OS PLATFORMS Beware the golden screwdriver Red Hat has created a new support offering for its flagship Enterprise Linux that it characterizes as “RHEL forever” and has “no pre-determined end date.”The IBM business unit says the offering, formally known as “The Long-Life Add-On,” will “keep older minor or major versions of RHEL secure and stable” by providing critical patches, urgent bug fixes, and 24x7 tech support for as long as customers keep paying for it.Red Hat reckons the super-extended support is needed because platform migrations often become necessary when OS support expires, which can happen long before an application becomes obsolete. REG AD Longer support, the outfit argues, “gives IT leaders the freedom to synchronize software lifecycles with long-term hardware investments or