Today is indeed a sad day.

The Free Red Hat Linux OS has been effectively discontinued in favor of enterprise editions. A developer’s kit version will be available for free. The enterprise desktop RH starts at $179. SH is one of the most mainstream versions of Linux. To see them take away the free desktop version means more of those users will look towards Debian or Mandrake maybe. Or even FreeBSD or OpenBSD?

SuSE is being bought by Novell. Probably it will focus more and more on the enterprise and less on the desktop.

Is all this good for the home user? Maybe. Only if companies muscle for more focus on the desktop, then home users might benefit. The trend of “mainstream” Linux companies seems towards enterprise (aka server) needs.

Preserved comments:

• I’m not so sure that I can agree with you about today being a sad day. I am curious to see where this is going though. Slashdot had a discussion on the Novell buying SuSE bit – though you’ve probably seen it already.
  11/5/2003 4:30 PM by curtgalloway
• Yeah, I’ve read it. What is the purpose of Novell? I see Novell as a “network integrator”. They help users on a network work together more effectively. That is kewl if you have lots of users on a network. Right now, at my house, there are 2 users. We get along great without spending $2000 for a Novell server. 😀

  Novell will probably still produce a desktop OS, but it will push SuSE more and more towards servers and server applications. Less focus on desktop applications and products delays the likelihood of Linux reaching that magical great for grandma and great for 10 year old Johnny while still great for l337 geeks.
  11/5/2003 4:53 PM by sneezypb