[thelist] The Perfect Web Server - An elusive Search (Mark Groen)

[John Hicks]

Jose Hurtado wrote:
> 
> - Red Hat ES or AS have very little more than what is already included in
> the latest Fedora Core Linux.  So, for the most part they are not really
> worth the extra money. 

RHES and Fedora are significantly different distributions. Fedora is 
more cutting-edge, with more frequent releases. RHES is designed to be 
more stable and touts less frequent releases as a feature.

> CentOS is particularly appealing because it takes
> everything that Red Hat has now, and releases it in one free distribution,
> suited as a server the way RHES or RHAS is, but free.
> 
> - Novell Enterprise Suse Linux is really good, 
...
> So far, I plan to personally install and evaluate Novell Entreprise Suse
> Linux and CentOS.  No decision yet, but at least I narrowed the choice
> significantly.
> 

Centos is a rip-off of RHES. While it may be fine to use it in your own 
personal development environment, for a non-profit, or in a third-world 
country, I would not recommend it to a profit-making corporation for a 
couple of reasons:

--Ethics. While the individual packages in GNU/Linux are open source, 
RedHat adds value by configuring the system, coordinating the 
distribution, and promptly patching security holes. I believe it's only 
fair to pay RedHat for their efforts.

--Support. RHES's price does include support (and with it some peace of 
mind). In most profit-making environments, that makes it a worthwhile 
expenditure.

But that's just MHO.

--J