Open Stack

Hi Gil,

I've read and re-read Red Hat's
post<https://www.redhat.com/about/news/archive/2014/5/on-openstack-and-open-source>
(by
Paul Cormier, President, Products and Technologies) over and over. And I'm
still confused. I think the key sentence is ...

"To be clear, users are free to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux with any
OpenStack offering, and there is no requirement to use our OpenStack
technologies to get a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription."

The first 1/2 of the sentence implies that anyone can run RHEL on any
OpenStack offering *without support, *but we knew that already. The 2nd
part of this sentence, however, isn't clear at all. Does it mean that Red
Hat will offer paid support of RHEL *when running on other OpenStack
distros*? Or does it just mean that Red Hat offers paid support of RHEL in
general, *but not necessarily on other OpenStack distros*? It seems
ambiguous, perhaps on purpose. And there is a big difference between these
two interpretations. The latter is business as usual, while *the former is
what this whole brew ha ha is about. *

This would all be cleared up if anyone could point to one customer that Red
Hat is providing support to on top of a competing OpenStack distro. So far
I hear crickets.

Dave


On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 10:02 AM, Gil Yehuda <gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com> wrote:

>  RH has spoken
> https://www.redhat.com/about/news/archive/2014/5/on-openstack-and-open-source
>
>
>
> If understand this correctly they are saying:
>
> 1.       RH will sell RHEL support (operating system) to users of RHEL
> regardless of which virtualization management technology is being used.
>
> 2.       RH will only sell RHELOP support  (RH’s OpenStack Platform) to
> people who use it to manage RHEL images.
>
>
>
> Meaning: RH’s support of their OS is independent of your use of Open
> Stack, but their support of their Open Stack requires that you also use
> their OS. If anything this makes it easier for competitors to take business
> away from RH, since they are limiting their prospective customers to only
> those who already like RHEL.
>
>
>
> This comes at odds with the key statement in the WSJ article:
>
> In its quest to sell OpenStack, Red Hat has chosen not to provide support
> to its commercial Linux customers if they use rival versions of OpenStack,
> according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
>
>
>
> Whereas that might be factual (i.e. someone leaked documents suggesting
> this position as an option), it’s not what RH says in their press release
> is their actual service offering strategy.
>
> To be clear, users are free to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux with any
> OpenStack offering, and there is no requirement to use our OpenStack
> technologies to get a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription.
>
>
>
> Thus you have four cases.
>
> 1.       People who want RHEL and want RHELOP: RH will gladly take their
> money and support both. Customers get what they want. RH earns their
> business. Yey Open Source.
>
> 2.       People who want RHEL but a different OpenStack provider: RH will
> support the OS and someone else will support the OpenStack environment.
> Customers get what they want. RH earns some business, a competitor earns
> the other business. No lock-in. Yey Open Source.
>
> 3.       People who don’t want RHEL, but do want RHELOP: RH will not take
> their money. So they’ll have to find someone who will. Customers do not get
> what they want, but that’s ‘cuz RH does not want to manage the mixed
> environment – since they believe OpenStack and the OS are intertwined. They
> walk away from customers (their prerogative) and those who believe that
> OpenStack and the OS are independent can score some business. Yey Open
> Source.
>
> 4.       People who don’t want RHEL and don’t want RHELOP: Nothing
> changes for them. They don’t care what RH sells.
>
>
>
> As best as I can tell, this is not a threat to the success of OpenStack’s
> stance on supporting a healthy and competitive open environment.
>
>
>
> Can anyone confirm or correct the above?
>
>
>
> *Gil Yehuda*
> Sr. Director of Open Source, Standards
> gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com (408) 336-4857
>
>
>
> *From:* Gil Yehuda [mailto:gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 14, 2014 11:33 AM
> *To:* Dave Nielsen; Joshua McKenty
>
> *Cc:* <foundation at lists.openstack.org>; Stefano Maffulli
> *Subject:* Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Today's WSJ article <--
> Alternatives to RHEL?
>
>
>
> Suggestion: watch http://press.redhat.com/ Let’s see what Red Hat
> themselves has to say about their plans to support or not support their
