According to Slashdot.org, Red Hat Linux plan to "discontinue maintenance on Red Hat Linux 7.x and 8.0 by the end of 2003, and on Red Hat 9.0 by the end of April, 2004."

And, to make matters worse, Red Hat does not plan to release another product in the Red Hat Linux line.

"With the recent announcement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3, you'll find migrating to Enterprise Linux appealing. We understand that transitioning to another Red Hat solution requires careful planning and implementation. We have created a migration plan for Red Hat Network customers to help make the transition as simple and seamless as possible."

I feel as if I have lost an old friend. Red Hat was the first Linux that I ever installed... and it remains my favourate distro right now. Of course, there are still many viable alternatives that are free, but its a little bit of light that has gone out of the computer world.

More on this story here, here, and here.

Looks like open source is not viable over the long term and Red Hat is now only supporting enterprise development.
I'll bet Microsoft is pretty happy with this. Still, Microsoft products are pretty hard to beat :=).

More here http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/33760.html

I don't in any way find this a compelling anti-open source argument.

Still, yes you are right, Micro$oft must be rubbing its hands with glee.

They (RH) went where the money is, i.e. the enterprise market.

Here's a fantastic business model:

Give something good away for free.

Wait till people have been using it so long they need it.

Then make them pay for it.