My account rep at Redhat has informed me that they are EOLing 6.2 and 7.0 on March 31 (not unreasonable) and then 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and even 8.0 on December 31, 2003. I'm highly upset. A business just can't move that quickly, especially when you have situations like we do where some drivers take forever to get certified to each release (e.g., our EMC SAN fiber channel card drivers are certified up to 7.2 only)
Below are four sections, a copy of the e-mail I got, my response, a summary of my rep's reply, and my closing commentary.
I just wanted to send out a quick email to make sure that you were aware of some very important dates pertaining to any Red Hat Linux environments you may be running. Several distributions of Red Hat Linux's consumer editions will have their maintenance packages End-of-Lifed by the end of this year. Specific dates per version are as follows:
Red Hat Version Maintenance Packages End of Life Months Remaining
Red Hat Linux 6.2 March 31st, 2003 3
Red Hat Linux 7.0 March 31st, 2003 3
Red Hat Linux 7.1 December, 31 2003 12
Red Hat Linux 7.2 December, 31 2003 12
Red Hat Linux 7.3 December, 31 2003 12
Red Hat Linux 8.0 December, 31 2003 12
What does this mean to you-
If you are currently running any of the above mentioned distributions of the Red Hat Linux operating system in a production environment you will want to make plans on what the next step for those servers will be. If these are servers that will require the latest patches and erratta notifications from the Red Hat Network then we should talk to discuss whether you will migrate to the Red Hat Advanced Server offering or to another of our consumer based products such as the upcoming Red Hat 8.1. There are several differences between these offerings that you should be aware of prior to making any migration plans. I would like to schedule an appointment with you at your convenience to discuss these differences and how they will effect your Linux Server environment over the next 12-18 months
Please give me a call or respond to this email at your convenience to let me know when we can schedule an appointment to discuss your options moving forward.
I look forward to hearing back from you in the near future.
I don't quite know what to say. Your EOL'ing stuff that just came out? It's going to take us a while to migrate to 8.0 and now its end is relatively soon on the horizon? Drivers for our EMC SAN are still only certified for 7.2 for example. So after this year RHN is useless to us huh? I guess we won't be renewing again.
And what does Advanced Server cost, $800 *A YEAR*. And is that per copy or can I install that on as many servers as I want? Windows server costs us $350/copy and the license is perpetual PLUS I don't have to pay for Windows Update service.
He understands my frustration (he has no idea), but Redhat is considering the 8.x series and beyond a consumer only OS and will update that every six months and only support with errata for one year from original release. Advanced Server will have a 12-18 month release cycle and three years of maintenance packages. I will also have to buy a separate $800/year license for each copy of advanced server install.
(I supposed I could grab the SRPMS of Advanced Server and compile and install them myself and maintain patches manually. What a hassle. I think they are counting on that...)
Redhat is obviously trying to move their business customers onto their advanced server line, which is not needed by every business out there. They are also killing the argument that licensing costs for redhat linux are cheaper than Windows (at least in academia) since Advanced Server costs, at minimum, $800/year/server.
While I can see the benefit of moving my SAN-attached boxes to Advanced Server, the bottom line is that this product isn't needed for every business-level server function. I also have a lot of desktops deployed. What, am I supposed to upgrade them to advanced server too? Or is Redhat throwing in the towel saying it's abandoning the business desktop market? A one year supported cycle is nuts, even for desktops. Imagine if Microsoft EOLed everything but XP SP1. Everyone would go ballistic on them.
One of the things I liked about Redhat was the RHN. We pay Redhat a few grand a year for the Enterprise subscription to RHN. The ability to pull up all systems up on a single web page and do updates is very nice and I'd hate to lose it. I didn't mind the cost associated with this because it was an additional value-added feature. I wasn't forced down the path. Why would I lose it? If I don't go hog wild updating all my servers and desktops, they will quickly fall out of support and potential security issues will go unpatched, forcing me to look at other distros or manually applying new patches everywhere.
The jump to 8.0 is a big one and will take us time to migrate our servers. There are some big package changes, like apache from 1.3 to 2.0. It takes time to test this stuff. There's also the fact that most people don't like to install Redhat x.0 on anything. Now I am faced with 8.0 and earlier going EOL at the EOY?
Also, my side business owns a virutal linux box at Johncompanies and all hosts must share the same redhat release and kernel, and they are at 7.3. If they are forced to go to 8.1 before end of year, it could cause me problems there too.
Advanced Server is just way overkill for my employer's servers. It'd also be a hit financially while giving me no time to budget for it.
Yes, there are alternative distros, and alternative update methods like autorpm. None have the management control and features of RHN and none are quite as "business stable" as redhat. Just look at Mandrake filing bankruptcy, for example. It all is fine for the individual maintaining their own box, but when you get into a large number of installs, management of errata gets to be a nightmare. RHN did away with all that mess, and earned Redhat some money too.
I believe this is a big mistake for Redhat. It's going to introduce yet more chaos into the Linux world and chaos doesn't make businesses feel good. While I understand back-porting fixes all the way back to 6.2 is expensive, the answer shouldn't be to abandon all but one prior release, nor should they blackmail businesses that are using their "consumer" line of Redhat into buying Advanced Server. Redhat also just went into the black. Whatever they were doing was starting to work. This new policy will probably backfire on them and move small businesses away from Redhat as well as desktop installs in all businesses.
BSD?
Disclaimer: For the mentally challenged: These are my own opinions, not necessarily those of my employer.