Summary: The Red Hat Enterprise Linux clones debate returns as a company with Microsoft connections adds a new service

OpenLogic is a company which is run by a former Microsoft employee and its latest news got mentioned in this post and also mailed to us by OpenLogic itself. Now, to be fair, OpenLogic means well but the conflict of interests involving OpenLogic and Microsoft is a subject that we covered in:

• Whispers from Former Microsoft Employees Inside the Open Source World
• The Open Source 'Census' Lost Its Credibility
• GMOME, OpenLogic, and the Microsoft Connection

“So just like Novell, OpenLogic is hoovering revenue sources, which CentOS could definitely use.”As we showed some months ago, Novell is trying to get CentOS users to move to the Microsoft-taxed SLES. In order to do so, Justin Steinman and others proudly announced that they would support CentOS users throughout a migration. This is actually more of a step that's intended to hurt Red Hat. What OpenLogic does at the moment is good in the sense that it offers support to existing CentOS users (and lifts the "enterprise" credibility of CentOS), but it comes at the expense of Red Hat. So just like Novell, OpenLogic is hoovering revenue sources, which CentOS could definitely use. Such a move will maybe hurt CentOS experts too -- those who already offer support for it (alongside RHEL).

Here is a good new article about the subject. It also alludes to Red Hat.

Free, community-driven versions of Linux don't often benefit from commercial enterprise support efforts.

For CentOS, that's now about to change. The clone of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) Enterprise Linux is now being commercially supported by services vendor OpenLogic.

[...]

It's unclear how Red Hat will respond to the new offering. A Red Hat spokesperson was not immediately available for comment. The company told InternetNews.com in 2007 that it viewed CentOS positively for encouraging participation in Red Hat Enterprise Linux's development community and for broadening the distro's user base.

But now, OpenLogic admits that its addition of commercial support is likely to have some negative impact for Red Hat.

What does Red Hat say about all this? The same author writes about it in his blog.

Why Red Hat doesn't see CentOS as a Linux rival

I wrote a story yesterday about CentOS (the Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone) getting commercial support from OpenLogic. One thing that isn't in the posted story, that I've always been curious about, is why Red Hat itself doesn't go after CentOS users in an effort to convert them to paid Red Hat support.

The impact of OpenLogic's move is to be seen, but there is probably no hidden agenda. It is not as though Oracle behaved better when it rebranded RHEL "Unbreakable" and took support contracts from Red Hat. ⬆