[LUGSB] Re: Novell+IBM buys SUSE

[Paul C Bors]

Ion,

Are you a undergraduate student? Graduate student?

I am just curiouse, please write back to I at PaulBors.com

Mersi mult :)


Ion Badulescu wrote:

>On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Erez Zadok wrote:
>
>  
>
>>It's rumored that there might be a freely-available release from Red Hat
>>called "Fedora Linux" (http://fedora.redhat.com/) but that will not be
>>maintained by the company, but by the developers, whenever they feel like it
>>or have time: this essentially means that freely-available Red Hat Linux may
>>not be well maintained (think esp. about security fixes) unless you pay for
>>it.
>>    
>>
>
>It should be reasonably-well maintained, but only for a short time, until 
>the next "release" comes out. So it's not an option really, unless you 
>enjoy upgrading the OS on lots of machines twice a year. I know I don't.
>
>  
>
>>This Red Hat move was bound to happen.  A lot of companies who started by
>>giving out freebees became successfull and grew large enough to a point
>>where they felt they didn't need the "free advertizing."  But, Red Hat is
>>neglecting an important lesson: don't ignore the grass roots academic users;
>>it's well worth giving free licenses to academic users, many of whom
>>graduate, go to work, and then... recommend and buy the real thing!
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, and not just universities. SA's tend to recommend to others what 
>they use themselves; firstly there will be no more Red Hat for personal 
>use (it will be Fedora, which is a different brand name even if it's the 
>same thing), and secondly even Fedora might not be attractive enough for 
>home use if it's not reasonable to use.
>
>  
>
>>In the 90s, Sun stopped giving freebees to universities.  Sun is doing very
>>poorly and has been a company in decline for more than 5-6 years.  Their
>>stocks are in shambles.  And the company has no direction or vision.  Sun
>>will not survive this decade.  Mark my words.
>>    
>>
>
>I know, and I'm actually rather worried about the future of Java if Sun 
>collapses.
>
>  
>
>>For now, SUSE does provide freely available releases.  They are just not as
>>good as red hat's.  If Novell+IBM will make SuSE drop their freely available
>>releases (at least to universities), someone will come forward, perhaps a
>>true freely-available release with a good user base, and will offer a well
>>maintained freely-available distribution (the way Slackware used to be way
>>back then).
>>    
>>
>
>Did somebody say "Debian" :-)
>
>Ion
>
>  
>
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