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Redhat puts a lot of effort into building its enterprise distro. Yeah, it's mostly out of FOSS parts, I get that, but distros are nontrivial and costly underta

Redhat puts a lot of effort into building its enterprise distro. Yeah, it's mostly out of FOSS parts, I get that, but distros are nontrivial and costly undertakings. I've always had a bit of a problem with Centos, which as I understand takes Redhat's work, removes the proprietary parts, and redistributes for free-as-in-beer - perhaps depriving Redhat of a sale or two. It's not exactly theft, but not sporting either. Would somebody straighten me out? Am I wrong to avoid Centos based on social principle? What does Redhat think of Centos?

samarudge 13y ago
RedHat loves CentOS. To quote their CEO > CentOS is one of the reasons that the RHEL ecosystem is the default. It helps to give us an ubiquity that RHEL might otherwise not have if we forced everyone to pay to use Linux. So, in a micro sense we lose some revenue, but in a broader sense, CentOS plays a very valuable role in helping to make Red Hat the de facto Linux.[0] [0]http://readwrite.com/2013/08/13/red-hat-ceo-centos-open-source http://readwrite.com/2013/08/13/red-hat-ceo-centos-open-sour...
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Somewhat why Adobe didn't care if you pirated Photoshop. If you weren't making money with it, they'd rather you know it than something else (maybe gimp?). Having mindshare (uggh, I hate that word) definitely helps when it comes time to get the credit card out for tools you'll need for a paying project.
angersock 13y ago
It seems that Centos is almost an embrace-and-extinguish play--you get folks familiar with the Centos (read: RHEL) way of doing things, and then when things get professional it is a no-brainer to pick up a normal RHEL license. It's a pretty good thing, actually.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  I wouldn't call it an embrace-and-extenguish play. Its just an upgrade path. No one forces me to take my car in for an oil change, but I'd rather pay someone else than get under the car in my condo parking lot and wrestle with the oil filter, etc for 30-60 minutes.
krakensden 13y ago
CentOS users are primarily deadweight loss- they couldn't afford to pay RedHat if it didn't exist. On the other hand, its existence, popularity, and the fact that it's identical to RHEL except for the logos means that people make sure their programs work on RHEL. I have never worked at RedHat, but it was founded by and is run by Linux and GPL enthusiasts. Unencumbered redistribution of the software is the goddamn point.

samarudge 13y ago

RedHat loves CentOS. To quote their CEO > CentOS is one of the reasons that the RHEL ecosystem is the default. It helps to give us an ubiquity that RHEL might otherwise not have if we forced everyone to pay to use Linux. So, in a micro sense we lose some revenue, but in a broader sense, CentOS plays a very valuable role in helping to make Red Hat the de facto Linux.[0] [0]http://readwrite.com/2013/08/13/red-hat-ceo-centos-open-source http://readwrite.com/2013/08/13/red-hat-ceo-centos-open-sour...

toomuchtodo 13y ago
Somewhat why Adobe didn't care if you pirated Photoshop. If you weren't making money with it, they'd rather you know it than something else (maybe gimp?). Having mindshare (uggh, I hate that word) definitely helps when it comes time to get the credit card out for tools you'll need for a paying project.

angersock 13y ago

It seems that Centos is almost an embrace-and-extinguish play--you get folks familiar with the Centos (read: RHEL) way of doing things, and then when things get professional it is a no-brainer to pick up a normal RHEL license. It's a pretty good thing, actually.

toomuchtodo 13y ago
I wouldn't call it an embrace-and-extenguish play. Its just an upgrade path. No one forces me to take my car in for an oil change, but I'd rather pay someone else than get under the car in my condo parking lot and wrestle with the oil filter, etc for 30-60 minutes.

krakensden 13y ago

CentOS users are primarily deadweight loss- they couldn't afford to pay RedHat if it didn't exist. On the other hand, its existence, popularity, and the fact that it's identical to RHEL except for the logos means that people make sure their programs work on RHEL. I have never worked at RedHat, but it was founded by and is run by Linux and GPL enthusiasts. Unencumbered redistribution of the software is the goddamn point.