Slashdot Mirror
An Open Letter From Bob Young
Subject: Freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad.
From: bob@redhat.com
Dear Slashdotter,
The wild and heated debate about Red Hat 7 in recent days has been interesting to follow. It demonstrates the strength of the open source model. By comparison (I'm not sure if anyone noticed this) Computerworld had a front page story a couple of weeks ago about how there were problems with Solaris on Sun's Enterprise systems, but that these bugs were not well known because Sun was making their customers sign NDA's (non-disclosure agreements) before helping them fix the problem.
Consider the contrast between a proprietary vendor's unwillingness to debate the merits of their technology with the open debate that Red Hat Linux enjoys.
This discussion is of such value to the users of Red Hat products that we feel little need to even attempt to comment. Informed readers can read all sides of the debate, download our products, test them, and decide for themselves whether our critics or supporters are correct. Of course the readers who post things like "well I haven't tried RH7 but I've heard..." aren't very helpful, but I trust most Slashdot readers to see through that kind of stuff.
There is one recurring comment that I could not resist addressing. Namely the regular habit of our critics of comparing Red Hat to Microsoft. I just don't get it.
There are many things for which we should be justifiably criticised (I have no idea what these might be, but I'm certain they exist ;-) but trying to act like Microsoft is not one of them. Red Hat's business is built on solving the problem thatMicrosoft's business model has imposed on the software user since Bill Gates disagreed with the members of the Homebrew computing club back in 1980.
The software industry that Microsoft has been the role model for is built on the premise that customers are not to be trusted with the technology that they are building their organizations on. The legacy software industry is built on the proprietary binary-only model where not only does the user not get the source code he needs to make changes, but worse he receives the product under a license that essentially says that if you make any improvements to the technology you are using, if you solve a bug that is causing your systems to crash, or add a feature that your users or customers desperately need the vendor can have you thrown in jail. (If you don't believe me, just read any shrinkwrapped software license). This kind of business model, where the customer is completely beholden to his supplier exists in no other industry in any free market that I know of. It harks back to the old feudal systems of 12th century Europe.
Red Hat's business success is owed to one simple benefit our products and services offer that our larger binary-only OS competitors do not. Namely that our commitment to publish the code that we write and distribute under open source licenses enable us to give our customers control over the technology they are using to build their systems. We cannot promise to deliver perfection. All we can promise is to acknowledge the problems immediately and work with you to fix them publicly and in real time. With control over their systems our users can simply build more stable and reliable systems than the binary-only model allows.
This is why the fear that Red Hat is somehow going to wake up one morning and abandon our commitment to open source is so mis-placed. Open source provides us with -the- competitive advantage that enables us to compete effectively against much larger competitors. To abandon open source is simply not in our customers interest and hence not in Red Hat's financial interest.
So if you want to criticise us for shipping gcc 2.96, you have every right to do so - you'd be wrong, but it is at least a legitimate debate and I'd respect your opinion. But to compare Red Hat to Microsoft indicates an ignorance of what is driving our success.
Remember that this debate was begun by someone going to Red Hat's public site and trying to add up all the registered bugs in Red Hat 7. When was the last time Microsoft (or any other legacy software vendor for that matter) gave you access to their complete bug registration system? Which software model do you really want to see succeed? One where you have to trust your vendor (who can and frequently restrict access to information you does need) or one where you are in control of the technology you are using?
We may be making mistakes - that up to you to decide. Some of them may be important to you and while I have no doubt you will point them out to us, you have control over the technology you are using. We work hard to build products that please most of our users most of the time. But if you don't like something about Red Hat Linux you don't have to use that feature or function. We simply are not pursing a business model that bears any resemblance to Microsoft's, so just quit it.
The next slashdotter who compares anything Red Hat does to Microsoft will be punished. The punishment will be to find the nearest blackboard and write "freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad" seven hundred times.
Cheers, Bob.
I'm sorry, Bob.
Comparing RedHat to Microsoft was wrong. But how will RedHat look two years from now if we just smile to ourselves and gently rock back and forth while waiting for a great distro to turn into the Unix equivalent of Windows? Unreliability and bugs caused by (deliberate) stupidity were the primary reasons I ran away from Windows in the first place.
Remember, feedback is ALWAYS important, no matter good or bad. You provided feedback in the form of an open letter, which is also good! This whole issue should be taken as a lesson to learn from. Maybe RedHat needs more extensive beta testing?
Red Hat has bugs. Red Hat posts bugs. Red Hat fixes bugs. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you don't like it, STOP USING REDHAT!!!!! What the HELL is wrong with you morons???? You don't HAVE to use Redhat. You can use Debian, or if you really miss Redhat use Mandrake. I don't remember anyone telling me I HAD to install Redhat. That's what I downloaded, that's what I installed, that's what I liked. So I use it. Don't like it? Format the partition, use something else.
This is an obvious lie: The RH7 beta (released 3months before RH7) had the same GCC. No one was without warning.
