[lug] No more RedHat for regular folks!

[John Hernandez]

Ferdinand Schmid wrote:
> You can read the traditional IT publictions and will find that SuSE
> won't change its offerings due to the acquisition by Novell.  Novell
> needed Linux and SuSE needed a distribution and support channel and
> that's what the combined company can do.  
> 
> If my sources are correct then the Novell/SuSE company will go after
> the RedHat users who don't like the new licensing scheme.  I would bet
> on there being an affordable (and cheaper than Windows) version of
> SuSE Linux for a long time.  That is part of their bread and butter,
> especially in light of Novell's acquisition of Ximian.
> 
> Ferdinand
> 

I don't think the suits at Novell view it this way.  They're probably 
thinking, if Red Hat is going to charge this much for "Enterprise" 
Linux, why can't we?  The market should settle at some price (probably 
somewhat lower than RHEL's currently ambitious pricing) due to increased 
competition, but the price difference between SuSE's offering and Red 
Hat's price _for a similar product_ shouldn't be much in the end.

Hopefully SuSE (or someone else) can fill that middle ground that Red 
Hat abandoned.  By that middle ground, I mean a reasonably priced, 
stable, refined, commercially-adoptable enterprise-type distro with a 
reasonably long lifespan.  Most home/personal users of RHL are forced to 
look elsewhere, too.  Have we learned from Red Hat's recent shift that 
this is not a financially supportable market segment?  I can't help but 
wonder if the pending battle with SCO and the associated legal costs 
have played a big role in the shift.

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