[ale] Redhat security updates available on RHN only ?

[James P. Kinney III]

Jeez! It's only $5/mo for priority access. There are mirrors of
everything RedHat (and there will continue to be for a long time into
the future) and it's easy to use tools like autorpm to work from the
mirrors for free if the $60/yr is too pricey. Another benefit to the
people who purchase the access from RedHat is priority access to the iso
images on new releases. 

Updates are not being eliminated. There is a finite bandwidth available
for any location and they have to parcel it out so it works for them. It
wasn't that long ago that Ximian had to cancel the Akaimai distributed
servers for updates. It was a very expensive luxury. The hardware
running the RedHat up2date service was not cheap and nor is the
bandwidth. I would not be surprised if more people downloaded RedHat
than bought it on CD from them. Then there's the places like CheapBytes
that burn the downloaded CD's and sell them for 1/2 of what RedHat
charges. It's a lot of work that goes into making a distribution. And
they give it away! 

$5 a month is pretty cheap. And with 7.3, there is a blinking icon in X
that tells you when an update is available. And it's STILL cheaper,
faster, better and certainly more reliable than anything from Redmond.

They have a "push" service that is a LOT more expensive than $5/mo.

Now if only GaTech mirror would turn on rsync...

On Thu, 2002-08-15 at 21:37, David Bronson wrote:
> Joe,
> 
> I don't expect Redhat to download files to my machine at all.
> 
> I installed Redhat in much the same way as I intall debian, or
> slackware, or any number of other distributions. If Redhat eliminated
> updates (free or otherwise) altogether that would be fine with me. My
> issue is this - Redhat offers and encourages users to use the up2date
> tool to keep their system current. I don't recall ever seeing an option to
> choose any mirror. I have seen many discussions regarding perl scripts or
> other tools to query rpmfind.net and other sources to get current rpms.
> The existence of these conversations lead me to the conclusion that
> mirrors are non-existant or have reduced function in some way.
> 
> Many developers have donated their time and effort to make Linux a
> usable tool that is superior to other OS choices in many ways. I offer
> what I can in the way of helping new users and spending time on irc
> answering the questions that I am able to assist with. Redhat has
> introduced this tool and has not indicated that the software supports
> mirrors in any meaningful way (I still haven't seen anything to indicate
> that up2date supports mirrors). 
> 
> For new users to enjoy the fruits of so
> many developers' donated efforts and to be left with the impression that
> they must pay Redhat to get updates to these packages is misleading.
> 
> I would also challenge your assertion that Redhat does it because they
> are nice guys. I believe Redhat does it because it is good business.
> They may be nice but few if any experienced Linux users would use a
> distribution that charged for a service that is freely available so many
> other places. It would be hard to sell support for packages like
> Interchange if experienced Linux users were all using other
> distributions.
> 
> Here are some additional links regarding up2date that I think are
> appropriate:
> 
> https://lists.dulug.duke.edu/pipermail/current-server/2002-March/000234.html
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It seems RedHat is being a little odd with the RHN. They yesterday
> admitted they won't be open sourcing the RHN server software. Which I
> took to mean the RHN Satellite software. It is still unclear if that
> includes RHN Proxy, but I think it will be closed source also. Their
> reason for this is because it is software used to provide a service. To
> me this means, they don't want to give out the software they wrote and
> have competition providing RHN like services. Which to me is a sad sad
> statement, since RedHat has always bragged about being completely Open
> Source. They did also mention their distribution build tools in the same
> breathe, another thing they haven't release source to. I also suspect
> that since they are using Oracle, and probably have had to tie into
> Oracle interface libraries, they might not have a choice in releasing it
> Open Source. They have talked about converting it to something like
> Postgres in the future, but currently Oracle is the only database that
> will handle the work load of providing RHN service to all their
> customers. Which may also mean they might convert RHN Satellite to
> Postgres in the future, since it won't need to work under such a huge
> workload, once they get around to it.
> </snip>
> 
> and
> 
> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/linux/shopper/161.html
> 
> <snip>
> 
> At least, up2date was a good idea until last week, when Red Hat
> announced that they're going to charge for the service, leaving users
> who rely on it for the patch-upgrade cycle swinging in the wind next
> time a worm comes calling. This is a really sensible policy -- not!
> In fact, if Red Hat want to develop a reputation for being worm-friendly,
> this is about the best way to do it: pull the rug from under
> inexperienced administrators who don't know how to compile BIND from the
> original sources and who run into difficulties applying security patches to an 
> old system by hand. 
> </snip>	
> 
> I suggest RedHat to many new Linux users. I would suggest it more often and
> more freely knowing that they were forthcoming with the options that
> exist to update the machines that run that distribution. 
> 
> NOTE: *Don't flame
> me for saying that Redhat is for newbies - I am giving credit where it
> is due. Redhat and Mandrake are very good at recognizing hardware and
> getting X going and finding what modules are needed....). I have already
> said there are many knowledgable Linux users that use Redhat.*
> 
> I am encouraged to see tools such as apt-rpm see
> (http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/) for more details.
> 
> David
> 
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 03:44:56PM -0700, Joe Bayes wrote:
> > David Bronson typeth:
> > 
> > >I certainly don't expect redhat to do
> > >anything for free, but to position itself as a large distribution and
> > >then use as a primary tool to update its software - a product that is
> > >difficult if not impossible to choose to use a non-redhat mirror. That
> > >is somewhat M$ish.
> > 
> > In my configuration file, I have:
> > 
> >   serverURL[comment]=Remote server URL
> >   serverURL=https://www.rhns.redhat.com/XMLRPC
> > 
> > Have you tried changing this line to a non-redhat machine?
> > 
> > I don't understand...it sounds like you are expecting redhat to
> > download files to your machine. But you haven't paid them any
> > money. How is it that you're not expecting them to do something for
> > free? 
> > 
> > If you pay them for the service of downloading files to you, they will
> > do so. If you don't, they will still do so, using spare bandwidth,
> > 'cause they're nice guys. Expecting them to buy extra bandwidth to
> > service the freeloaders doesn't seem entirely reasonable. 
> > 
> > --joe
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > Joe Bayes -- jbayes at spoo.mminternet.com
> > 
> > ---
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> > 
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and CEO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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