Secondly, RedHat has 4 of the GCC committie members working for them directly, and more then half of the CVS commits for GCC in the last 6months have been from RedHat employees. These people, the most active GCC developers and some of the committie members were the people who told RedHat to ship that patched snapshot of GCC.
Xinetd was a big improvement on many fronts. It's multiple file config mirrors SysV init, allowing packages to add their daemons without messing up anything else. It's improved logging and security features give you more flexiblilty. You may not like it, but it's not a bug in RedHat. Address them with it, not the public.
He has a point here. I worked for WordPerfect back when the first version for Windows was released. On the day of its first release, there were over 30,000 unresolved "issues" in its bugfile. Not all were bugs, and many were duplicate of other bugs, but the sheer number caused me to be embarrassed that WordPerfect was even releasing the software. Granted, they felt pressure to do so by the big jump Microsoft gave themselves when they dumped OS/2 and and a word processor already out there for Windows 3.0 on the day of its release, but it was still embarrassing. I'm sure Microsoft's bug databases are similar. Thank goodnes for the open source model. Hopefully this kind of hiding of defects from users will be outmoded someday.
I have been a fan of RH only for a short time (since 5.2). I learned Linux on Slackware 2.something, and have seen some horrible bugs in many distros from just about any vendor.
What I do not understand is, how can you let a distro go 'gold' with so many bugs? Are they not known? Is the beta period to short?
I would compare this to Linus and co. releasing a new major rev. kernel, it takes a long time, and a lot of eyes.
What can we do to help this? It's not like people are not reporting bugs in the beta, it's more like there's not enough time to address the issues. Or am I all wet here?
Just my $0.02.
-
I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I'm only saying that RedHat's lead should not be followed blindly just because RedHat is popular.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
What about Qt itself? Trolltech had advised not to use gcc 2.96 or glibc 2.1.92 with Qt due to some troubles with how gcc 2.96 handles Qt's signals and slots. xI gather that you must have gotten Qt to compile, but I wonder though about the stability of Qt compiled with gcc 2.96.
Any further info?
Well for crying out loud! If you're going to throw complex mathematical programs at the compiler then of course you'll notice some bugs here and there. What do you expect, that it'd be perfect? Counting to 10 is very complex process. Ask any 3 year old. ;-)
Seriously though.. I'm glad I'm not running RH 7.. sheesh. I have enough problems debugging my lame C programs to not have to deal with a broken compiler working against me!
I'd have to agree that it would have been wiser to keep the latest stable release of gcc as the default, but Redhat 7.0 does have XFree4.0.1 (using it right now) and GNOME 1.2.
As far as waiting for KDE 2.0, why bother? No distribution maker is under any obligation to delay their distro for the benefit of an app vendor. I don't see SuSe, Debian or Corel doing this either. Really the best thing to do - imho - is ship the latest KDE stable, offer the development snapshot as an option and provide the 2.0 stable when available as a download. In fact doing this with gcc might have averted some of the criticism.
Not really responding to anything you (fireproof) said, but really I think RedHat has done a better than decent job with RH7.0. Its by far their best x.0 release yet (maybe not saying much;-). It's default install is much more secure and out of the box it gives me about 95% of the stuff I spent weeks adding to 6.2.
One last note, 4 of Redhat's employees are on the gcc steering committee and some were directly involved in the decision to ship gcc 2.96, so this issue is alot less cut-and-dried than it is made out to be on Slashdot.
I browse with my threshold at 2 so I can't read my own comments :-)
Umm, Bob - I hate to rain on your parade, but people weren't having problems with Solaris. They were having problems with the CPUs, specifically the 400MHz 8MB cache modules.
/*
So if you want to criticise us for shipping gcc 2.96, you have every right to do so - you'd be wrong, but it is at least a legitimate debate and
I'd respect your opinion.*/
Read, "You've got the right to express your opinion, but your opinion is wrong, and mine is right."
Folks, people like Bob Young (even if he does come from a geeky background) understand things in terms of one thing: money. Money is what makes the world go 'round, in the business world. If you don't like RH's decisions (what I see as trying to steer the community in a certain direction, and that's not a bad goal) vote with something Mr. Young will understand. Don't buy boxed sets of Red Hat. Even better, don't use Red Hat. Use something else; nay, buy another boxed distro. The numbers will speak (and will probably still have RH on the top, though I could be wrong.)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
IMHO we need a *company* to take charge of the Linux community. Community efforts (again, IMHO) won't reflect the needs of the *entire* community; in other words, won't represent both the hobbyist coder as well as the closed-source business solutions. RH can do that. RH has been doing that. I wish they weren't quite as agressive about pushing solutions on the rest of the Linux world, but it's helping to have them around. :^)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
The danger is that when you have only one source of software is that you end up with some big, bloated behemoth that doesn't work very well, but does a helluva lot of things. Take, for example, Emacs. I don't use emacs; I use vim. Somethimes I use GXEdit when I'm running X. Emacs is big, emacs doesn't work in a way I like, and I hate it's scripting language. Should I be forced to use it in an effort to make "one project only d00d"? No, I don't think so. If we had that attitude, free OSs wouldn't exist.
