You make some great points, thanks (side note: I love HN for conversations exactly like this one). You've won me over somewhat. As long as the support vendor isn't misrepresenting what they offer and how it differs from Red Hat, it doesn't seem nearly as unethical as it felt initially. I've only had experience with a handful of vendors, but all of them marketed themselves as "same support as Red Hat, 1/4 to 1/2 the price." I find that gross, but if it were "we'll help you setup and configure your machine" rather than "use us instead of Red Hat" I don't really have an issue with that.