Linux vendor Red Hat has announced it will end support of its consumer Linux distribution in favour of its enterprise operating system and does not plan to release another product in the Red Hat Linux line, the company said in a statement.
According to a notice posted on the company’s Web site, the vendor will “End of Life” versions 7.1 through to 8.0 on December 31, 2003 and version 9 will follow suit on April 30 next year.
“Red Hat's policy for its Linux distributions is to provide maintenance for at least 12 months,” the statement said. “At certain times, [we] may extend errata maintenance for certain popular releases of the operating system.”
To compensate for this decision, Red Hat has created a Linux Migration resource centre to address migration planning and other issues, such as the best way to implement the migration to its Enterprise Linux, other migration alternatives, and purchasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux at a discount rate.
The company is offering 50 per cent off the price for two years (two years for the price of one) if customers purchase its Enterprise Linux workstation or Enterprise Server Basic before February 28, 2004 for purchases up to 10 units.
Red Hat will provide errata maintenance for its Enterprise Linux for a period of five years from initial release (general availability), the company said.