Our Free Operating $y$tem

[Lee Maschmeyer <Lee_Maschmeyer@wayne.edu>]

Hi all,

I surely do hope I'm wrong in the conclusions I reached last weekend; if
anyone can poke a hole in this please DO!

I had been using Red Hat 8, enjoying updates on my demo account and
feeling only slightly guilty in doing so. Since support for this system
will expire at the end of December I decided to upgrade to version 9 so
I'd get an additional year of updates. Bad move!

In the first place, support for version 9 will expire at the end of
April, 2004, so this move gained only four months of support. Much worse
than that, though, I am no longer entitled to use my demo account. The
demo account was for version 8 only and cannot be moved from version 8
to 9. To be able to use the Update Agent (up2date) on version 9 I have
to subscribe to the basic service which is $60 a year. If I'm not
mistaken, I won't even be able to hand download new patches when I see
them (if I'm permitted to see them) in the errata list.

Admittedly I'm least sure of this last part, but even what precedes it
is most disappointing.

Can anybody restore tranquility to my jangled nerves? Please? And if I'm
right in all this, have I inadvertently stumbled into a group of rich
folks who thumb their noses at a mere sixty bucks a year?

Thanks much,

Lee