:^) and can't imagine the free-software world without the GNU project, but I cannot and will not allow people who purport to represent the ideals behind GNU tell me what kind of software I will be using, what I will call my operating system (whose kernel wasn't even developed by the GNU project) or what sort of licensing agreement unrelated software should have (I have been called evil for wanting several commercial pieces of software ported.)
The other danger is that you may end up with one camp dictating terms to the rest of the free software world. My operating system of choice, for example, is known as Linux. Note the conspicuous lack of the "GNU/" at the beginning of that name. Now, I really appreciate the efforts of the GNU project (RMS is God...er, rather, St. IGNUcius
Just my $0.02US.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
If a project is put forth in an open source world it is tested... bugs are found and fixed. By putting a buggy version of gcc into the mainstream(regardless of mistake or not), these bugs are going to be found and fixed FASTER. Redhat has the resources to do this. They are doing good here folks. Wide spread beta testing is great for the quality of the software being put on the market.
Keep up the good work!
- Xabbu
- Jimbob
Best regards,
-- Gunfighter
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
How'd he do that?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
The '-n' for ping is pretty common. I found I had to use it on Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, etc. I don't know what SUS has to say about it (and don't feel like checking), but "fixing" this would probably be breaking ping.
Wil
--
Wil
wiki
You have a serious misunderstanding of the structure of an SRPM. A source RPM contains a copy of the pristine source code as well as a separate copy of each individual patch that is to be applied to the original source code.
When a source RPM is built into a binary RPM, the original tar.gz is extracted, and then each patch is applied one by one to the original source. The patches aren't "pre-mixed" into the source code; they're separate files available for your perusal or removal.
The only legitimate complaint in here is that downloading 20 MB of source to get 2MB (compressed) of patches is impractical. If you bought their product, you get a CD containing all the source RPMs. If you didn't buy their product, then you'll just have to live with the download.
things specific to redhat."
Heh, is this one of those "well I haven't tried RH7 but I've heard..." posts Bob Young was talking about? ;) Me thinks yes!
"it's related to the need for ia64 support"
Is there really a need for ia64 support? Just to be sure - I'm not misunderstanding we're talking about something other than Itanium/Merced am I? Isn't it (a) not available, and (b) not slated to be available any time soon? If so, what is the 'need'? Whose is the need?
(I personally am not outraged or upset by RH7.0 - I learnt from 5.0 and 6.0 not to get an RH n.0 release for a little while...)
Hmmm, I really tried a little to make this not sound inflammatory - it's a serious question.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
--Karl
--Karl
Gtk-- is also on one of their CDs I believe, though in this case they chose to clone the product rather than support it because they did not feel Gtk-- would meet their requirements. I regret they decided this and felt it was a mistake.
I am not sure that Inti is the best thing to include in a dist at this time and I am surprised they would ship it considering it depends on a version of gtk+ which should not be shipped at this point (or so the installation script says.) Though considering they shipped snapshot of gcc, I can't say I am surprised. I had seen the 2.96 in the rawhide but figured they were working with the stearing commitee to get a new stable shipped. I was flabergasted that they released with the snapshot and gcc steering hadn't even heard of it.
--Karl
i'd be curious if anyone really releases any code, in source or binaries forms, that doesn't have any bugs. i'm speaking of actual programs/os, not scripts.
.x release, i never go with the .0 releases. even on other platforms... macos9.04, win98se, solaris 7/mu4...
the fact is, every application being produced and released has bugs. if everyone waited to release a product until all the bugs were fixed, software would never be shipped. conversely, if you actually used a software product that contained NO bugs, why would you ever want to upgrade?
it seems like a poor choice to make, shipping software out that still has bugs, but it allows for several positive things to happen: allow the end user to see the new direction an application is taking, and allowing the developers to see if any other bugs might surface with a wider pool of users. this is the endless cycle that every application i've ever used goes thru. take the software that adobe produces, for example: photoshop 5.0 is released, and shortly after the release, 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 appear to take care of unforseen bugs wiht specific hardware. 5.5 gets released to add new features and to fix the bugs from 5.0.x.... 6.0 gets released to add even more features( and uncovers even more bugs), and so on and so forth. every application/os has these same problems.
if you want to see an operating system that ships with bugs, take a look at windows macos or even solaris. they update their updates and patch lists all the time, they just don't get announced to the user community the same way linux does. and when it comes to figuring out which patch/fix will resolve your problem, there isn't always the open forum available with these other os's the way there is for linux.
in the end, if you're a redhat user, you'll eventually end up upgrading to the latest version. personally, i wait for the
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
What is it with people wanting to make sites for their own so called "minorities?"
Why should their be a "Geek girl site?"
I am not saying that there shouldn't be one, what i am saying is that i can never understand the mentality of people who decide that their group are not well represented, and therefore they strike out on their own (this is kinda funny since slashdot is a site for geeks). Maybe i don't know what i am talking about, maybe there should be a geek site for girls, and one for blacks... and maybe even one for black girls!
