Red Hat, the leading American distributor of Linux, is abandoning the retail channel, the company is expected to announce Monday. The company’s next major release, codenamed “Cambridge,” will not be provided in boxed, retail form, according to company communications with employees and developers, which have been made available to Linux and Main.
Red Hat to Abandon Retail Channel
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A pretty good idea. I hope it ships with Linux 2.6 😉 because that along with GNOME 2.4 would be a great combination, and of course GCC 3.3 would be great as well 😉
That is a very smart move.
R&B
Perhaps Redhat knows what everybody else knows… “Why pay for something you can get free?”
Redhat gets the lions share of its profits from support anyways.
Boxed software only fuels the misconceived notion that Linux isn’t free and is instead more like Microsoft.
I download it anyway!
Are they sure “Cambridge” is the correct codename?
Cause today I noticed there is a new beta directory open
which means they’re probably uploading new ISO’s to mirrors.
the new dir is:
http://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/severn/
So there not selling but any new release will be available for FREE download?
you must love all those codename to make stuff look more “secret” “important” and “unaccesible”
Beta = severn
Final = Cambridge
That’s my guess anyway.
The new beta will almost certainly not have 2.6 its too new and the rpms they have are basically broken. It may offer rpm’s down the line for download on the next release though.
I know redhat said they did away with point releses but this next version should be 9.1 and save the 10 for new revision system, kernel 2.6, maybe gnome 2.6. just seems like it would be a nice marketing ploy with all those goodies.
What Linux really needs is more shrink-wrapped packages (though more apps than the OS) on shelves in places like CompUSA, along with all the Windows stuff.
Having more software in stores may help to ease the notion that Linux has no software available for it. I’m sure many Joe Users who see Linux (the OS) for sale, but no apps to go along with it feel this way.
This sounds real interesting, and of all Linux companies I expected this least from Red Hat. Hopefully it all works out for the best. If Cambridge ships with 2.6, it will be quite nice, but only if it allowed it as an optional package/kernel instead of completely eliminating 2.4. There’s a lot of issues ATM with 2.6 that need ironing out, but Red Hat already pledged to provide extensive testing opportunities for the 2.6 kernel, and I didn’t actually RTFA when I saw the story, but I’d imagine their support will be in the form of RPM packages for adventurous end-users.
Personally, my own builds of the 2.5 series (Right before it went into 2.6 testing) were nowhere near as high-performance as 2.4, but I’m sure that was my fault someway somehow, or possibly just the release I was using. The majority of the people that used 2.5 had nothing but praise for it, so I’m sure it was an isolated incident (The only thing that kept me away from continually using the 2.5 branch, outside of Gentoo, was how annoying the NVidia driver patches were. I spent >1 hour trying to get that stuff to work, only to end up formatting the Slackware install and re-starting from scratch). Anyways, long post, here’s the abrubt end.
I disagree. For people whom which linux is on the radar at all, boxes in CompUSA won’t do much, since they already know that they can get software on the net. For people who don’t have a clue, they won’t even notice.
This is a retraction, no matter how you want to spin it.
This now means at distributors like Best Buy, there may not even be a Linux presence.
It also probably means major warehouse distributors like CDW won’t be selling Red Hat anymore either, and therefore won’t be making ANY money off of boxed Linux, and therefore won’t be pushing it much, either.
But this is what the market apparently dictates, as they wouldn’t be withdrawing from these retail markets unless they weren’t profitable in the first place.
This is not what you think. While it is true that the old way of having Red Hat Linux 8.0 or Red Hat Linux 9 in stores is going away, what the article said was that “…Red Hat plans extensive changes in its development and distribution model…” not that they’re abandoning selling Linux in stores.
From the article:
“followed by return of package maintanence to the developers themselves. Currently, packages are “handed over” to Red Hat developers, who then tune them for inclusion in a particular version. Under the new system, developers will maintain control of the packages.”
