Bad docs blamed for flaky RHEL 5 reviews

RHEL 5 scored good marks with TechTarget but eWeek was scathing, calling it "too flaky even for testing purposes" and described the software management system as "thoroughly broken". Problems with the code even led to an unsaved version of the story being locked up. This, to a reviewer with one eye on deadline and one on word count, is the ultimate insult.

"We were so surprised because [some reviews] were so different from customer reports and we concluded it had as much to do with the documentation as the code," said Timothy Yeaton, Red Hat marketing senior vice-president, in a meeting with British hacks yesterday.

According to Yeaton, Red Hat won't make the same mistake with the beta 2 release that is just weeks away.

"Beta 2 will be a very strong release and people will see the power of virtualisation. The risk you always run with a beta 1 is that it's not necessarily perceived as a beta 1 and some of [the problems are related to] the stage of the work in progress. Guides are important because a lot of things that are incomplete are user experience related and these affect the perception accordingly."

Yeaton said the current plan is to go from beta 2 to release candidate before a general availability release in the first quarter of next year. All releases are likely to include the much-anticipated virtualisation capabilities but levels of sophistication could vary on different releases.

Also, although everybody wants to know whether Oracle will introduce a branded version of the Ubuntu Linux distro next week at OpenWorld, Red Hat is talking up RHEL 5 as a screamer for Oracle shops.

"You'll see outstanding performance, particularly in an Oracle context," Yeaton said. µ