I don't know anymore, these are some troubling times...
(oh and if you have a problem with me, i am not sexist or racist, heck i know women... my mom is one! and i know blacks... i see them on tv all the time )
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
You misunderstand my post slightly, I think.
My complaint is mostly with people that decide that the *real* reason I don't like Redhat is not because I think that their product is sub-standard, but because they're a successful Open Source company. I'm happy for you, and that you like Redhat so much. And when I say I don't like it, you don't tell me that I don't like it because they make money. You're right, I can - and do - use Slackware. I've had enough bad experiences with RH.
I like new things, too. I like enlightenment and Gnome. They're terribly buggy and sloppily coded, and I'm allowed to complain about that. But if they were making money? Well! Suddenly I would be attacking them because they were rich and popular. What a crock.
Good luck with RH. I hope you don't suffer the same problems I did.
Y'know, there's starting to become two camps here. The people that speak their minds, and the people that think that these people are just bashing because 'x' is successful.
Has it ever occured to you people that people bash Redhat because they *honestly* think that it's a bad product? That they *really* believe that leaking file descriptors until your machine is unusable is a *stupid* thing? That in all honesty they see that shipping with an unsupported version of gcc is looking for trouble?
Yes, Redhat is successful. Bully for them. They also ship a shit-worthless product half the time. 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0 have all been washes. The product is *crap*. TurboLinux, by all accounts, is pretty successful, but they don't release complete drek and expect me to pay money for it.
Y'know, there are even Redhat bashers that bash Microsoft for having a terrible product! It's not the money, it's the quality! It's *okay* to bash Redhat for shipping crap. It's not the bashers that are fixated on money, it's the proponents of Redhat that are. You're trying to validate your choice in a poorly tested and put together distribution. Knowing that you can't fight on the stability front, you turn to the only thing that could possibly save you: Redhat makes money.
80% of the posts right now are people patting each other on the back saying 'Redhat's okay! These people are just jealous poseurs! I bet they don't even use Linux, and sit in their basements looking for opportunities to bash successful companies!' Wake up! Realize that if you ship something that makes your machine unusable in 3 weeks, people are going to complain.
Redhat is crap. I have my own reasons for saying that, and none of them have to do with money. On the contrary, I'm grateful that they employ Alan Cox and others like him with their income. But it's still crap.
Incorrect!
When you hit a 1.0 release, say, it means that you've finally decided that your software is not pre-release any more. You think that the general populace can use it without any problems.
When you hit 7.0 (from 6.whatever) it means that you think that enough work has gone into your 6.whatever release to justify a major number change. That's stability as well as features. Every release number that you go up, your product gets *better*, not worse. When Linus releases the 2.4.0 kernel, it will be *better* than the 2.2.xx kernels. It will have more features. They will have worked out the major problems that they had in the 2.3.xxx devel series.
If you sell a product, it should *always* be usable out of the box. Game companies weren't doing this for a while, and they got smacked down. When you release, release like you *mean* it.
If you post to an article you've moderated, your moderations are cancelled.
DNA just wants to be free...
I got an email from the steering committee saying that there NEVER EVEN WAS a gcc 2.96. This is a premature RedHat release. What we do have is pre gcc 3.0 work in progress on our RedHat 7.0 systems.
At least we get kgcc for compiling the kernel as well .
I am running RedHat 7.0 on my laptop and I must say that most of the cutting edge technology included is the only stuff that will drive my PCMCIA card for ethernet.
Having a stable compiler on a system which is deeply seated in a community that advocates downloading source code and "build it yourself" is beyond important... Its critical.
If you can... Use kgcc instead of gcc everywhere.
That is until you remove the crappy compiler that came with RedHat 7.0 and put a stable one on.
gcc 2.95.2
Dave
Actually, just update to the latest version of rpm, available in the 6.2 directory on updates.redhat.com. This will allow yo to access those new RPMs.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
RH hasn't always been a stinking pile of doo-doo... 6.2 was a dman fine release.
.0 releases are typically unstable, and not suited for general use. This one was just particularly bad, and the reasons that it is bad are evident.
I fully understand that RH
And yeah... the part about the source being unavailable was poorly worded, sorry about that. My biggest beef is with their kernel... what changes has RH made? Where did they come from? I'd like to see a list of these changes, and have never seen one to date.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
I'm well aware of this fact, thanks. But short of downloading the whole SRPM, it's difficult if not impossible to determine exactly which patches were added.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Yup. See Part 9.
