When you pay Redhat, you're paying for support not the software. If you don't need the support, then you're just setting money on fire.

CentOS isn't a clone, it is the exact same source code as Red Hat AS that Red Hat release under the GPL so anyone can compile it and sell it or give it away as long as they remove the Red Hat branding.

CentOS.org do nothing more than strip out branding and compile the source on various architectures. They are very open about this if you bother to check the front page of their web site. They do a great service in providing CentOS but Red Hat actually do all of the development. This article fails to give credit where it is due. Where do you think all that R&D cash the other article links to goes to? It goes into making Red Hat AS (aka CentOS!)

(Disclaimer: Happy CentOS 5.2 user since lunchtime.)

The CentOS contributors produce more than just a de-badged RHEL, several of the CentOS devs have put together the RPMforge repo, a valuable add on to RHEL: http://rpmrepo.org/RPMforge/FAQ

The availability of CentOS is also a boost to RHEL. Our production servers are managed for us by an ISP who have access to full RHEL support but we are able to run binary compatible CentOS dev servers will identical configs which helps justify the choice of RHEL. (Even though we don't directly pay Red Hat a red cent.)

Looks like updates to nss_ldap and the kernel/X server broke our LDAP setup and also the RPMforge (sadly closed source) Nvidia 3D graphics driver when the 5.2 RPM updates hit us (luckily, only on one desktop machine that we apply a week ahead of the rest of course). I'm investigating it and will report back to the Red Hat and/or CentOS folks (and possible RPMforge too) about the issues. Temporary fix is to simply avoid the troublesome new RPMs for the moment...

Easy update, so far no problems!

You do not pay for support. If you have 10 servers or 1000 servers, you pay the same for the patches etc. So you pay for nothing. The Satellite Server costs money, and with that you only download things once, but this does not discount the clients.

You pay RedHat because you do not have skilled people in the company, or you have a policy of paying for the right to point fingers.

What's with the hate in this article? Red Hat does an incredible amount of development on software that's given away under the terms of the GPL. Anyone who loves GNU/Linux should acknowledge how much effort Red Hat has contributed to our community, and how far we've come as a direct result of their involvement. They "get" Free Software in a big way.

For those people who think RH is just another M$ cashing in on FOSS, wrong! Look at how much RH contributes to projects outside of their purvey. They are a friggin' business - get over it!

Evil Balmer, 'cause that thinking comes from the pits of Balmer Hell!

Man, amazing how people bite the hands that feed them... Some people just think they are simply entitiled to everything free. I wonder how much most of these people work for nothing? If not for companies like Red Hat, Linux would still be stumbling along. A lot of distros out there have roots in the work that Red Hat has contributed to Open Source.

I use Linux as a desktop OS and can't afford (or justify) paying for RHEL, however rather than use something like CentOS I prefer to use Fedora.

That way you're not only getting something for free but by getting involved in the Fedora community you're also giving something back by supporting the next generation of RHEL.

For mine the community effort that goes into CentOS just ends up providing a free version of something that already exists (ie. RHEL), but Fedora is what breaks new ground and I'd rather throw my support behind that community.