[rhn-users] Red Hat Network Satellite 4.2.0 Notice

[Robert Potts]

I don't want to over traffic this list, but I do have a few thought I'd 
like to share:

Redhat is a fantastic alternative to Microsoft, and seems to do a great 
job competing with them on the levels of functionality, security and 
reliability.  What you get for a _much_ lower price is, in most regards, 
superior.  But it's tough to compete with a gigantic monopoly *and* try 
to remain profitable.

I'm a BSD fanatic, admittedly, but BSD is *very* difficult to deal with 
if you aren't a fairly competent sys admin.  It's free, but you *have* 
to know what you're doing.  What Redhat seems to try to do (and usually 
does fairly well) is walk a fine line between the Microsoft money grab 
for marginal quality mentality and the philosophy of totally free, 
totally secure and incredibly reliable but very time consuming to learn 
and maintain BSD.

I'd say, considering the alternatives, Redhat is doing a good job for 
those who can't/won't afford Microsoft and can't/won't put the time into 
understanding/administering BSD.

So, have patience.  Though Redhat's updating system is not always 
perfect, it's still a fantastic alternative that gives the world a 
reasonably priced way to run a good system without too much headache. 
And don't forget that you are supporting something which, if it weren't 
there, would be sorely missed!

I'd say in the long run it's better to pay and support this company (and 
help them try and improve) while understanding they must remain 
minimally profitable to keep on existing, and to do so there are bound 
to be some relatively minor shortcomings here and there.

In a nutshell, be patient and when you get frustrated don't forget to 
consider the alternatives.  Pull your hair out dealing with Microsoft's 
extraordinarily expensive unreliability and lack of security, or pull 
your hair out trying to learn to be an expert sys admin with a flavor of 
BSD! (I'll stick with BSD, personally, but I'd recommend RHEL to a *lot* 
of people, and in fact will be doing just that here in the very near 
future with a company I am consulting for).

warm regards,
Robert

inode0 wrote:
> On 3/1/07, Clifford Perry <cperry at redhat.com> wrote:
>> As I am sure you are aware, if you monitor the rhelv5-beta-list, and
>> thread
>> (https://www.redhat.com/archives/rhelv5-beta-list/2007-February/msg00106.html) 
>>
>> that a date is not freely available to give out.
>
> I am very well aware and did not ask you to give me a date.
>
> I find it disappointing that Red Hat is treating its customers this
> way. Do you think we have nothing else to do and can drop everything
> whenever Red Hat decides to say "upgrade your infrastructure now or
> stuff is going to break." And not even get the courtesy of a "you have
> X days to complete these upgrades before stuff breaks" timeframe to
> work in. I'm assuming we have 10-14 days from the announcement based
> on a previous comment. But Red Hat doesn't stick by the dates they do
> leak either, as the evidence you provide below demonstrates, so who
> knows?
>
> Unbelievable.
>
>> The last public press release from Red Hat giving a rough date that I
>> know off is:
>> http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2006/rhel5beta2.html
>> "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, to be released in early 2007".
>>
>> I felt that Rich's email was fairly clear, but to restate in another way
>> for you :o) ...
>>
>>   If you plan to use/deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with any current
>> RHN Satellite or RHN Proxy systems you have deployed, then those systems
>> will need to be upgraded to at least RHN 4.2 Satellite or RHN 4.2 Proxy
>> prior to being able to use them with the yum based client in Enterprise
>> Linux 5 and code changes for rhn_register.
>>
>> So, for example, if you have a 4.1 RHN Proxy which was pointing to RHN
>> (rhn.redhat.com, xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com) you could register a Enterprise
>> Linux 5 system through it, but when you tried to use yum to try and
>> download packages, it would fail. While for a 4.1 Satellite, both would
>> fail.
>
> If some nut in a hat decides tomorrow to release RHEL5 I would like to
> know that all our current processes will continue working. At least
> the processes that aren't already broken by unresolved bugs. That was
> implied by Rich's email I think but I'd feel better hearing it in a
> more direct fashion. I think it is implied by your restatement too.
>
> At this point I don't really care. I'll just go with the flow like the
> other cool kids.
>
> John
>
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