-Waldo
This is a completely disingenuous remark. I for one have been using Linux for the past six years, and I suppose a lot of people who have been using it for even less time than I have would know this to be true. Linux's licensing protects our freedom, and all companies that make use of it cannot legally do anything that can infringe on that freedom: it would be a violation of GPL to do so. The same is true for the GNU Compiler Collection, and much of the software Red Hat itself has helped develop and includes in its distribution. So, say this is Red Hat's Evil Master Plan, and they get proprietary closed-source vendors to use GCC 2.96 instead of the more interoperable versions of GCC that are available. They may gain a monopoly lock-in for a few weeks. After that, GCC has a new, more interoperable version, and Red Hat is compelled to use it in 7.1. If their monoply lock as you call it is so pervasive and they persist in using the errant GCC, then nothing stops other Linux vendors from getting a Source RPM of the errant GCC that Red Hat decided to use and bringing an end to the "monopoly lock". Red Hat can't legally prevent anyone from doing that; they'd be in gross violation of the GPL if they tried. Now, if I were the Evil Mind behind Red Hat, what I would do is invest money in developing a whole other closed-source compiler that made binaries egregiously incompatible with GCC, kink the kernel to operate around it and compile all of Red Hat 7 with it. But even that would only give them a small amount of time (and a BIG PR disaster), till someone figured out how their kernels were kinked and wrote a patch that allowed the kernel to run both the "broken" binaries compiled with Red Hat's hypothetical compiler and the legitimate GCC. Patch makes its way into the distribution kernel. Iterate ad nauseam. The only way that they could conceivably become the kind of monopoly that you envision would be if they were to completely abandon Linux altogether in favor of a closed OS, and I don't think anyone sees this happening any time soon either. Red Hat is the biggest player in the Linux market and control the biggest share of the biggest market for commercial Linux use because they have earned a good reputation among people like us, the Linux geeks who guide commercial Linux use. And they've earned it by consistently working towards interoperability and openness. This is worth a lot more than Microsoft's excellent marketing strategy that earned them the biggest share of the PC market, and also much more fragile. If they knowingly, and willfully did anything that endangered that reputation, and the trust that comes from that reputation, other Linux vendors would have a field day. And then we would speak thereafter not of Red Hat, but Akallabêth, the Downfallen, Atalantë in the old Eldarin tongue. :-)
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I basically agree with Bob, but in fairness
I need to point out that Sun makes their
bug database available, including early warnings
about things that might not even be bugs.
I don't know why they didn't apply that policy
with the server memory problem.
> or a metal person who talks funny.
Sounds pretty right to me.
Hayden
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
I think Bob is missing the point. Nobody ever claimed that RH would become a proprietary binary-only Linux distribution. THat violates GPL and RedHat employees would need to find themselves a new job very fast if that ever happened. The comparison to Microsoft was made on the grounds that RH dominates the market of computer newbies, and strives to make things "easier than ever". As far as GCC issue goes....note the familiar words in Alan Cox's response to the critisism: (paraphrase) "Striving for bleeding edge of technology, revolutionary, etc. etc" Talk about bleeding edge, check out woody. ALmost up to date on anything (except few problems with some of the packages in the queue since people are not availible), yet you dont see gcc2.96 in there. RedHat screwed up with GCC. They would have been about as bad as shipping 7.0 with a 2.4-pre kernel . My two cents. Andrei
15,16c15,164 7_STO49485,00.html"> Computerworld had a front page</A>
4 7_STO49485,00.html">front page story</A>
< <A href=" http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV
< story a couple of weeks ago about how
---
> Computerworld had a <A href=" http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV
> a couple of weeks ago about how
78c78
< built on solving the problem thatMicrosoft's business
---
> built on solving the problem that Microsoft's business
113c113
< desperately need
---
> desperately need,
139c139
< under open source licenses enable us
---
> under open source licenses enables us
206,207c206,207
< (who can and frequently restrict access to information you
< does need) or one where you
---
> (who can and frequently does restrict access to information you
> need) or one where you
213c213
< We may be making mistakes - that up
---
> We may be making mistakes - that's up
--
Liberty uber alles.
I use Redhat 6.2 on servers at work, everything from 5.x-7 on servers and ws's at a community net (and for that matter, Solaris 2.6 and 2.7).
Redhat is definitly the way to go. Eventualy I will need an anwser to something /now/ and will need support. Commercial vendoes can provide that. If I want to download some app, if it exists in some package format, it exists in RPM.
For those people complaing about RH 7.0: anyone who has been around computers for more than a second should no not to trust x.0 software. At least wait until the first servicepack/patch.
Of the three somewhat commercialy viable distributions, Red Hat, Caldera and SuSE, Ive personaly only ever seen Red Hat. I would like to play around with Caldera because of integration with NDS (as Ive gone through the formal novell education). I have zero desire to play with SuSE - its main feature seems to be that it has a insane amount of software included in the box. I have 3mb/s at work and DSL at home.
As soon as I get a chance Im going to install RH7 on a test box, and Ill proabably get it up on production machines as soon as the erratta has slown down.
If you don't agree, don't repeat it. If you do agree, say it with your own voice, back it up, and be prepared to defend your position.
I dunno, man. I think it's a small step down the road to being able to feed yourself.
Newsflash: Companies need profit to survive. And guess what? They need to sell things to make a profit. If you have any problems with the quality, come out and say it. But don't hide behind this "we hate profit" banner.
I'm really, really tired of this wishy-washy "me too"-ism.
