On 14/01/14 23:59, John Lauro wrote: > Your first assumption, although largely correct as a generality it is not > entirely accurate, and at a minimum is not the sole purpose. That is why > companies have mission statements. They rarely highlight the purpose of > making money, although that is often the main purpose even if not > specified. What is Red Hat's mission? It is listed as: > > To be the catalyst in communities of customers, contributors, and partners > creating better technology the open source way. > > Making things exceedingly difficult would go against the stated mission. > In my opinion it would also go against making money as it would kill the > eco system of vendors that support RedHat Enterprise Linux for their > applications. > > There are so many distributions out there, the biggest way for them to not > make money is to become insignificant. Having free alternatives like > Centos keeps high market share of the EL product and ensures compatibility > and a healthy eco system. If there was not open clones of EL, then ubuntu > or something else would take over and the main supported platform of > enterprise applications, and then the large enterprises that pay for RedHat > support contracts would move completely off. > > Having people use Centos or Scientific linux might not directly help the > bottom line, but for RedHat it's a lot better than having people use ubuntu > or suse. Oracle not being free could pose a bigger threat, but either > RedHat remains on top as they are the main source for good support, or they > do not and Oracle will have to pick up the slack for driving RedHat out of > business. and what's left of RedHat would have to start using Oracle as > TUV... I don't see too many switching to Oracle besides those that are > already Oracle shops. +1 Nice summary. (despite ignoring that Oracle's spin of CentOS most likely is more open than what's indicated here) -- kind regards, David Sommerseth > ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Patrick J. LoPresti" <[log in to unmask]> >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 12:45:01 PM >> Subject: RedHat CentOS acquisition: stating the obvious >> >> RedHat is a company. Companies exist for the sole purpose of making >> money. Every action by any company -- literally every single action, >> ever -- is motivated by that goal. >> >> The question you should be asking is: How does Red Hat believe this >> move is going to make them money? >> >> Those were statements of fact. What follows is merely my opinion. >> >> Right now, anybody can easily get for free the same thing Red Hat >> sells, and their #1 competitor is taking their products, augmenting >> them, and reselling them. If you think Red Hat perceives this as >> being >> in their financial interest, I think you are out of your mind. >> >> SRPMs will go away and be replaced by an ever-moving git tree. Red >> Hat >> will make it as hard as legally possible to rebuild their commercial >> releases. The primary target of this move is Oracle, but Scientific >> Linux will be collateral damage. >> >> I consider all of this pretty obvious, but perhaps I am wrong. I hope >> I am. >> >> - Pat >>