[lug] Fedora *MEETS* KRUD comments wanted

[Peter Hutnick]

Rob Nagler said:
> Peter Hutnick writes:
>> Mindshare. [snip]
>> Install Base. [snip]
>> Good Will. [snip]
>> [snip]
>> Surely they realize that this move will alienate some number of
>> people.  The real question is whether the increase in license sales
>> will out weigh the loss of the items above in what I am going to
>> suddenly call the medium term.

> $60/year for RHN is not gouging.  My cell phone costs more per month
> than that.  RHN is continually innovating, and somebody has to pay for
> that.  At $180/year, I'll maybe think about optimizing with autorpm, but
> maybe not.  It's an insignificant cost in comparison my other
> business expenses (rent, colo, people), and I'm much happier with
> RH's service in comparison to, say, Microsoft or Oracle--two of the
> biggest price gougers in the industry.

I don't disagree with anything you said.  (And I never said or implied
that RHN at $60 is gouging . . .)

My point was about my home systems.  My major point was that *I* will
probably be migrating off of RH because of these changes.  While this has
no direct negative effect (since I download), I think that it will have
indirect effects.  (i.e. I will get real cozy with some other distro,
which will likely spread into my professional life.)  I also think that my
circumstances are not terribly uncommon, and that these cumulative
secondary effects could be surprisingly significant.

Said another way, the little-f free ISOs I've downloaded amount to an
advertising cost to RH.  I believe that this advertising has been
incalculably effective and abandoning it might be a bad business move.

And, again, in the interest of intellectual honesty, I /want/ free ISOs ;-)

-Peter