I haven't looked at Inti much yet, but GTK-- was horrible. It was quite clear from the very beginning that the GNOME people have considered a C++ binding as necessary only to shut up people who think that using an OO language is a good idea for an OO toolkit.
I don't write much UI code, but the quality of GTK-- made me even less interested in doing so. With Java Swing, writing UI code is almost fun. Making a good OO UI toolkit is possible. I hope Inti is one.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I still disagree with the silly idea of using a broken GCC, but I commend this letter! A nice slap to the Kiddies that whine, and a nice glimmer to those of us that risked our money on the RHAT stock, fight management to get it installed on our servers, and faithfully reccomend it to friends and relatives that are non-linuxers.
I back red hat, I back red hat with my own dollars (something that most of you bitchy posters cannot say) and I have a right to gripe when something bone-headed is done wayyyy before the non-stockholders.
Do I gripe? no.
I disagree, and I STILL reccomend the stock to people. (even though it is still way too low guys!)
Call me a sell-out, call me a drone. But I at least show support to the Linux call. how about you?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You are asking way too much of any executive.
CEO's CIO's CTO's C(ANYTHING)O's have been out of the trenches so long that they dont have a solid clue anymore. BUT: Stockholders have more right to bitch about a company's product than ANYONE ELSE.
You didnt say you have stock, so therefore you aren't risking anything in redhat.
Now the damn microshaft virus that infects our servers/workstations and was mandated by the dumb CIO/MIS of past (or just because that was all there was at that time) takes time to eradicate.
Hell, the corperate Is polocies still talk of the fact that freeware / open source items will get people fired here. (NOTE as a MIS of my office, I re-wrote it, and I play dumb- "we BOUGHT hedhat, it was for sale just like windows, I didnt install that/reccomend that it was here when I got here" or whatever... corperate really dont care, and if I create a solution that they want to impliment corperation wide (I am, and presenting it next month) that REQUIRES linux then they are generally fudged in their old "ways"
Force change by making your solutions REQUIRE linux. and dont admit that it can be done without it. (These people are not techs, but upper-management that does not have a clue)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... Open Source ... is in the habit of "release early and often". This we know is _not_ true,
For those interested, I stand corrected. My apologies to OSI.
-WY
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
Mr. Young,
I promse I won't go into "I've read that Red Hat has bugs..." and try to make a point, rather the point I want to make is of trust.
Skimming over the very mixed reviews I get a sense of mistrust in Red Hat--not that you will be the next Microsoft, not that you will wind up screwing us all one day, but by shipping out products that based on market driven goals. Of course I do not accuse, but if the releases are more market driven, please consider this.
A bigot just tried to convence me that Open Source (meaning Red Hat too) is in the habit of "release early and often". This we know is _not_ true, but I caution you to not "release early and often".
I'm not saying you do, have or even contemplate this in the future, but to take example, what would Linus do? He's no Jesus, but the concept is still the same.
It might behove you to check future distributions as thoroughly as possible (knowing there was a problem with thte initial 6.0 release - Squid Proxy server if i'm correct) thus regaining a lot of trust in Red Hat and the Open Source movement.
You guys in Durham are _the_ second only to Linus himself in moving the commercialization of Linux forward (I mean that from a pure market standpoint y'all). You are proof that Open Source _can_ make it in a free, commercial market proving just about every thing ESR says.
But be careful what you release, you're corporate credibility is at stake (as well as the image of Open Source).
My deepest wishes to you, your staff, your partners, your goals, and for your future. Long live Red Hat and Open Source.
-Wes Yates
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
actually, as someone who has used it since the first day it was downloadable, lemme say this: it IS riddled with bugs.
.0 release just like every .0 release from rh. it's really not a big deal. if the feature set outweighs the bug count, then it's for you, _just like any other piece of software_.
on the other hand, it's
see ya,
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Let's face it. This whole debate about bugs is bull anyway!
Redhat is just a distribution. They do what they can to make their distribution stable; But blaming them for bugs anyway is ignorant. I have been using Open Source software for many years now and no matter how many "stable release" applications I have seen, the next release has "BUG FIX:" in the change log.
Bugs are a reality. ALL distributions have them and they have them in numbers. There isn't any way to keep it bug free and keep the distribution current.
The 2500 bugs is an untrue number as it was formed on all the bugs in the buglist no matter what the distribution version was. I am sure RedHat has well over that number, as do Mandrake, Suse, Corel, etc...
Yes, RedHat shipped with a few show stoppers. Yes, you were able to read all about them the next day. What is great about RedHat is that you read about these bugs from RedHat! They will be fixed as they have proven in the past!
Keep Open Source real by embrasing it. Stop fighting it!
Keep up the good work RedHat, Mandrake, Suse, etc!!! You have helped make it what it is!
