So much for being able to freeload the easiest auto-update system available in the Linux world. I got mail yesterday from Red Hat Network, informing me that the days of automating my fileserver maintenance are coming to a close.
Dear lonnonf,
Thank you for being a Red Hat Network customer.
This e-mail provides you with important information about the upcoming discontinuation of Red Hat Linux, and resources to assist you with your migration to another Red Hat solution.
As previously communicated, Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 as of December 31, 2003. Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 9 as of April 30, 2004. Red Hat does not plan to release another product in the Red Hat Linux line.
With the recent announcement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3, you’ll find migrating to Enterprise Linux appealing. We understand that transitioning to another Red Hat solution requires careful planning and implementation. We have created a migration plan for Red Hat Network customers to help make the transition as simple and seamless as possible.
This is a move that has a lot of people upset; Slashdot has a good cross section of both angry supporters and angry detractors of RHN‘s decision. Personally I can’t say I’m surprised; providing an infrastructure for free updates to older versions of Linux wasn’t going to make Red Hat a lot of money, and it was only a matter of time until management decided to invoke the bottom line.
The part that mystifies me, though, is the name switch to Fedora for the free, open source Red Hat Linux. From Red Hat’s Linux Migration Resource Center:
A few years ago there was just one Red Hat Linux. As acceptance grew and Linux reached further into enterprise computing, one Red Hat Linux product could no longer be all things to all users. That’s why in 2002 Red Hat created what’s now known as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Stable, supported, certified — Red Hat Enterprise Linux has become the corporate Linux standard.
The Fedora Project was introduced in late 2003. Built for and with the help of the open source community, the Fedora Project is for developers and early high-tech enthusiasts using Linux in non-critical computing environments.
Dropping the Red Hat name for the open source distribution isn’t good public relations. Red Hat became the most widely used Linux distro because a lot of people liked using the free version at home, then brought it into the workplace and put a lot of effort into convincing their managers it was a good idea to run an operating system developed by a random and global assortment of hackers.
Dividing Red Hat into Red Hat Enterprise and Fedora has turned Red Hat Linux into a pay-to-play operating system. Given the pricing for Red Hat Enterprise, which in some subscription plans isn’t even competitive with Microsoft offerings, there will be a lot of hobbyists and freelancers moving to other Linux distributions. There might still be some synergy between Fedora and the enterprise Red Hat, but because they’ll be separate codebases, they’re bound to diverge. Red Hat is likely to lose a lot of its support from former fans who can’t be bothered to keep current on two versions of the operating system at once.
If anyone can recommend a good Linux distribution, with brain-dead easy updating to keep it current with security patches, I’m all ears. The real beauty of Red Hat was Red Hat Network, which made updating the system nearly automatic, and would have been fully automatic if I’d had the bucks to shell out for an RHN account. I want my fileserver to be a machine that I just don’t worry about. It’s an appliance, and shouldn’t require constant fiddling to keep it in good working order.
