[oclug] Impressed!

[Chris Herrnberger]

On Friday 25 July 2003 09:37, Bill Strosberg wrote:

Two things come to mind immediately;

1. Gentoo; 

I really like your question 'where does it fit in'. This is more important 
then most people realize as it determines to a far greater extend the 
products life cycle be it opensource or commerical. Good question Bill. 
Someday when I have the time I will take it for a test drive as well, but not 
now.

2. RedHat:

I dont support RedHat in any shape or form...unless the client requests it of 
course, and then they pay extra. Reasons are simple. I learned a long time 
ago in negotiating several contracts with RedHat that they have a not too 
uncommon business strategy of locking client/customers in. Hence support 
costs are not linear, not predicatable and not quantifiable to any sufficient 
degree to competatively bid or tendor a long term contracts where dollars are 
made on points. 

Contributions to the OS movement aside for a moment I have never understood 
this business model (post 7.0) as its counter to the basics that grew the 
company in the first place: ie: The Bob Young travelling road show with the 
famouse suitecase full of cd's etc. Its amazing what an IPO will do. 

For the above reasons, and on the commercial side of things, I have been 
supporting SuSE now for several years.  OK their marketing in the NA stinks, 
some purists has an issue with the yast license, however the products are 
rock solid stable, enterprise class, support is outstanding and negotiating 
contracts for services are simplistic. Just the way it should be. 

For me Suse is the Gentoo of commercial linux's when it comes to vendor client 
relationships and product performace.....:) As a development platform Debian 
can't be beat for ease of use...but that an entirely different story.  

Best and enjoy the summer.

/ch