This makes it sound like they’re just planning on chucking the QA phase out of the window, and won’t be pre-vetting packages at all to see how well they inter-operate within the wider context of the distribution as a whole. Jettisoning testing to get releases out of the door faster doesn’t sound like a particularly good thing to me.
That said, given that the Linuxandmain piece is *incredibly* skimpy on detail, perhaps I’ll wait for the official announcement on Monday before passing judgement.
The company hopes that the changes help to overcome the long lead time needed to produce boxed sets. With a six-month release cycle, and with the rapid pace of Linux development, many packages shipped on CD are obsolete before they ever reach retail shelves.
They are apparently not only reducing their own potential market size with this move, their provided reasoning may not be a good one in the eyes of their enterprise customers, who already complain of the rapid fire releases of Linux products that already make versioning and configuration management in large scale implementations extremely difficult. Stability and Compatibility now seem to be going even further out the window.
Er… From the article:
“The company’s next major release, codenamed “Cambridge,” will not be provided in boxed, retail form, according to company communications with employees and developers, which have been made available to Linux and Main.”
Additionally, the title of the piece is “Red Hat to abandon retail channel”… note the word “abandon”, not “restructure”.
This seems to be a major shakeup in the promised robustness of Red Hat Enterprise Edition (non-free version that is their primary revenue generator). Check this link for the listed benefits of RHEL, and right at the very top we have this:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/
Highlights
Stability – 12-18 month release cycle
This is the kind of reliability that people are willing to pay for. With a new 6 month cycle release time, their pay as you go product looses whatever lure it previously had. Looks like they will probably just start conforming to the latest post beta kernels and specializing more in taking support calls for a fee.
This seems to be a major shakeup in the promised robustness of Red Hat Enterprise Edition (non-free version that is their primary revenue generator). Check this link for the listed benefits of RHEL, and right at the very top we have this:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/
Highlights
Stability – 12-18 month release cycle
This is the kind of reliability that people are willing to pay for. With a new 6 month cycle release time, their pay as you go product looses whatever lure it previously had. Looks like they will probably just start conforming to the latest post beta kernels and specializing more in taking support calls for a fee.
Look at Oracle, not sold at retail either, and they are doing pretty good….
I think this is a good thing because most stores still carry old Mandrake 7.2, Suse 8.0 or old RedHat 8.0 boxes next to the new ones. (and the prices are the same as on the newer versions)
These old boxes make linux look like an old shoe that no one uses or buys…
Distros either need to recall old boxes or stop making them.
Oracle is not an Consumer market app, its a product that sell in the Industrial market.
I bought SuSE 8.2 from Best Buy. I bought it like a week after it was released. Seems pretty up to date to me (GCC 3.3 etc), and guess what I run the update to get the lastest packages.
RedHat has Red Carpet.
I like buying the box, I don’t want to download the ISO’s and burn them. I want to pay something for the software I use and I want to get a nice “BOX” with a printed manual and branded CD’s for my payment. Maybe I’m old fashioned.
I was seriously considering RedHat next because I may switch to Gnome with 2.4.
Anyway, this move seems to indicate they Redhat is not interested in the Home user / Enthusiast who wants an alternative to MS (That’s Me).
Not that they are not interested in you, but that you(your peers more specifically) do not pay much. If only they had a longer release cycle.
Could it be that Red Hat will still do boxed sets, but sell them only direct? That may be what they mean by discontinuing “retail” sales.
I can understand that the costs of the physical distribution of boxes that sit unsold is high, and may not be worth the cost. Best Buy or whoever takes a very large cut of the retail price.
But surely there’s plenty of profit in selling a few CDs and some cardboard for $40-60. It would be bizarre in the extreme to cut off this revenue.
Oddly, I find that I’m happy to pay up once or twice a year for a new Red Hat release, but I’m not at all willing to pay anything for the subscription to Red Hat Network. Paying for my boxed set makes me feel like I’m supporting a Good Thing. Paying for security updates makes me feel like I’m being taken advantage of. Just a fair warning for what Red Hat might have in mind…
No, this is for the next release, which is a consumer release. I would guess that Red Hat Enterprise Edition will still be on a 12-18 month schedule, or supporting it would be a nightmare.
