On Tue, 1 Oct 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I tried 3 CompUSA's yesterday out of curiosity - one in person and 2 on > the phone (I already ordered from Amazon). Here is a composite of what > I heard from all 3 of them: > > ME: Do you have the new 8.0 release of RedHat Linux? > EMPLOYEE: No, we're still carrying 7.3. As a matter of > fact, we also have 7.2, 7.1, 7.0 and > 6.something-or-other. But we will be getting > 8.0 and it's cheaper than 7.3. > ME: When will you be getting 8.0 then? > EMPLOYEE: They won't send us any until we get can sell of > some of these 7.3 boxes.
this is an ugly trend, but there's a simple way to deal with it. don't buy the boxed set anymore -- and send a message to red hat that this is unacceptable behavior. look at it this way -- one of the benefits of the boxed set is the accompanying documentation. after all, some folks like to plop down on the couch with a book and peruse it just to see what they're about to get immersed in. the really impatient ones will download the release and, in a gesture of support for red hat, buy the boxed set anyway. but the more time passes between the download and when one can get one's hands on the boxed set, the less appealing it becomes to buy the box. after all, once you've installed and worked with it for a while, there's no real benefit to the extras you get with the box. i'm hoping the compusa experience described above is an aberration, but if this is typical, i'm not going to be shelling out any more money for boxed sets. until now, i've *always* purchased an official set to support red hat, but if this is the sort of strong-arming we can expect, no more. rday
