Got an E-mail on Red Hat support being discontinued!

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 15:16 4/3/2004, you wrote:
>I would like to know if anyone else out there is wondering if Red Hat 
>network is going to put the screws to the open source community, If I am 
>going to continue with Fedora, how am I reassured that once Fedora is 
>popular, or mainstream that we the people who contribute to the project or 
>to the people who are giving up there free time to help put together 
>something that we all can be proud of is going to become another Microshaft

No one at Red Hat is "putting the screws" to anything. Red Hat Linux 9 is a 
product, not a philosophy. This product was scheduled to receive support 
and updates from Red Hat, Inc. from the date of its release until April 
30th, 2004 and no longer; and this was made clear to everyone since the 
date of its release. There is no surprise and no reason for alarm here.

You don't expect them to still support Red Hat Linux 4.2 either, do you? 
Red Hat, Inc. has to spend money to continue to support products, and no 
company on Earth with a commodity product can continue to support it 
forever, especially when most of its users pay nothing for it. However, Red 
Hat Linux and all of its updates still are, and will continue to be, 
available for you to download, use, copy, and distribute at no cost 
whatsoever. How much more "free" (in any sense of the word) can you ask for?

The Fedora Core distribution, heavily sponsored but no longer "owned" by 
Red Hat, Inc., is a continuation of Red Hat's efforts and an opening of the 
development process to involve the community more and more. Its very 
objectives state that Fedora Core is to be developed and constructed 
exclusively from free software, which is clearly understood to be software 
which you can (again) download, use, copy, and distribute at no cost 
whatsoever, forever and ever. It will also attempt to move forward somewhat 
more rapidly than Red Hat Linux did, so that the future you speak of can 
come to us more quickly.

How are you reassured? By everything. The license to every package included 
in Fedora, the project's objectives and philosophy, the excellent (and 
consistent!) track record of Red Hat, Inc. in this area... *all* of this 
ensures that Fedora will continue to be Free (as in "libre") as well as 
free (as in "zero cost"). What could possibly make you compare Red Hat to 
Microsoft?

Cheers,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com