I think this is Red Hat’s way of spending less of their developers’ time QAing consumer releases that most people don’t pay for anyway, not even for support. Once features are good enough in the consumer release they will show up in the less-frequent high-dollar Enterprise Linux releases. So will there be beta releases (buggy), consumer releases (less buggy, packages maintained by independent developers), and various Enterprise releases (stable, profitable, and supported by Red Hat)?
i really don’t know the cost of retail space (yes some retailers actually charge you in addition to the actual cost from boxing etc.). However, retail space = advertising at the end of the day. Advertising = visibility.
And red hat is a consumer app? LOL
Im sure a lot of home users are paying for support….
offer free shipping for website orders if I’m stuck buying it online at whatever price they dictate rather than picking it up in my local store in 5 minutes.
How many times do they have to say it? RedHat is NOT focusing on the home market. They don’t want to be Lindows or Xandros. Their focus is business sales (servers, workstations, maybe even desktops). Retail sales cater pretty much exclusively to the home market and are just a remnant of the RedHat that was selling to the hobbyist market (which is no longer profitable for them).
I’m guessing you’ll be able to order CDs from them direct (like the smaller distributions like Libranet) or download it from their site.
It can easily be both, which RH could be / has been. You see if you ship a media player, web browser, personal productivity apps, etc, then yes you have an product that fits into the consumer market.
To be more specific, if your product will/could appeal to a group of people not involoved in the production of final goods and services, then you have a product that is in the consumer market.
RH is therefore in both the consumer and industrial markets. It seems they don’t care about the former. Well thats their choice.
No person in their right mind would you an Oracle app for anything other than the creation of final goods and services.
I don’t see this news as positive at all. Now Red Hat will loose in visibility by retracting from huge shelves like Best Buy.
Call it the way you want, put as much candies around it as you want, it’s nothing else than a retraction. And it’s not positive at all … 🙁
More people will be more tempted to buy SuSE or Mandrake.
Drop CD’s out of planes! Hand them out at the 7-11! It will work (look at AOL!)
I have to agree you’ll always have SuSE, Mandrake, Lindows, Xandros, Lycoris, etc…to choose from.
Has anybody else heard of the rumor that they are going to just distribute through Magazines? This would increase subscribtions in a way. I guess every year they will put out an issue with the new release, and the other months will carry the updates so you don’t have to download so much. The latest RedHat Network survey seemed to hint at this. I’ve heard this rumor elsewhere, but I can’ remember where.
RedHat doeas have a magazine. It is printed in Italian and German. I am waiting for a response of whether they will have a magazine for the states as well. I will post the response on sjlinux.org.
Anyway, I have started using Suse 8.2 a few months ago. I didn’t like the way RH was going, and this just proves my theory.
Is Red Hat network like Windows Update or the Mac’s Software Update? Because one thing that I have never figured out how to do in my (limited) experience with Linux is install software and make it double-click launchable, or put it in the wannabe-Start Menu.
Does Red Hat network update all the packaged components, like Mozilla? Because the Mozilla in the box is always out of date, and I was never able to install a newer version, and figure out how to get it to run.
Just asking. Curiosity mostly.
> A pretty good idea. I hope it ships with Linux 2.6 😉 because that
> along with GNOME 2.4 would be a great combination, and of
> course GCC 3.3 would be great as well 😉
It’s highly unlikely that Linux 2.6 will be ready in time. It’s widely suggested that Linux 2.6 will only ship in Q1, 2004. Also, GNOME 2.4 is scheduled for release around September 10 which is when RedHat usually ships it’s second release for the year, hence, RedHat will almost certainly use GNOME 2.2.
