14 DAY TRIAL // On March 31, 2016, Red Hat announced the availability for free of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system to all developers enrolled in the company's new Developer Program.
Considering that the announcement was made on March 31 and not April 1, we have no choice but to believe that the news is real. Thus, if you are an aspiring GNU/Linux developer, you can download the latest version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system right now from Red Hat's website.
In addition to making Red Hat Enterprise Linux free to developers, Red Hat, which is currently the world's leading provider of open source solutions, has announced that its Red Hat JBoss Middleware portfolio of enterprise-class application and integration middleware software products is also available for free as part of the Red Hat Developer Program.
"With Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat JBoss Middleware available through the program at no cost, developers can more easily use our technology to start projects and explore solutions while having confidence that their chosen development platforms and tools can be supported in production, without porting or incompatibility issues," says Harry Mowersenior director, Developer Tools and Marketing, Red Hat.
OK, what's the catch?!
Most of you are probably shocked reading this and wondering whether this is a gimmick. Well, the catch is that the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat JBoss Middleware products are offered under a non-production, self-supported developer subscription, which means that it can be used for local application development only, not for production use, which still requires a paid subscription.
The no-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Suite consists of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server and various development tools that are supported by Red Hat for 10 years, among which PHP, Python, Ruby, OpenJDK 7 (1.7), and OpenJDK 8 (1.8). Moreover, there are many other open-source development tools that receive regular updates from the community. Get started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Suite today!