Fedora and Redhat EL

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

I have been using both Fedora and Redhat EL systems
and it seems to me that the split between these
distributions makes it more easy for Fedora to form a
community with a set of third party repositories and
packagers working with it while Redhat EL is left out
in the cold with a few exceptions like dag's
repository. 

One of the reasons is that Redhat EL is tied into a
subscription model (ie) the binaries are not available
for free from Redhat itself. While third party
rebuilds like centos(centos.org) do a good job of
filling that need, it might be more beneficial for
Redhat to supply the binaries and ISO images itself
without a support subscription attached to it. A
subscription would only be available for a fee. 

Benefits

* Business strategy is clear, Software is free.
Support costs.
* Prevents Redhat EL(or even Linux itself) being
called a costly affair
* Redhat can actively form  a community just like what
it is trying to do with the fedora project

Disadvantage

- From a business viewpoint

One of the reasons seems to be that people would
download the software and expect Redhat to support it
too.  

I see a few choices to make that clear to the end user

* A click through agreement that says the software is
unsupported. 

* called it redhat-unsupported-(arch).iso

* A nag in the installer warning that the software is
unsupported when its the download version. Remove all
the trademarks and stuff you need to protect and swap
it with a free set of things you dont need to care
about..

Bandwidth

ISO images are only available directly to those who
mirror it.

up2date, yum or whatever never points to the redhat
mirrors in the downloaded version and instead switches
between the free mirrors as required

Since those who want to use it for free are going to
use a rebuild anyway, I dont see a potential loss
there.

Your thoughts?


=====
Regards
Rahul Sundaram


		
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