Red Hat exec takes Sun to task on open source

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Red Hat is fully committed to Open Source

The desktop *is* Open Source, and so is the management software. It's ok to ask questions like this, but I think that pre-emptively leveling a charge of hypocrisy might reveal a certain lack of knowledge of the subject matter, rather than any particular acumen in analysis.

At Red Hat all the components of the distributions are GPL (which is why we don't include any DVD or MP3 playing programs in the Fedora distro), and we have an internal commitment to producing only GPL software. As the famous company saying goes: "We wouldn't be able to go away from being an Open Source company, because half of engineering would walk out".

You can get the source code to any of the distros, including the community supported Fedora distro, *or any of the Enterprise Linux offerings*, and compile it yourself, completely free. There are several distros out there that are based on exactly that.

What you won't get for free is support.

Red Hat makes money from support contracts with enterprises that need stability, consistency, reliability and accountability. We give technical support via phone, web, and on site visit for these customers, as well as listening to their engineering concerns.

We also make money by offering an automated service for updating machines. If you want to run a single server and update it by hand, that's fine. If you have 10,000 servers to update you would want to automate that, and we offer the *service* of Red Hat Network which does that. We make money from service, not software.

I work at Red Hat because they are fully committed to the Open Source Community. Staying purely GPL has hurt the company at times, but it is important to maintain purity, and as long as it does, I'll be staying.

Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat. This is not an official communication or position statement by Red Hat. These are completely my own personal opinions.

Posted by: jwulf   Posted on: 09/24/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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