Hi everyone,
I'm struggling to convince a client of mine to use Debian. They already had
enough troubles with RHEL/CentOS to they are open to the idea -- that's a
good thing. The bad thing is that they want to use Microsoft Azure (please
don't ask me why people in the right mind would ever consider using
proprietary cloud from one of the most unethical companies ever known in the
IT industry).
I found it very disappointing that I had to defend Debian against Ubuntu
which is stealing our audience by somehow arranging more favourable hosting
conditions on Azure. I'm not talking about availability of OS images.
According to "Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions" [1]
"The Azure platform SLA applies to virtual machines running the Linux OS
only when one of the endorsed distributions [2] is used".
So naturally my client is concerned that by choosing Debian they won't have
benefits of SLA like they would have if they choose Ubuntu because the latter
is "endorsed".
I'm not sure what can be done about this. Personally I'm reluctant to
approach Microsoft (I believe DPL or representative of debian-cloud team may
be a better person to do that) and I don't know how to challenge unfair
endorsement when some parties already formed cartel to suit their
interests...
Maybe someone could draft a press release to draw attention to the problem,
if we should be concerned?
[1]: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-create-upload-vhd-generic/
[2]: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-linux-endorsed-distributions/
--
Cheers,
Dmitry Smirnov.
---
It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed
in doing what is necessary.
-- Winston Churchill