENTIAL -- for INTERNAL use of Compaq
> and Compaq
>  Business Partners only. It should not be forwarded to
> customers.  However,
>  the information within the e-mail can be used to create your own
> customer
>  deliverables unless they are marked "Confidential."
>  ********************************************************************
>
>  ABSTRACT: Recently, The Inquirer erroneously reported that Red Hat
> was
>  dropping support for Alpha in its release stream and that there
> would be no
>  Red Hat 7.2 for the Alpha processor.  "This is totally
> untrue," according to
>  Alanna Dwyer of the Compaq Linux Program Office.
> "


And what I heard from the Red Hat commercial products contact, Mr. Tim
Spinks, differs quite a bit from this.
I quote the message thread between Tim and myself:

"Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:30:47 -0400
> From: tspink@redhat.com
> Organization: Red Hat, Inc.
> To: Maurice Hilarius <maurice@harddata.com>
> Subject: Re: FW: 7.2 version software
>
> Maurice Hilarius wrote:
> > With regards to your message at
> > 07:18 AM 10/24/01,
> > tspink@redhat.com. Where you
> > stated: 
> > > Maurice, 
> > >
> > > I have spoken to product management and the plan is not to have any more
> > > Alpha releases. Compaq has always worked very close with Red Hat to
> > > develop the Alpha release. From a demand stand point the quantities were
> > > alsways low so Compaq would commit to certain volumes to allow us to
> > > continue developmental work. I'm guessing that is no longer the case. Red
> > > Hat wants to port to as many chip sets as possible it helps facilitate
> > > migration to Linux, but in todays economy if the revenues cannot support
> > > the cost to do the ports we are pulling back on those plans. I know this
> > > is not the answer you want but as discussions continue with Compaq 
> > > things may change.  They are also discussing updates to new
> > > releases.  We have good inventories of 7.1 so you should be able to
> > > buy that for some time to come. 
> > >
> > > Tim 
> >
> > Thanks for clearing that up, TIm. 
> >
> > I wonder of you can help me out with something, then: 
> > We see that the Rawhide tree for Alpha is still very active. 
> > Would Red Hat mind if we built, used, and sold a distro based on this?
> > Technically this is GPL, but I still want to ask, from the point of view
> > of courtesy. 
> >
> > I think that we, and a few other Alpha commercial and non-commercial
> > entities may want to keep the Red Hat based distro "alive" for
> > a while yet. 
> >
> > The other thought is "How much would it cost to pick up where Compaq
> > left off on funding this?" 
> >
> > I realize you may not be in a position to answer these questions, so if
> > you wish to direct me to another person at Red Hat on this, I
> > understand" 
> >
> > BTW, how much of this information is covered under NDA? 
> >
> > Thanks for all your help, Tim.
> >
> > With our best regards, 
> >
> > Maurice W. Hilarius       Telephone:
> > 01-780-456-9771 
> > Hard Data
> > Ltd.           
> > FAX:       01-780-456-9772
>
> Maurice,
>
> None of what I have told you needs to be  NDA but is early
> discussions about the future plans of Alpha. I would not take any of this
> as the final say nor worth repeating to the masses yet. I have sent on
> your message to product management to let them know your concerns. I
> appreciate that. Do you know who you are working with on Alpha beta? We
> may want to ping them for the most up to date info.
>
> Tim

So, as one can see, it appears the left and right hands do not know what
each is doing, at least at Compaq.
All I know is that we are trying to buy copies of Red Hat 7.2 for Alpha,
and are stymied so far..
We shipped well over a hundred copies of 7.1 Alpha in the last month, and
are hoping for more in 7.2 release.

If anyone else has any info or insights into this I could sure use
them..

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With our best regards,

Maurice W. Hilarius       Telephone: 01-780-456-9771
Hard Data Ltd.            FAX:       01-780-456-9772
11060 - 166 Avenue        mailto:maurice@harddata.com
Edmonton, AB, Canada      http://www.harddata.com/
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