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Given the target of RHEL, I can’t say that I disagree with their decision to not package those applications for RHEL 10. RHEL isn’t really designed to be a user desktop. Ever since RH split out workstation and server versions of the OS, RHEL has always been targeted for servers. I don’t think the lack of an office suite will really be that impactful towards users.

This is just made all the more true if there is an alternative source for these tools, like Flathub.

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ndiddy 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> This is just made all the more true if there is an alternative source for these tools, like Flathub.

The point I was trying to make is that Red Hat is deprecating graphical desktop programs on RHEL and telling their customers to switch to getting them from Flathub, while a Red Hat employee giving a talk about the future of Flatpak is saying that it's not actively developed anymore and that there's nobody responsible for reviewing MRs for new features. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a bad thing that Red Hat stopped packaging graphical programs. I'm saying that since they've endorsed Flatpak as their alternative to packaged graphical programs, I wish Red Hat would put some of the development resources they've saved from no longer packaging/supporting those graphical programs into helping to improve Flatpak.

	▲	mbreese 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I wish Red Hat would put some of the development resources they've saved from no longer packaging/supporting those graphical programs into helping to improve Flatpak. I very much agree with this. It would be nice to see some better coordination and support, especially for those who are able to leverage Flatpaks to reduce their own overhead.

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josephcsible 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Ever since RH split out workstation and server versions of the OS

Didn't that get undone with RHEL 8?

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mbreese 19 hours ago | parent [-]

You're right. And that's something I still don't quite understand.

I'd really like to know how many workstation licenses Redhat really sells. It's been so long, I didn't even realize that they still had a separate workstation license available for purchase. When you have the same distribution setup for Servers and Workstations, it seems to me that one of those flavors is going to dominate and the other will be eventually be neglected. Who are the users that are buying and using Workstation licenses?

But, when it comes down to it, I still don't see why they would want to package an Office Suite for RHEL. Or, more importantly, why a user would want to use it. RHEL is designed for stability. It's a great server OS that's well supported. Because of this, it's also known to have older versions of libraries and programs. This is okay, because many new features and fixes get backported, but it's still usually an older (stable) version of software that's included. Why would you want to have an older version of an Office Suite? Why would they want to package a newer (and riskier) version that can be installed on a server? It just doesn't make that much sense to me... it's a fundamental dichotomy between what makes a good server OS vs a good workstation OS.

Note: this give and take has been going on with Linux on the server vs Linux on the Desktop for decades. It's probably going to keep going on for decades. The things that one wants for one use case isn't what makes sense for other use cases. This is why we have different distributions, which is a good thing. The part I don't get is why RH would want to merge the two back together. Which is why I see the idea of deprecating workstation applications (as packaged by RHEL) in favor of Flatpak versions of them as a good thing from the RHEL point of view.

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miladyincontrol 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>Who are the users that are buying and using Workstation licenses?

Sometimes institutes and businesses that insist on support contracts, and ones from the vendor publishing the software itself. Sometimes there is actual legal red tape requiring them of such, usually its just management doing management things. That requirement immediately cuts down the majority of their options, even if what I would describe as more sensible options exist under such a criteria.

	▲	mbreese 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Oh, I could guess who buys the licenses… I’m more curious about who uses them. And the real question is — what applications are being used by the users? I’m sure RH has data on what packages are being installed across their customer base (having a centralized repository does have its advantages). So, figuring out what packages to drop is probably easier for them.

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screcth 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Many companies use RHEL Workstation to run proprietary GUI applications. The application usually runs on RHEL Servers and uses X11 forwarding to show the GUI on the Workstation.

Running the same OS on the client and on the server makes support much simpler. ISVs may not even support more modern OSs like Fedora or Ubuntu.

Those companies don't need an Office Suite as they have Windows machines that can run Microsoft Office. They just need a Linux desktop environment that is easy to use and stays out of the way when accessing the Workstation through VNC.

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ses1984 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My servers rely on parts of libreoffice to be able to process documents.