Free Redhat Linux (rhel) Version 7.2

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I read that Redhat was offering their Linux free, and downloaded the ISO, though I haven’t run it.

What do CentOS users think of Redhat’s offer?

The registration with Redhat seemed very bureaucratic to me, and I’m not sure if I have carried it out properly. Also, I didn’t see if it was possible to get updates, either with dnf or some other way.

I’ve been (and am) very pleased with CentOS, which I’ve been running for several years, and I don’t particularly want to change.

Any views on this?

35 thoughts on - Free Redhat Linux (rhel) Version 7.2

  • Hi, I think you miss understood or the authors of the article about ‘Redhat offering their Linux free’. Can you please provide your source?

    First of all it’s the distro that has been offered for ‘free’, but only for developers. Please read the original press release:

    https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-expands-red-hat-developer-program-no-cost-red-hat-enterprise-linux-developer-subscription

    As for your question about ‘changing things’. There’s non for you and not for CentOS.

    In regards, Maikel

  • Hello Timothy,

    Wow, it’s not really offered as “free”, it’s a 30-day evaluation. Try and buy. You won’t get support after this is you don’t subscribe to their services and I have no idea what will happen if you can updates or whatever, even for non-production uses.

    Quoting https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-enterprise-linux/evaluation:

    ==================================
    Try Red Hat Enterprise Linux free

    Evaluate Red Hat Enterprise Linux for your application deployments, datacenter infrastructure or virtual and cloud environments. Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a reliable a secure operating system that you can trust to run your most mission critical workloads.

    This evaluation:

    Provides a single subscription for a variant of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
    Offers access to Red Hat’s award winning Customer Portal, including knowledge, videos, and documentation
    Is not intended for production use

    Start your evaluation

    You will need a Red Hat account to continue. If you are new to Red Hat, you can create an account in the next step.
    ==================================

    Regards,

  • –0OHrecMGms1MLBBC58UFbtqTe7cPFT4hS
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

    You need read the usage license.

    That subscription can only be used in development and not in a production environment.

    If that works for want you want to use it for then it is an awesome move by Red Hat.

    –0OHrecMGms1MLBBC58UFbtqTe7cPFT4hS

  • Yes, but this is not still (very) big change as redhat partner companies get rhel linsences for developer / internal use for free.

  • When I think about it I have a strange feeling. To be (become) a developer of something that you yourself will not be able to use in production… it’s akin volunteer to become a slave. Is there anybody who _can_ make a sense of such offer?

    Valeri

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  • Hi,

    As things stand, you can signup for a Red Hat Developer Subscription for free to get full access to all Red Hat products as a developer. Yes, you cannot deploy Red Hat products in production with this subscription but anything you develop on it can be put into a production system which has a valid production grade Red Hat Subscription which has been paid for.

  • Yes, this helps at least “single” developers and people that are training for rhce / rhcsa exam..

    br,

  • Note that this also gives access to the Red Hat Knowledgebase and to beta downloads both of which can be useful for any CentOS sysadmin.

  • Our company has been in Red Hat’s ISV program for ages, and it is very helpful. There are differences between how CentOS and RHEL works, so being able to test against both makes it much easier for our users
    (community users and paid customers) to choose which system they want. I
    also means that we can be sure those who choose RHEL proper will have no problems.

    We also use the RHEL installs for demos and trade shows, which is important. Like it or not, there is a certain “professionalism” to being able to demo your product on RHEL instead of CentOS. Most customers insist on RHEL so seeing the product running already on RH is a useful sales tool.

    In short; The ISV program has been very helpful and benefited both RH
    and our company.

  • And (big) commercial vendors/users always prefer RHEL as it commercially supported platform.

  • Thanks, everybody. I knew there are clever people who can help poor one to understand something that doesn’t seem to make any sense. Which it actually does once someone helped you to see bigger picture.

    Valeri

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  • Reads like the MSDN program from a Redmond based company. Good to know though — thanks.

    — Arun Khan

  • it also helps development groups in big corporate environments as they won’t have to budget and pay annual subscription fees to maintain their development systems.

  • Johnny Hughes wrote:

    I glanced through this before downloading the ISO. But I can’t locate it now on the RedHat website(s).

    I run CentOS on two home servers (in different countries), and have no ambition to make money from them, which I take is the meaning of “production” in this context.

    Surely there must be many CentOS users like me?
    I found puzzling the suggestion (not by Johnny Hughes)
    that RedHat’s offer is of little value.

  • No, it is not. Please check out the definition of ‘production’ software in relation to staging,testing and development.

    Techopedia explains Production Server

    A production server is the core server on which any website or Web application is being hosted and accessed by users. It is part of the entire software and application development environment. Typically, the production server environment, hardware and software components are exactly similar to a staging server.

    Though, rather being confined to in-house usage as in a staging server, the production server is open for end-user access. The software or application must be tested and debugged on a staging server before being deployed on the production server.”

    CentOS != Redhat

  • Am 05.04.2016 um 11:06 schrieb Timothy Murphy :

    The value of the offer depends of your assets and values.

  • I think it’s an excellent opportunity for developers, and for the simply curious.

    You should receive an email confirmation from Red Hat. In my case it only arrived after I had entered my RH account details when installing the new OS. That could just be a coincidence, of course.

    Updates are available through yum in the normal way. Dnf is available in the EPEL 7 repository.

    One thing that struck me is that the (free) developer subscription is valid for only one year. It is not clear whether the subscription can be freely renewed thereafter. I wouldn’t advocate a full migration just yet!

