Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on May 07, 2004 06:03 AM
Jeremy, nobody who is reasonable is disparaging all of the good things which Redhat has done and continues to do, and we do wish you well in your efforts going forward.
But come on, with all due respect, some of the rhetoric coming out of Redhat is just not on target. There are millions of people for whom Linux is, right now, a very, very viable desktop. I bought my boxed versions at Comp USA, myself, and as you suggest, that isn't the type of place where one goes to buy server software. I have always viewed the retail boxed versions as desktop software (with server options for the home server deployer).
You've got to admit that it is unfair for Mr. Szulik to blame the Linux desktop itself for Redhat's own business choices. It's not true and it's not even strategically wise; Linux is so often the target of vicious FUD campaigns that all that a comment like his can do is mar Linux's good name, and that kind of smear will be a detriment to efforts to market Linux as a server OS, too.
And while I appreciate your comments here and thank you for making the effort, unfortunately they come across as piling on with more inaccurate marketing-speak than as an accurate characterization of the bad blood which Redhat has caused many people to feel. It sounds like you're blaming the users who purchased your products for having unrealistic expectations. Your path would have been, and will continue to be, so much easier if you can stop going in that direction and instead accept that there are many happy Linux desktop users and you had to abandon that market for practical business reasons, personal to Redhat, rather than because of any failures of the product or failures of the customers' expectations. YOUR DESKTOP CUSTOMERS WERE HAPPY. I don't know how much more strongly I can say that.
I say all of this as a person who LOVED Redhat software on the desktop. My various Comp USA retail box versions were easily the most stable and dependable for me, compared to the other Linux distros which I tried (and I tried many). I didn't want to switch, but now I'm using another distro.
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on May 07, 2004 06:03 AMBut come on, with all due respect, some of the rhetoric coming out of Redhat is just not on target. There are millions of people for whom Linux is, right now, a very, very viable desktop. I bought my boxed versions at Comp USA, myself, and as you suggest, that isn't the type of place where one goes to buy server software. I have always viewed the retail boxed versions as desktop software (with server options for the home server deployer).
You've got to admit that it is unfair for Mr. Szulik to blame the Linux desktop itself for Redhat's own business choices. It's not true and it's not even strategically wise; Linux is so often the target of vicious FUD campaigns that all that a comment like his can do is mar Linux's good name, and that kind of smear will be a detriment to efforts to market Linux as a server OS, too.
And while I appreciate your comments here and thank you for making the effort, unfortunately they come across as piling on with more inaccurate marketing-speak than as an accurate characterization of the bad blood which Redhat has caused many people to feel. It sounds like you're blaming the users who purchased your products for having unrealistic expectations. Your path would have been, and will continue to be, so much easier if you can stop going in that direction and instead accept that there are many happy Linux desktop users and you had to abandon that market for practical business reasons, personal to Redhat, rather than because of any failures of the product or failures of the customers' expectations. YOUR DESKTOP CUSTOMERS WERE HAPPY. I don't know how much more strongly I can say that.
I say all of this as a person who LOVED Redhat software on the desktop. My various Comp USA retail box versions were easily the most stable and dependable for me, compared to the other Linux distros which I tried (and I tried many). I didn't want to switch, but now I'm using another distro.
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