Comments on: Programmers bypass Red Hat Linux fees

Red Hat spent months making the newest version of its premium product. Outside programmers released a free clone in less than two weeks.

[NicholasDonovan]

This Article has Ulterior Motives...

Whether Red Hat is having people using Red Hat clones is not the purpose of the article.

This is an attempt from the writers at E-Week to create distrust within the Open Source community in my opinion.

Be on guard people and see things for what they are.

The enemies of Linux and Open Source will try anything to destroy the community.

You'll be seeing more articles and attempts like this in the future.

You can say all the bluff and doublespeak you want but I can say that I'm not the only person who has this perspective.

Cheers,

Nick

[Shankland]

From the author: my alleged ulterior motives

You write: "This is an attempt from the writers at E-Week to create distrust within the Open Source community in my opinion."

I'm not certain how exactly this article would create distrust, but I am certain I work for CNET News.com, not eWeek. The intent of the article was to share news of what I viewed as an interesting development in the balance of power between Red Hat and open-source programmers, not to undermine Red Hat, the open-source community, the Red Hat rebuilders or anyone else.

You also write: "The enemies of Linux and Open Source will try anything to destroy the community."

This might be true, but I don't think this article is such an attempt. To the contrary, I suspect that many people in the community will be interested in learning about or trying the Red Hat clones and that the clones' existence demonstrates the community's vitality. Red Hat may or may not like people using the clones, but that's a separate issue. If my goal had been to destroy the community, I would have been better off avoiding reporting on the issue altogether. Read my work and judge for yourselves: http://news.search.com/search?q=shankland

If you could be specific about how exactly this article is an attack, you might be more persuasive. Feel free to post here or e-mail me directly--my e-mail address is a mailto link at the top of the story.

[NicholasDonovan]

This Article has Ulterior Motives...

Whether Red Hat is having people using Red Hat clones is not the purpose of the article.

This is an attempt from the writers at E-Week to create distrust within the Open Source community in my opinion.

Be on guard people and see things for what they are.

The enemies of Linux and Open Source will try anything to destroy the community.

You'll be seeing more articles and attempts like this in the future.

You can say all the bluff and doublespeak you want but I can say that I'm not the only person who has this perspective.

Cheers,

Nick

[Shankland]

From the author: my alleged ulterior motives

You write: "This is an attempt from the writers at E-Week to create distrust within the Open Source community in my opinion."

I'm not certain how exactly this article would create distrust, but I am certain I work for CNET News.com, not eWeek. The intent of the article was to share news of what I viewed as an interesting development in the balance of power between Red Hat and open-source programmers, not to undermine Red Hat, the open-source community, the Red Hat rebuilders or anyone else.

You also write: "The enemies of Linux and Open Source will try anything to destroy the community."

This might be true, but I don't think this article is such an attempt. To the contrary, I suspect that many people in the community will be interested in learning about or trying the Red Hat clones and that the clones' existence demonstrates the community's vitality. Red Hat may or may not like people using the clones, but that's a separate issue. If my goal had been to destroy the community, I would have been better off avoiding reporting on the issue altogether. Read my work and judge for yourselves: http://news.search.com/search?q=shankland

If you could be specific about how exactly this article is an attack, you might be more persuasive. Feel free to post here or e-mail me directly--my e-mail address is a mailto link at the top of the story.

[masinick]

Well, my comment comes WAY after this article was written, but a few years later, the only surviving "clone" in the sense of being source code compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux is CentOS, which has been doing very well. White Box Linux and Lineox, both of whom were also in this space, have dropped out of site. Fortunately, CentOS is doing well, perhaps better than ever.