Sam Varghese
Friday, 18 April 2008 06:45
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
At times one really wonders why established Linux distributions such as Red Hat ever take the trouble to pursue the consumer desktop market.
In the case of Red Hat, you tend to be even more puzzled that it considers doing so.
When you have a successful business based around the sales of server software plus services with the occasional business desktop deal thrown in, why bother getting up the nose of those folk in Redmond more than needed?
After all, Microsoft's minions are already up in arms against you for taking away market share in the server space.
Thus it is not surprising that the Red Hat Global Desktop - meant to be a consumer desktop which would compete with Windows XP and Vista - has been put on hold indefinitely. Take it from me, it will be stillborn.
If a product is put out at this stage, then it needs to have all those rough edges (media codecs are top of the list) ironed out and able to do most things which Windows can - and out of the box too.
Getting licences from Microsoft to use Windows-only codecs would only be possible if Red Hat went the way of Novell and signed a patent deal. That is well known, it is no big secret. In effect, Red Hat would have to join the group which sold out the entire FOSS community.
That's the last thing the company would want to do. It has reached the heights it has only because it is identified as a company whose primary business is open source. You can't lose good karma which has been accumulated over nearly 15 years.
