On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, Per Jessen wrote:
Peter Albrecht wrote:
4. "Tired of hearing we do this for fun, it is not my problem/responsibility, hire a programmer or become one." "Fix it yourself as it is a community distro. The community is not doing enough or is too small." What happens is or feels like the various groups that are part of the community are not fully trusted. What I see/feel/hear is that globally the openSUSE distro is moving to the bottom of the Linux Distro Heap. I am being asked to move to CentOS as it has a longer support window. "Having to update my OS every 2 years is a real pain in the butt! Now it is moving to a 18 month window. I really need to look at something else that meets my needs" Business like to stay as long as they are able to the release. "If it aint broke don't fix it!" "We really need a fall back position. What are your recommendations? Doesn't Novell realize who pays their salaries? What about Ubunto, Debian, Fedora/CentOS, or Solaris, BSDs?"
My question is: Why don't these customers move to SUSE Linux Enterprise (Server and Desktop)? Is that EUR 300.00 per year an amount they do not want to pay for getting 7 years of support, updates and training? Don't they want to pay additional money for the services? Are they not happy with the services offered by Novell or with the way Novell treats them?
That's exactly what I thought too when I read Boyds item#4.
Some good points and I know their are some that the $ do matter, but for
most they do not want to move to a "Linux alteritive" till they are
convinced that they are able to treat the OS as only a tool on which they
are able to run their business. Personally, I really can not in good
consence install a SLE(S,D) that had not been paided for and does not get
security fixes to prove to them that "Linux is the right choice" (My
prefernce openSUSE--SLE(S,D)) So they are able to get that "warm fuzzy".
I have had really good results in installing CentOS and moving them to
RHEL. It hurts me on a personal level having to go that route. I really
dislike having to be forced to use and support something that my heart is
not into. My heart is with the openSUSE -- SLE(S,D), but I have to make a
living and the customer is the one I serve. So, if I currently one have
one choice for them, I have to use the Red Hat alternitive (even though I
think they could/would be best served in the long run by the Novell
alternitive).
--
Boyd Gerber