Re: RHE AS miss openoffice.

[Eric Hagberg morganstanley com]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 shane stixrud org wrote:

> Even if you are correct and this is a marketing decision I don't see that
> as a "bad thing" (tm).  RedHat does not take away our freedom by not
> packaging openoffice as part of AS. Maybe it is a marketing decision (I
> have my  doubts) but even if true, perhaps it is a _good_ marketing
> decision which will benefit RedHat directly and it's users indirectly.

I don't see how it can truly benefit users to have a couple fewer rpms on
their systems. I'm not asking RH to change their default AS installation,
just make it easier to get the other packages installed and maintained.

Also, if they don't do this and the WS packages are manually installed
(which they will be, by those of us who need to have the full set), it
will make their support job more difficult if these packages aren't in the
rhn/up2date AS channel, as you won't get automatic updates for those
packages on AS machines.

> RedHat is a business, their main goal in life is to make money. Unlike
> most companies RedHat exhibits principles, morals and *gasp* appears to
> even respects their users freedoms and rights.

Agreed, but this has nothing to do with this argument.

> RedHat must maintain a careful balance between providing users with
> value while insuring they can continue to do so in the future.

Sure, and since they are combining the WS-only packages with the same set
of rpms in AS in the 2nd and 3rd CDs (really, it isn't openoffice I'm
concerned about, it's the whole list of WS-only packages you don't get
with AS), they've had to test the compatibility for the most part already
(the AS-only packages rarely interact, if ever, with the WS-only
packages).

Some people would rather have one build (the size isn't really much
different at all) that contains everything so that when you create and
test applications on your desktop/workstation you know for certain that it
will work and behave the same way it did there as it will on your server
running AS. They only way to know for sure that will be the case is to
have a true everything install.