> products. Why? Because the WSJ might have it right, might have it wrong, or
> might have it mostly right but wrong in some details. And before people
> react to a position on the part of a company, we should verify that
> position.
>
>
>
> Then by all means, if they are not playing fair (either from the
> perspective of the court of law, or the court of public opinion), then the
> OpenStack community will have to react. And in the case, react strongly.
>
>
>
> I’m simply suggesting that we consider the reaction based on what RedHat
> actually says, not what WSJ says about them.  I haven’t seen them say
> anything formal yet – when they do (or if they did) please share.
>
>
>
> *Gil Yehuda*
> Sr. Director of Open Source, Standards
> gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com (408) 336-4857
>
>
>
> *From:* Dave Nielsen [mailto:dnielsen at gmail.com <dnielsen at gmail.com>]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 14, 2014 11:20 AM
> *To:* Joshua McKenty
> *Cc:* <foundation at lists.openstack.org>; Stefano Maffulli
> *Subject:* Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Today's WSJ article <--
> Alternatives to RHEL?
>
>
>
> I'm no lawyer, but I think it would be hard to prove RHEL has a monopoly.
> Still, Red Hat has turned a reliance on RHEL by OpenStack customers into a
> clear liability for the rest of the OpenStack community. Rather taking Red
> Hat to court, it seems it would healthier to get serious about supporting a
> competitive alternative, or helping to create one.
>
> [this my opinion, not that of anyone I may consult for from time to time]
>
> Dave
>
>    Dave Nielsen
>
> Principal Consultant: Platform D, Inc <http://platformd.com>.
>
> Part-time Consultant to HP Helion
>
> Co-founder: CloudCamp <http://cloudcamp.org>, BigDataCamp<http://www.bigdatacamp.org>
>
> Co-chair: Cloud SIG <http://cloudsig.org>; SFBay OpenStack<http://www.meetup.com/openstack>
> , SVDevOps <http://svdevops.com>, SVBigData <http://svbigdata.com>
> twitter davenielsen <http://twitter.com/davenielsen>; linkedin dnielsen<http://linkedin.com/in/dnielsen>; fb:
> dcnielsen <http://fb.com/dcnielsen>
>
> skype davenielsen; gtalk dnielsen; mobile: 415-531-6674
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Joshua McKenty <joshua at pistoncloud.com>
> wrote:
>
> Yes, that’s the one. I’ve printed a PDF just to help out.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Joshua McKenty
>
> Chief Technology Officer
>
> Piston Cloud Computing, Inc.
>
> +1 (650) 242-5683
>
> +1 (650) 283-6846
>
> http://www.pistoncloud.com
>
>
>
> "Oh, Westley, we'll never survive!"
> "Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."
>
>
>
> On May 14, 2014, at 11:26 AM, Stefano Maffulli <stefano at openstack.org>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> is it this one? Title: Red Hat Plays Hardball on OpenStack Software
>
>
> http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303851804579560290024021158.html&ei=aIpzU_vzFevJsQT_kIGoBw&usg=AFQjCNHe46xKvlhxjlEttnUlRWwzhEXyLA&sig2=sMzbNDF7bRan-69AJ0a5fQ&bvm=bv.66699033,d.cWc&cad=rja
>
> Trick: if you google the title of the article, WSJ will give you the
> full article but if you follow the url straight from a link, WSJ
> requires login
>
> On 05/14/2014 09:38 AM, Joshua McKenty wrote:
>
> Sorry
> -
> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303851804579560290024021158
>
> --
>
> Joshua McKenty
> Chief Technology Officer
> Piston Cloud Computing, Inc.
> +1 (650) 242-5683
> +1 (650) 283-6846
> http://www.pistoncloud.com
>
> "Oh, Westley, we'll never survive!"
> "Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."
>
> On May 14, 2014, at 6:34 AM, Dave Neary <dneary at redhat.com
> <mailto:dneary at redhat.com>> wrote:
>
>  Hi Josh,
>
> Do you have a link?
>
> Thanks,
> Dave.
>
> On 05/14/2014 09:07 AM, Joshua McKenty wrote:
>
> Board members et al,
>
> As usual, I am not a lawyer. However, given the overtones of
> antitrust concern in this article, if other board members and/or
> foundation staff feel that we should discuss this, I would ask that
> we schedule a quick board-coffee-meeting. We need to avoid any
> walking quorums, and we also need to instruct Jonathan and foundation
> staff with a clear response. This is not a topic where I feel it
> would be appropriate for Alan to represent the board.
>
> Joshua
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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>
>
> --
> Dave Neary - Community Action and Impact
> Open Source and Standards, Red Hat - http://community.redhat.com
> Ph: +33 9 50 71 55 62 / Cell: +33 6 77 01 92 13
>
>
>
>
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> --
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