LD
Funny, in reading that all I could think was:
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I second that - it's like looking at files on a Windows desktop, where no matter what you name the file the first letter always ends up capitalized. Another great innovation, that.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I swear, if you don't change "DONOT" to "DO NOT" or else put it in your .sig so I don't have to look at it, I'm going to reply to you with that same lame <Homer> joke that I think of every time I see it :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
D'oh! I've been out-subtled!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Actually, I WOULD like to complain about distros patching up the kernel. When I went to download and compile the latest 2.2 kernel for Mandrake (back at 7.0), I found I had lost some functionality because they had patched their kernel with extra code for some of the software included with the distribution. I had no idea what these patches were or how to get them. I was basically at Mandrakesoft's mercy as to when their next kernel RPM would be out.
Of course, I found out later I could have installed their LinusKernel package, but I wouldn't have been able to make some of the included software work, which would have appeared to be a bug. So it wasn't an effective solution to the problem either.
Digital Wokan
I wanted to spend 8 years defending the US constitution.
Well, it's unfair to say that Slashdot doesn't represent at least a part of the community. Most people in any community don't contribute much. And open communities have even more ... umn ... passers-through. I, myself, am a passer-through in many sectors of the community. I do my best to comment thoughtfully, and try to learn from the responses that I get. (Usually I find out that I'm boring. O, well.)
Also:
Yes, Red Hat is a great company. Yes, Red Hat has been a pillar of the community. Yes, we owe a lot to Red Hat. But this doesn't mean that they shouldn't be watched.
E.g., I'm keeping a close eye on where they go with this Red Hat update disk program. It can be a great idea. But it makes me nervous. There are just a few too many potentials there. This will probably clear up when the update disks start appearing. But, for now, it needs watching.
Now, I'm not really sure that this is any worse than Debian's apt-get or Gnome's go-gnome or Mandrakes Updater (or Red Hat's updater). These all make me a bit wary. Each of them is giving up a bit of control over your computer to someone outside that you trust to continue to be trustworthy. Actually, the update disk program may turn out to be less intrusive. But it is an activity by one of the powers that be (in our community) that has the potential to be harmful. So it needs to be watched.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It is far better to use an OS with many bugs, than use a closedsource OS with no bugs. The opensource OS allows me to fix those bugs the closedsource doesn't. This is one of the fundamental prinipals of opensource and it's working quite well thank you very much. The end result is we know how many bugs there are in Redhat 7.0 , we have no idea how many there are in Windows ( pick any windows product ). Those that bitch and moan about a buggy Redhat product just don't get it, or have never coded anything in there life beyond a "Hello World" app. Bugs happen.help fix them or back off.
By including "GCC 2.96" in Red Hat Linux 7.0 they are creating a situation of vendor lock in for the users of any proprietary software that is released "for Red Hat Linux" and compiled on the latest version. so update your libraries and compiler. or don't use that proprietary software. you are completely free to do what you want with your Linux box(es), so exercise that freedom. it isn't really that difficult. i know of people that run software "for redhat linux" on debian and slackware boxes without a problem by simply updating their libraries and such.
--josh
--sysadmin for ibm's ebusiness web farm
Wow, paraphrasing the pigs from Animal Farm. Does Bob not remember that they started with the mantra "Four legs good, two legs bad" but ended up with, "Four legs good, two legs better"? Rather an unfortunate choice of paraphrase, I would've thought... ;)
Bzzt. Wrong answer.
On Install CD1:
RedHat/RPMS/kernel-headers-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
On Install CD2:
preview/RPMS/kernel-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
kernel-2.4.0-0.26.i586.rpm
kernel-2.4.0-0.26.i686.rpm
kernel-doc-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
kernel-enterprise-2.4.0-0.26.i686.rpm
kernel-headers-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
kernel-pcmcia-cs-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
kernel-smp-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
kernel-smp-2.4.0-0.26.i586.rpm
kernel-smp-2.4.0-0.26.i686.rpm
kernel-source-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
kernel-utils-2.4.0-0.26.i386.rpm
Jesus H. Christ...even Al and George W. could do better fact-checking.
I'm tired of hearing companies claim that they are "in it for the community." That clam is utter bullshit. Any company, no matter what product it sells, is in it for the money. Don't get me wrong, however, this is not necessarily a bad thing.
From my point of view Redhat does not sell an operating system, rather it sells support for an operating system. The difference being that Mr. Young and the Redhat team fill a niche market. Great. Long live capatolisim... whatever. Don't claim to be in it for the community though.
I think Redhat Linux is a very good operating environment with a great set of packages and fair availability. Redhat, the company, has found a way to package and sell something that would normally be free. They realize that not everyone is able or even willing to 'roll their own' in preference of a pre-packaged solution. More power to them for this...
'The community,' which is so often referenced, will take care of itself. VALinux, imho, gives alot to the community in terms of open forums and sites to distribute and present new ideas and software. Redhat gives back by packaging all this Linux goodness together and makes revenue by selling it. With companies like Redhat, other companies such as IBM, Sun, and even Microsoft begin to take notice of Linux as being a real competitor in the buisness world.
Without Redhat (and companies like it), Linux will be viewed as a community project; not acceptable for "real buisness" (whatever that is supposed to mean). With Redhat (and companies like it), Linux gets commercial appeal and becomes a viable buisness solution (eg. it has a company standing behind it).
