Red Hat culls its free download Linux

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 4 Nov 2003 at 11:25

Red Hat's free downloadable version of Linux will no longer be maintained by the company after the end of the year.

In an email to its customers, the company said support for Red Hat Linux 7.1 to 8.0 would terminate 31 December 2003, with support for version 9.0 going the same way 30 April 2004. Red Hat says the unmaintained software will remain online for at least another six month's past the best-before date and added it will not release any further versions of this range.

The move comes as little surprise. At last month's Enterprise Linux Forum, Red Hat's CTO Michael Tiemann said the company would concentrate on the enterprise, where the revenues lie. With the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and WS in March - entry-level and workstation versions of the advanced server, respectively - the company has a migration path on which to push its soon-to-be-orphaned Linux users. As such, the company is offering a buy one year, get two years' free promotion both Enterprise Linux ES and WS for purchases before 28 Feb of next year.

Currently the WS offering for x86 chips costs $179 with the Basic support package and $299 with a Standard support package. Standard Editions for 64bit architectures cost $792.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES costs $349 for the Basic Edition and $799 for the Standard Edition.

Red Hat is reserving its support for bleeding edge and free Linux for the independent Fedora Project.

For more information visit the Red Hat site.