I have a good idea for ALL linux distributors that gets around the problem of the expense of boxed dostros and and the lack of and/or still slow speeds of Broadband in rural communities like mine. This would be mass FREE DISTRIBUTUION OF LINUX ON CD ROM along with a cd retail catalog for manuals, paid support, proprietary software trial disks and other items that currently come with boxed distros. Free CDs was the way that national ISPs like AOL and Earthlink made it to the top and is still the way they stay on top over local ones and therefore it could also be the way that Linux takes the desktop. A bootable CD based distro like Knoppix which transfers to the hard drive when the user is ready for duo booting or a Linux only system would be perfect for this.
> Is Red Hat network like Windows Update or the Mac’s Software
> Update? Because one thing that I have never figured out how to
> do in my (limited) experience with Linux is install software and
> make it double-click launchable, or put it in the wannabe-Start
> Menu.
If RedHat doesn’t have enough easy-to-install software for you, get SuSE or Debian. Hell, even FreeBSD. Get something that has more pre-configured, easy to install software.
As for the “wannabe-Start Menu” -I assume you’re referring to GNOME’s applications menu and that you believe it is intended to copy Windows’s Start Menu-. This is not the kind of thing you should say if you expect help from others. It is baseless, spontaneous and most importantly UNTRUE.
When configured the standard GNOME way, the GNOME applications menu sits neatly up the top, categorised by type of application (Audio, Video, Development, Office, Utility) rather than company name and provides an easy alternative to ALT-F2, programname<ENTER>. I personally find the crufty Windows way of finding programs to be far insuperior to the choices offered by GNOME, KDE, WindowMaker and my beloved Blackbox.
Put some thought in before you speak next time.
> Does Red Hat network update all the packaged components,
> like Mozilla? Because the Mozilla in the box is always out of
> date, and I was never able to install a newer version, and figure
> out how to get it to run.
Mozilla (in the box as you say) from RedHat 9.0 is 1.2. This is a very modern browser. More so than IE 6.0. If you want a newer Mozilla (1.4 being the latest), download the source and as root:
tar xvpzf mozilla-version-x.xx.tar.gz
cd mozilla-version-x.xx
./configure
make && make install && make clean
I can verify that this works on RedHat 9.0 and 8.0 as I use the latest mozilla. use ./configure –help to show you how to get xft font support (I can’t remember off the top of my head).
> Just asking. Curiosity mostly.
Aren’t we all.
FREE DISTRIBUTUION OF LINUX ON CD ROM along with a cd retail catalog for manuals, paid support, proprietary software trial disks and other items that currently come with boxed distros. Free CDs was the way that national ISPs like AOL and Earthlink made it to the top and is still the way they stay on top over local ones and therefore it could also be the way that Linux takes the desktop…
Who’s going to pay for all those cd’s? Nobody unless they are getting return revenue for it. Did you hear AOL just sold their entire media business to a company in Canada to offload some debt?
Dare put an 800 number on your “free” cd? No telling how many calls you’ll get.
Maybe you can get some of the folks to actually load it on their computer, but how are you going to get any money back from them? Tech support? Better have a call center with at least two levels, which is going to you cost money. Security updates? Better have some good hardware to host it along with tons of bandwidth, even more money you’ll need to protect that name you put on the ‘free’ cd.
You’re only long term chance with that CD idea is to lock them into a subscription, again like AOL, but something a lot of customers aren’t going to be interested in from suposedly “Free” Linix. This is the rock and hard place Red Hat seems to be in right now.
This IS positive news. Think about it from the economics standpoint. They will no longer have to pay for the production of shrink-wrapped copies of their software. If supply and demand were not how they should be, then dropping that product or service is a smart business decision. The post titled “Go the way of AOL!” may be on to something. If you want the masses to switch to Open Source software, why not let them have it in CD-form for free. I bet more people would switch to Linux or at least give it a whirl. If they like what they have tried then they can continue to use it and/or pay for the Redhat Network service.
Agree with you top speed. It would probably ruin them instead of helping them. At least AOL & co are getting money from subscriptions. Redhat can’t force you to subscribe to their network unless there’s an expiration date on their OS (something that could be easily crackable).
