Re: [Fsfe-uk] BECTA discriminate against FLOSS?

[Neil Darlow]

Hi,

On Monday 05 Jan 2004 12:09, Brian Gough wrote:
> I feel I should point out that Red Hat employ many of the best
> developers, license all their software under the GPL and license their
> patents for use in free software.  So their practical contributions to
> free software are really quite substantial.

I think the reality of the situation is that producing two releases of a 
GNU/Linux distribution per year was stretching Red Hat's resources to a 
significant degree. Witness the reduced number of architectures that Red Hat 
now runs on, compared to earlier versions.

Concentrating on an Enterprise distribution benefits them with less frequent 
release cycles (stability over bleeding-edge) and the revenue from corporates 
will obviously be higher than Joe Public buying boxed sets.

Fedora, as I see it, is an attempt by Red Hat to model the success of 
OpenOffice.org. They reap the benefit of a free developer pool while giving 
the impression they haven't left existing non-corporate users without  
support.

Of course, the present structure of the Fedora project leaves Red Hat well and 
truly in control of directionality. I wonder how long this situation will 
exist before dissenting voices are heard?

Regards,
Neil Darlow M.Sc.
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