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Red Hat Enterprise Linux is often abbreviated to RHEL, although this is not an official designation. Although Red Hat claims to supply major releases every 18 to 24 months, over 39 months have elapsed since the first release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. However, Red Hat vice president of platform engineering Tim Burke confirmed that the beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 would become available during the month of April 2010 with further release announcements coming at the Red Hat Summit in June 2010. The first public beta was released on April 21, 2010 followed by a 2nd in June 2010. When Red Hat releases a new version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, customers may upgrade to the new version at no additional charge as long as they are in possession of a current subscription (i.e. the subscription term has not yet lapsed). Red Hat's first Enterprise offering (Red Hat Linux 6.2E) essentially consisted of a version of Red Hat Linux 6.2 with different support levels, and without separate engineering. The first version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to bear the name originally came onto the market as "Red Hat Linux Advanced Server". In 2003 Red Hat rebranded Red Hat Linux Advanced Server to "Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS", and added two more variants, Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS. Verbatim copying and redistribution of the entire Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution is not permitted due to trademark restrictions. However, there are several redistributions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux—such as CentOS—with trademarked features (such as logos, and the Red Hat name) removed. |