[Yum] yum vs up2date in the future

[Troy Dawson]

Keith Winston wrote:
> Red Hat recently made it less convenient to use up2date for free (they 
> now require an online survey to be filled out every 60 days).  This 
> follows what I perceive to be a trend to herd Red Hat users into 
> subscription services the higher priced packages.
> 
> Also, Yum appears to be almost a drop in replacement for both up2date 
> and the Red Hat Network Proxy server, which they sell for over $1000 
> (last time I checked).
> 
> And, since Red Hat is a business, they will natually want to maximize 
> "shareholder value" over the long term.
> 
> As a new yum user (and it is fantastic BTW), does anyone else see yum as 
> a potential threat to the Red Hat Network and does anyone think Red Hat 
> may take steps to make yum less effective in the future?
> 
> They could do things like make tricky changes to RPM (yes, I know we 
> have the source), or delay patches to the public FTP servers, or even 
> stop posting patches to the public FTP servers.
> 
> I am probably being overly paranoid, but I wonder if anyone else in the 
> yum community has thought about things like this or talked to Red Hat 
> about their position regarding yum or yum-type programs and services.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Keith

Hi Keith,
You probrubly are being a little overly paranoid, but these day's things can 
happen that we don't expect.

As for here were we are, yum isn't a replacement for up2date, because we never 
used up2date, or redcarpet, or any updating mechanism that you pay for.  We 
had a mechanism in place (autorpm) back before redhat (or ximian) did, so when 
  they came out with their services, none of them were able to match the 
entrenched mechanisms we already had.

We have discussed here at work the pro's and con's of redhat doing odd things 
like you were talking about, like not posting their patches, or even doing 
away with their low cost version of redhat altogether.
In the end I think RedHat knows what we soon figured out.  If redhat goes to 
all paying (like all they offer is their 'advanced server' or 'advanced 
desktop') or stop giving patches for their low end redhat, then their company 
will basically drop like a rock.
Why?
Because one of the main reasons people use RedHat is that they are big, they 
have a huge install base with both people who pay, and people who don't (take 
us for example, we don't pay them anything and we have several thousand 
machines with it on).  If they say they are doing away with their 'free' 
stuff, they would be breaking that unwritten opensource law of giving back to 
the community.
The communitry would retaliate, redhat would soon loose that huge install 
base, and soon, there would be another redhat like linux to take their place. 
  Huge companies like Dell and IBM would then see that they have to jump to 
the other company, and they eventually would.  All in all, it wouldn't be a 
pretty site.

If you are wondering how the opensource community could retaliate, picture it 
this way.  Let's say we at Fermilab switch from RedHat to Mandrake.  We change 
our couple thousand machines.  But then the various Universities (about 
100-150 thoughout the world) wouldn't get help on their RedHat stuff that we 
provide, and would eventually switch to Mandrake as well.  (Not all of course, 
since not all of them are using redhat anyway).  The Univerisities are the 
place where the computer people of tomorrow get trained, so they would be 
getting trained on Mandrake, take that into their companies, push for it 
there, and so on and so on.  It's a trickle down theory, but it works.

*Troy looks at all this and laughs* Maybe I should have gone into economics 
instead of Physics.

Troy

-- 
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Troy Dawson  dawson at fnal.gov  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/OSS  CSI Group
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