[Cumbria] Red Hat shoots itself in foot?

[Michael Saunders]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Schwuk wrote:

> Not quite sure how I feel about this one...

I feel the same as I do with most Reg articles -- distressed with the
sensationalism, hyperbole and general shoddy "journalism" contained
therein. Looking at Red Hat's page:

"Beginning with the 8.0 release, Red Hat will provide errata
maintenance for at least 12 months from the date of initial release.  
At certain times, Red Hat may extend errata maintenance for certain
popular releases of the operating system."

AT LEAST 12 months, and this MAY BE EXTENDED. People are complaining
that 8.0, which is more like a beta of new tech rather than something
to be widely deployed, being EOLed in Dec. But 6.2 is STILL supported,
as it was a very popular release. It's very likely that the more
robust 8.x releases (esp. 8.2) will have 18-24 months life, bearing in
mind RH's past actions and the text above.

Also, this is for the freely downloadable "community" version. In the
3rd/4th quarter of 2003, RH will be releasing their Advanced
Workstation distro flavour which will, like its server sibling,
provide much lengthier support.

AND! There's been talk of RH producing a Personal Desktop distro too,
which again would have a few years of life in it. Essentially, this
article is leaping all over the fact that RH 8.0 is being EOLed
quickly. RH have indicated that popular and stable releases may be
given longer lifespans, their Advanced Server and WS versions will
last much longer, and this is just scaremongering :)

> I think this will be a shot in the arm for UnitedLinux adoption...

UnitedLinux is screwed. The only talented Linux company they have in
that venture is SuSE -- and they'd be better trying to get bought out
by IBM.

-- 
Michael Saunders
www.aster.fsnet.co.uk