It took Red Hat 16 months to produce the newest version of its premium Linux product, which went on sale in February for as much as $2,499 (£1,333) per computer per year.
It took a group of programmers less than two weeks to release a free clone. But the move could help Red Hat as much as it appears to hurt it.
The clone is from a project called CentOS — Community Enterprise Operating System — one of several "Red Hat rebuilders" that have partially nullified Red Hat's business decision in 2003 to stop giving away its supported and certified product for free. CentOS and others — Lineox, White Box Linux, Tao Linux, X/OS Linux and Scientific Linux — all rebuild a copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux from the source code components Red Hat releases.
The clones are both a boon and a bane for Red Hat, which used an aggressive pricing plan to profit from its status as the top seller of the open source operating system.
On the one hand, the rebuilders draft off Red Hat's labours while depriving the company of potential customers for its software and the support that goes along with it. On the other, though, they help cement the dominance of Red Hat's software and spread it to those who might eventually decide Red Hat's services and reliability are worth the price.
It's clear, however, that many Red Hat clone users aren't likely to embrace the original anytime soon.
"I don't pay for Linux, and I have absolutely no need for a Red Hat-style subscription [for] support," said Collins Richey, a Denver Linux enthusiast who uses CentOS on his personal computers to keep them compatible with work machines. "I'm considering recommending CentOS for limited use as a trial project... at work."
Red Hat chooses to see the glass as half full, with spokeswoman Leigh Day calling the clones "good news" because they could attract new customers.
"If they try versions that are not supported or supported inadequately, they will get a hint of the value propositions that are available for Linux and ultimately turn to a company that can support their businesses," Day said.
Red Hat did clamp down partway on CentOS in February. Its lawyers demanded the rebuilder strip out trademarked Red Hat names and logos.
However, if Red Hat truly wanted to hamper the rebuilders, it could stop its current practice of releasing its product's source code in the convenient packages called source RPM files.
"Red Hat should be thanked for making this so easy for all of the rebuild efforts," said Greg Kurtzer, who founded the Caos Foundation that runs the CentOS project. "I am not going to fault them for trying to make money."
Red Hat will continue releasing the source RPM files. "What we're doing now we'll continue to do for the long term," Day said.
Despite the availability of alternatives, Red Hat subscription sales increased from 33,000 in the quarter ended November 2003 to 132,000 a year later. That's solid growth, but it's not as high as the peak of 144,000 in the quarter ended August 2004. Red Hat is expected to release sales figures for its most recent quarter on March 31.
Some see an upper limit to how much the Linux seller can charge. "The real reason Linux is our choice is cost," said Brian Trudeau of Eastek International in Buffalo, New York, a CentOS user. "Why pay for Red Hat when it costs as much as Windows?"
