RSSRed Hat delays its global desktop Linux indefinitely
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published April 18, 2008, 10:35 AM
Mixing technical concerns with a truckload of business issues, Red Hat has stealthily acknowledged slipping its deadline for Red Hat Global Desktop (RHGD), which might have given it an edge against Novell's competing SuSE Linux.
Unlike the existing Red Hat Enterprise Desktop (RHED), the planned RHGD is aimed exclusively at small, reseller supplied implementations in emerging geographic areas such as Brazil, China, and India. Red Hat also sponsors a community project called Fedora, which develops and maintains a free desktop product.
But RHED and the forthcoming RHGD are both commercial products geared to businesses.
First announced at the 2007 Summit users conference, RHGD was then expected to ship a few months later.
"The technology side of the product is complete," according to a blog posting which slid quietly on to Red Hat's Web site this week.
"[But] there have been a number of business issues that have conspired to delay the product for almost a year," interjected the anonymous blogger, about midway through a more generic update on "What's Going On With Red Hat Desktop Systems?"
Indeed, some of the contributing factors listed in Red Hat's blog are unarguably business-related, including market changes and "start-up delays with resellers." RHGD, by the way, is supposed to be supplied by Intel channel partners in these emerging markets.
Others reasons mentioned, though, lean to the technical side, including hardware changes, "multimedia codec licensing knotholes," and "getting the design and delivery of appropriate services nailed down."
The blogger also talks cryptically of "technical developments that have become available over the past year or two and are accelerating the spread of the Linux desktop."
Regardless of the exact reasons for the delay, though, it's certainly in Red Hat's best interests to get the product out the door -- and into the hands of businesses in emerging markets -- as soon as possible.
Like Fedora, many other Linux desktop offerings are freely available over the Web. In the commercial market, however, Novell is Red Hat's chief competitor. But although Red Hat is the largest selling commercial Linux vendor in North America, Novell's SuSE is still more popular in Europe, where desktop Linux is gaining faster business acceptance.
The emerging markets targeted for RHGD could bring great opportunities for Red Hat to get its foot in the door for both the desktop and server sides.
Meh, I lost interest in RedHat on the desktop when they killed RedHat 10.
Worst move ever for a business, they will never be valued in the desktop market again.
If you want a Linux desktop, you'll want to look to Ubuntu, Mandriva, or anything else.
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Dunno if it was a bad move for them as a business. They seem to do better in the server area anyway (as do most Linux OSes).
Bad move if they ever wanted a piece of the desktop market, sure, but it seems they have no interest in that market.
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Redhat Linux for the desktop was never killed. It was just renamed and turned into a community supported product.
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AKA killed.
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I have become quite interested in the companies that are releasing certain software or hardware solutions aimed specifically at the emerging markets. It's interesting to see how the companies are attempting to monetize free and open source (FOSS) software while at the same time making it available to everyone.
Although I haven't used Red Hat or Fedora in a number of years, I can still applaud its efforts to promote Linux in emerging markets. It seems like Fedora has lost some of its appeal for average consumers, but Red Hat simply cannot be ignored in the corporate world.
I look forward to watching Novell's SuSE and Red Hat do battle in the future, even if I do not directly care which operating system reigns supreme.
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ROFLMAO!
So, has Linux taken over the desktop yet?
Its getting harder to keep holding my breath!
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It'll never "take over the desktop", but please keep holding your breath.
Thanks.
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Lots of reasons for this, as Jacqueline Emigh lays out, but I don't expect to ever see Red Hat's Global Desktop. Red Hat is making billions with their server software and they intend to keep it going. GNU/Linux is free, and making money off of it — on the desktop — has yet to happen.
Sam Varghese says the real problem is getting licenses from Microsoft to use Windows-only codecs would only be possible if Red Hat went the way of Novell and signed a patent deal. That is well known, it is no big secret. In effect, Red Hat would have to join the group which sold out the entire FOSS community.
As of now, Ubuntu is filling this need, and perhaps the best Debian distro that gives you everything out of the box is Linux Mint. As for those "technical developments," they come from Adobe writing its webware for GNU/Linux, along with some of the openness that Microsoft itself has offered.
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What "Windows Only" codecs...and why is it MSFT's fault the codecs haven't been ported?
FFS, man, do you *read* the crap you post?
DivX? Not MSFT's.
XviD? Not MSFT's.
MPEG? WAV? OGG?
WMA and WMP? *laughs* Does anyone actually *use* those but MSFT?
The *only* reason Linux distro's don't use these codecs is because they refuse to license them and/or distribute them unlicensed, *not* because they are "Windows Only" or licensed through MSFT.
https://help.ubuntu.com/7.04/musicvideophotos/C/codecs.html
Some of these packages may not be permitted in some countries: you should verify that you are permitted to use them before installing them.
Countries, not companies.
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[rollseyes]
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Excellent, well thought out, and reasoned response.
...exactly what we've come to expect from you.
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Thank you. I see that you know who your betters are. [rollseyes]
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Better than I?
Yeah, sure......at being a complete imbecile. Stick that on yer mantle, simp.
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I use WMA, and I use it on Linux too.
I don't have any problems with codecs (any of them).
Go figure.
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I use WMA, and I use it on Linux too.
Is it legally licensed? ;)
Funny, isn't it? You'd think zridling would have a clue about something he apparently worships.
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"Is it legally licensed? ;)"
Yep, I own many Windows licenses and I buy in WMA format. When I rip, I rip from a Windows VM.
I use WMA because that's what my players support (iPaq, Creative Muvo, etc).
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