  • Production means you are benefiting from running server in any form. Making money is only one form of benefit. The rest are hard to list without knowing what exactly you do but the general approach in court would be: you will not be running server and not using it for something. Apart from testing that some software builds on that you can not use that server for anything else. And it is not a coincidence that they list explicitly what you can use it for. Because using it for anything else will be illegal (which will be established in court, but I have to mention I am not a lawyer).

    I did not read RedHat’s license about what we discuss here, but I have carefully been once through Intel compilers non-for-profit license. Scientists who I work for are in “non-for-profit” organizations. What they do, however, does not fall under the “non-for-profit” Intel license. Because that license prohibits to profit in any form (not on by making monetary profit from selling things). Other forms of profit would be:
    making better code, and potentially getting better job than your colleague to name one.

    In general, benefiting can be anything, even looking at nice RedHat logo and being pleased with yourself that you were able to install the system. This is the difference of free license (where you are explicitly permitted to do anything except…) from non-free (where you are explicitly permitted to do this, and nothing else).

    But don’t listen to me, ask the layer.

    Valeri

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  • I wouldn’t use dnf from EPEL though ;)

    The $99 sub is per year, this is just a free version of that and RH have no way (nor would it be sensible for them to) create an unlimited life subscription on their systems/platform.

    How long they’ll keep this programme? Well that’s crystal ball time and I
    guess depends on the uptake and how this helps with their developers conferences.

    It’s not like they lock you in with proprietary tech though …

  • Neither am I a lawyer.

    Unless the term ‘production’ is clearly defined in the license, then the popular and widely used meaning of ‘production’ would constitute the criteria.

    It is not for users to define what Red Hat Inc’s license implies – that is solely a matter for Read Hat to make ***before*** Red Hat donates its software or unlocks its software for use. Legally, Red Hat could not retrospectively impose any definition of ‘production’ or introduce licensing or usage terms.

    It will not be ‘illegal’ because it is not a criminal offence unless a law exists forbidding that action. I think that ‘exceeding’ the terms of the license would not make a criminal offence.

    Criminal = public law Non-criminal = private law

    The best Red Hat could do is to sue users for Red Hat’s ‘lost’ (just think of the world-wide damaging publicity) and that will mean Red Hat would have to prove to the civil standard of evidence the monetary amount of that loss.

    As the alleged ‘loss’ may occur outside the US of A, Red Hat would have to sue in the legal jurisdiction where that matter occurred.

    In England, the Small Claims Courts determines cases up to GBP 10,000
    ***and*** the costs of lawyers, I verily believe, are neither awarded nor recoverable.

  • That is not applicable legally.

    What matters for the ‘free’ Red Hat software is ***ONLY*** Red Hat’s stated terms and conditions – definitely not what what someone else has put on a web site.

  • Thanks Akemi.

    I remind everyone, who is interested, that the absence of clearly expressed definitions in

    https://developers.redhat.com/terms-and-conditions/

    (a) ‘development purposes only’

    (b) ‘a production installation’

    and the lack of specific detail on http://www.redhat.com/en/about/licenses (English version)

    means Red Hat would experience difficulties proving commercial loss, other than a subscription fee loss.

    Even a subscription fee loss might be difficult for Red Hat to prove taking into consideration Red Hat knew, or had good cause to know or was recklessly indifferent to users comprehensively knowing precisely what Red Hat meant by (a) and (b) above.

    A defendant could argue that Red Hat deliberately withheld that vital knowledge from the unsuspecting users because Red Hat sought to exploit users lack of full and detailed knowledge of the restrictions by extorting money from users for commercial gain – a gain that would not have been available to Red Hat if Red Hat had been a lot more specific about the full extent of its limitations.

    One could legally argue that a criminal fraud was committed by obtaining a free copy when the intention was to use it for conspicuous commercial purposes. That argument is unlikely to apply to a person running their own private system for non-commercial gain.

    Don’t be frightened by Red Hat’s statement “are required to pay the applicable subscription fees, in addition to any and all other remedies available to Red Hat under applicable law”

    “Other remedies” is fantasy. No one can possible legally commit themselves to unknown and undefined “other remedies” as Red Hat’s lawyers should know. Seems like US of A style “bullying tactics”
    intended to frighten people without access to affordable competent legal advice.

    Me ? Well I am staying on C6 :-)

  • I refuse to do anything at all on a Microsoft machine. I feel ill when I
    see the M$ screens and remember the countless months of my life frustratingly wasted trying to get M$ crap to work. CentOS is true liberation and how computer operating systems should be.

    I would like the EU to ban the monopoly of M$ on all laptops sold in the EU. Instead of paying the M$ tax, users should have a choice of operating systems.

  • UNIX BSD free derivatives could have been too. Didn’t become as widely popular as Linux though ;-)

    In US you can buy some laptops without MS Windows OS (read: with Linux, most likely Ubuntu) from some small manufacturers… I believe, one could do that in Europe too. I remember, some researches visited us here with laptops they got in Europe with Linux OS – again, from small companies.

    Valeri

  • Peter Q. wrote:

    They’re not outrageous, for business-class machines; they’re more than consumer-grade, but that is, generally, crappy.

    The nice one I was looking at last year, before the turkey with Them told me “sorry, it was too late to get that, here, take this, it’s good…”, was in the $2k-$2700 range, an actual workstation, 7?00 model, NVidia video card, reasonable memory.

    mark