Apart from the Magazines (in this country – I don’t know about the US – they put out copies of all the big distros and some minor ones), don’t forget that Red Hat is on nearly all the CDs inside books on Linux. US publishers have stopped producing books on any versions of Linux except for Red Hat, and the CDs on the general Linux books are always Red Hat. So if you can get it free inside a book, why pay twice as much for the box?
Matthew Smith makes an excellent point. The CD’s which come with books such as The Red Hat Linux Bible solve the problem for anyone who needs to puchase a CD set, but there would still be two disadvantages:
1. The release of the books has always lagged behind the release of the boxed sets.
2. The books don’t come with the source code CD’s that normally come with the boxed sets. (The books don’t come with a documentation CD either, but, well, that’s why you’re buying a book.)
Now that you mention it, I have to wonder whether this played a role in RedHat’s decision.
Redhat has always been a slow coach, next only to debian’s woody in carrying new packages. Gentoo shows people love the latest and greatest and latest packages. Mandrake learnt that quite some time back.
“Gentoo shows people love the latest and greatest and latest packages.”
And Gentoo has little to no credibility in the enterprise. RedHat should not seek to emulate them by embracing the bleeding-edge. Debian’s release cycle is so slow because of their unrivalled focus on stability and distro-wide integration. Given their popularity in the server space, they must be doing something right.
You’ve heard of Debian Sid haven’t you? That would be your latest and greatest.
Good Point on the books. Perhaps the magazine will only carry updates.
The question is will it only be the updates for THAT Month or will be all the updates up to that point? I think it would be better to put all the updates up to that point since I don’t think they take up that much space. Well, in reality they do, but some updates supercede other updates, so only the newest per package would have to be in there.
I also think that RedHat does not want to become the next Microsoft and get blamed for taking over everything. On the other hand, perhaps this is a Microsoft strategy as they will stay out of retail until somebody else finds a way to make it work.
The worst case scenario is there will be NO Redhat 10 as they give up the free distribution altogether. There is no place that the GPL says you have to give away the software for free; nor do you have to give away the source code. It just has to be available.
But, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Look, they have the most users (or close to it). Couldnt’ they at least make money by seperating the Enterprise website and the “Community” website and support it through ads? I mean, they could say “This download page sponsored by Dell” or “This install screen is sponsored by Snickers?” or even better “Try Microsoft Server 3002 Windows…Another unfortunate side affect of hunger”. I know ads aren’t the best way to solve the problem, but c’mon, it’s like wasting oppurtunity and I’d be willing to put up with it to continue getting RedHat. Or any other Distro. Mandrake (as much as I am upset at the French) should not be struggling. Sell some adspace for crying out loud. At least put ads for your own enterprise products (or action figures)
Thanks Top-Speed for showing me some of the errors in my previous post. However we are still left with the problem of finding a way to bring Linux to areas without broadband internet access if boxed distributions are no longer profitable.
Here are a couple more ideas in this area. The first one is a revision of an idea from MandrakeSoft. Here we could use the free CD distribution idea again but add to it a subscription to a support and discount Proprietary Software club like the Mandrake Club. Such a subscription would include paper manuals, paid support and services tied to the distribution, automatic upgrades to the distribution on CD and discount pricing on proprietary linux software like Borland Kylix, Sun Star Office, other proprietary application software, and proprietary games if we could get the companies involved to participate. (I think we could get Borland to participate in this one because Kylix sales were NOT what the expected and they have radically reduced the price on it before because of this.)
The second idea I have for a profitable approcah to this problem comes from the Shareware game developer community toward the end of the DOS era of gaming. These developers realized that the vast majority of the users of their games were not paying the Shareware registration fees for the full versions of them so they desided to sell the full registered versions of their games directly through supermarkets, drug stores and other such outlets like magazines through what came to be called the “rackware” system. My proposal in this area would be to re adopt the “rackware” system for Linux distributions and other open source projects. The advantage of this approach would be that not only would Linux get a much wider exposure than it has now and still profit from CD sales without the need
of expensive boxed distributions but also that money from “rackware” CD sales by other open source projects could help them get out of the “spare time in mom’s basement” syndrome and get them the money they need to become professional finished products. Thirdly a rackware approach could bring open source gaming to profitability and generally prove that if it is done right that there IS money in GPL development, even for the developers.
