RedHat

[Dustin Decker]

On Tue, 25 Feb 2003, A Duston wrote:

> Jason Clinton wrote:
> --snip--
> > If RedHat's an ocean liner, Gentoo and Debian are water-powered Jet Ski's.
> 
> I'd hate to try and cross the Atlantic on water-powered Jet Ski's just like
> I'd hate to try and float an ocean liner in Smithville Lake.
> 
> Hrmmm, I wonder what Slackware is in this analogy

I think Hal makes some excellent points here, and I'm sure they'll be 
overlooked because they have a humorous connotation.  I can think of 
several times in the past six months I've jumped on the rant I'm fixing to 
spew - and grow weary of repeating it so damned often... but it applies to 
several concepts that cross boundaries that touch a lot of what many of us 
do.  This will prolly be a long post so if you don't care for my customary 
drivel, delete now I guess.

I'm a long time user of Red Hat personally - for a multitude of reasons.  
But I don't think I need to "get behind them" in this instance 
necessarily.  What I _do_ want to stress is that "technology for the sake 
of technology" is a waste of time, and that's really what a lot of these 
types of arguments wind up being based on.  Ultimately, my reasons are my 
reasons... and they jive with the reasons that others select Red Hat.

Granted, I've been using Linux now since about mid 1995, but that doesn't 
make me a guru by any stretch of the imagination.  I have select tasks and 
functions that I press Linux into service for, and make use of some other 
operating systems and software as well.  The top down view is what 
matters.  I have a function, I need to meet the needs of that function, 
and I select the tools and software to accomplish that - end of story.  If 
I cloud my judgment by inserting more than a percentage of personal 
preference into the mix, then getting hit by a bus will do an even greater 
dis-service to my employer than otherwise, for a number of reasons.

Lots of folks who use Red Hat do so _because_ of the up2date system - 
which by the way, I haven't experienced a great deal of trouble with 
myself.  Beyond that, there are design issues inherent with who Red Hat is 
marketing to.  They aren't necessarily interested in being Linux for 
everyone - they target the business arena quite a bit.  With this, they 
have to do a lot of regression testing and the like - and depending on 
which release tree you follow (public, or corp) you have different issues 
to deal with.  The corp release is tested a great deal more, and released 
a great deal less frequently while the public releases are more frequent, 
and less tested to a degree.  The dot releases in the public tree are 
generally not that harsh - but going from say 6.2 to 7.0 can be, as the .0 
releases are where they implement new technologies.

I'm off my subject here though - this wasn't supposed to be a "Go Red Hat" 
rant.  It's a "know WHY you choose, and ensure you choose for the RIGHT 
reasons" rant.  Business first (unless you're playing, in which case my 
point is obviously moot) and evangelism second.

Hrm... not articulating my point for crap it would seem, or at least the
proof read doesn't feel like I've hit it.  I swear, I'm gonna have to find
posts I've made to other folks, and just make a form letter I can spew at
will I guess.  Anyway - if I make even the least bit of sense here, let me
know I'm not on crack, eh?

Have a great day...
Dustin

-- 
/---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| Dustin 
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