Red Hat denies OpenStack favoritism claims

IDG News Service - Red Hat said it provides commercial support for its Linux distribution regardless of which version of OpenStack its customers are using, rejecting a report to the contrary from earlier Wednesday.

"To be clear, users are free to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux with any OpenStack offering, and there is no requirement to use our OpenStack technologies to get a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription," Paul Cormier, Red Hat president for products and technologies, said in a blog post.
Cormier was responding to a Wall Street Journal report from earlier that charged that Red Hat will not support Red Hat Enterprise Linux if the customer uses a version of the cloud hosting software from another company.
"In its quest to sell OpenStack, Red Hat has chosen not to provide support to its commercial Linux customers if they use rival versions of OpenStack," the report said, citing "documents" seen by the newspaper.
Red Hat's support, which includes providing bug fixes and technical support, is one of the key reasons people pay for its software instead of opting for a free version of Linux, the report notes.
The article raises the idea that Red Hat may be using its dominance in Linux to get a foothold in the nascent but potentially large market for OpenStack software.
Cormier insisted that's not the case. "Red Hat's track record of supporting collaborative innovation and our unwavering commitment to truly open open source are unparalleled," he wrote.