However we do it though if we are to remain competitive with Microsoft we HAVE to find a way to keep Linux available to communities without broadband internet access
for the forseeable future without bankrupting the distribution companies involved.
And Gentoo has little to no credibility in the enterprise.
does that matter ? An enterprise will use whatever the IT department thinks it can support. Well, at least the enterprises I have experience with.
Anyway, reliability can be built into any and all linux services, you just have to actually DO it when you design them (and even when you don’t, you can try to get it in using lvs)
“reliability can be built into any and all linux services, you just have to actually DO it when you design them”
Sure. I was just expressing my view that it’s far *easier* to design and maintain a reliable system around Debian Stable than it is to do so around Gentoo. Gentoo is designed to be bleeding-edge, whereas Debian Stable is designed to be, well, stable in being both rock solid and unchanging (apart from security updates).
To tie this in more closely with the topic of this thread: I feel, as I said earlier, that RedHat’s restructuring of its development model is a step away from the stability that Debian et al focus on, towards the bleeding-edge. I think this is a terribly inappropriate shift in focus for a product that claims to be geared towards the enterprise.
However we do it though if we are to remain competitive with Microsoft we HAVE to find a way to keep Linux available to communities without broadband internet access
for the forseeable future without bankrupting the distribution companies involved.
What you’re going to need is for a large company to see a profit in you, and commit a lot of resources to making the Linux name stick. Enter IBM, who was in the process of trying that, but they may have been a little careless and so now others are timid to try the new dance either.
Bottom line is, “Operating Systems Upgrades” are no fun, even to people like us sometimes. I know, I did one today (and had a driver problem). So many many people aren’t going to undertake it unless they get a LOT of improvement out of their system. So in most cases, people don’t undergo the old “operating system upgrade”, unless they’re undergoing “system upgrade” at the same time, see because that also should offer some additional return on their effort.
This means pre-installed systems is probably going to be the only way to attack a deeply entrenched operating system vendor that has cornered the market. Pre-Installed Linux is certainly available, but it is mostly sold on servers, and needs to get more into the desktop area, so that it is penetrating the OVERALL operating system percentages, those being dominated by desktop numbers and 90% M$.
The other main problem? The economy. Not many people are getting new systems right now (I know I’m not), and hence, not many people (outside of hacks such as ourselves) are getting new operating systems either.
“However we are still left with the problem of finding a way to bring Linux to areas without broadband internet access if boxed distributions are no longer profitable.”
We aren’t! I will most probably get my next Red Hat release from the german version of the Red Hat Magazine. And I _do_ have broadband. It just seems like a great idea to me. You can’t get more value for your money (it is even worth paying for this just to save downloading and burning the CD’s IMO, let alone the nice CD print and the additional informations in the magazine), it’s very convenient (I might even subscribe to it to get the latest Red Hat upgrades shipped to me every two months) and it’s very easy to distribute. For example the magazine should be available at every larger kiosk.
I would not be surprised if _this_ will be their main distribution channel (apart from downloads) for the Red Hat Linux Project releases.
Just found the real deal information from an insider on Slashdot:
Red Hat has been taken over by aliens from Perseus Omicron 8. Future releases will be forcefully installed by tentacled monsters on all machines in existence to enslave the pathetic humans…
That would have been my second guess anyway.
What on earth makes Red Hat think developers will produce packages for them? Why should we? Will they pay us to do so?
This sounds like the end of the non-enterprise Red Hat distribution to me.
Rich.
There is an update on 9.0.93 that says that the next version will be the redhat linux project at rhl.redhat.com
I guess it’s going to be more community oriented.