[H-GEN] which Redhat?

[Christopher Biggs]

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Robert Kearey <mammal at optushome.com.au> moved upon the face of the 'Net and spake thusly:

> http://current.tigris.org/ might be of use. Third party rhn-proxies
> will appear in due time, but remember that rhn-proxy does much more
> than just be a local mirror, so there's a business opportunity right
> there! ("Use JerichoHat's rhn-proxy, and for only $39.99 a month, gain
> access to JerichoHat's Custom Pr0n rpms!")

Hey, I just noticed that RHN appears to be sending me security
announcement e-mail (only) whenever a critical update is released for
*a package that I have installed on one of the registered machines*.

This is a lot less pain than having to monitor bugtraq or
redhat-security-whatever-its-called mailing list, and having to check
if $OBSCURE_PACKAGE is installed on any of the swervers.  To me it's
well worth the cost of RHN membership to receive a reminder email
along the lines of "hey dipshit, patch sendmail before you get
0wnz0red".  For admins who aren't hardcore unix geeks[1], it's priceless.

(If I was spending /my/ money, I'd run Debian.  However since it's
$ORKPLACE's money, and herding servers is not my official job anyway,
RHN is the Path Of Least Pain.)

> There's no plans for charging for RHN demo accounts, AFAIK - there is
> the obligatory survey, so it probably counts as nagware.
>

I've paid very little attention to this issue, but it looks to me like
RedHat are providing worthwhile added value to open source software.
It's very close to the model that Stallman postulated way back in the
original GNU Manifesto.

--cjb

[1] I *am* a hardcore unix geek, BTW.


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