Just don't say you are in it for the community when, in reality, you are in it for the money (which, as I said before, is not necessarily a bad thing).
/rant
Verbatim
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
I've thought the recent RH criticism and Microsoft comparisons to be ludicrous, but I do find it interesting that someone who claims to respect an alternate opinion would preface that claim with "you'd be wrong".
...Redhat's better than Microsoft because we can tell them exactly what's wrong with their software? It would help if that actually made a difference, since nothing seems to stop them from releasing flakey x.0 distros.
So you are saying that since Dead Rat is the dominant commercial distribution, they should be considered the standard?
Does this mean that all distros need to use RPM instead of a different, and most of the time superior, package manager? Does this mean that all distros need to include software that was never meant for public use (such as gcc2.96 and glibc1)? Does this mean that all distros need to use what I consider a jacked up init?
Jesus, I hope not.
-- toolie
Are you sure the simpsons is mass market? I tend to think that some of the episodes are pretty esoteric. Oh well. You're probably wrong.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
compressed filenames for one issue, also a whole lot of other news with the database format beeing changed. and if you stop the complaints before looking deeper into things you might get some more info for yourself.
It wasn't a complaint, it was a question. The resolution of the "redhat as evil empire" question rests on their motivation for making the
imcompatible changes that we are seeing. The gcc issue has been hashed out pretty well. The RPM changes could use some scrutiny.
As you say, I could (should) find out what changed with some looking. The harder question is why. That requires some thought/discussion. Hence the question.
So tell me again. The reason for forcing people to choose between tracking RedHat and giving up on rpms is ... compressed filenames?
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
OK, we've heard plausible reasons for breaking binaries. What I haven't heard is why the RPM file format was changed incompatibly.
I don't see any new features in the new RPM. What was the reason for forking here?
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
>I agree to a certain extent. One thing that >pisses me off is watching all of the duplication >of effort in the Open Source Community. For >example, if all of the groups out there working >on accounting projects would combine forces and >agree on technologies (Perl, Apache, PostgreSQL, >RPM, etc.), we could soon have an Open Source, >modular, scalable accounting package comparable >to something like Great Plains Dynamics
No, we would have far fewer people working on ANY kind of open source accounting package. With some exceptions, people working on open source packages aren't doing it because they have to. They aren't doing it to please you. They're doing it because they WANT TO!!!
Aside from that, your argument is still completely erronious. Open source packages benefit from competition with other open source packages. Each team can make different design and implimentation decisions and can learn from the successes and mistakes of the other team. A good example: Much of the push for "hardened" and "secure" linux distributions has come from comparisons to OpenBSD.
Red Hat wants RH linux and nothing else. That's why they bought Cygnus, and that's why they're doing everything they can to keep everyone in the dark about RPM 4. They want to KILL COMPATIBILITY. Remember this They leverage their advantages to kill LSB (or any other standard RH disagrees with). The comparisions to Microsoft are RELEVANT.
grrr...Here's what I meant to post:
The trouble is that when companies start to control standards they invariably use it to their benefit. That's the whole idea of a publicly traded company. Maximize your advantages to kill your rivals. Who is Red Hat's main rival? LSB.
Red Hat wants RH linux and nothing else. That's why they bought Cygnus, and that's why they're doing everything they can to keep everyone in the dark about RPM 4. They want to KILL COMPATIBILITY. Remember this (link above) ask slashdot discussion? Yeah, basically no documentation on RPM 4. You can bet there are reams of documentation on RPM 4 in North Carolina somewhere, but why doesn't the rest of the world get any? Sure we get the source, but it takes time to decipher that. It gives them an edge. Binary incompatibility (gcc), and the use of undocumented products (rpm 4).
They leverage their advantages to kill LSB (or any other standard RH disagrees with). The comparisions to Microsoft are RELEVANT.
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?i d=18707
View, Folder Options, View, Files and Folders,
;)
[x] Allow all uppercase names
Will allow all lowercase names.
This may require the Active Desktop stuff of IE4.
I wish I were making this up
Actually I would tend to trust the ls command to show the real names.
Also DIR command seems to work OK.
It is the GUI that lies and gives you no way to see what it is that you've got.
It's called innovation.
One surprise I've seen is to get a response from a ping, with the network cable disconnected!
Personal opinion only, but I'd much rather things broke between 6.2 and 7.0 than between 7.0 and 7.1. Seems like RedHat is trying to drive the cutting edge, and that has to be a difficult balancing act. Actually with all the uproar about 7.0, it looks like it is a bit more stable than I expected it to be.
You could always hold up the release until all
the bugs in the database were fixed...
:-)
What's this all about?
He's trying to divert the criticism about RH7
to a M$ V Red Hat debate? This is just silly
and actually a microsoftian diversion tactic
IMHO.
They released a beta compiler, code that wasn't
tested continuously for more than 3 weeks (the
update daemon), etc..
Basic stuff really, just to get the latest release
out so the stock proce might go up, and so we
could test it for them. I know we're a community
but basic testing first please before releasing
the bloody thing to everybody, please.
pixelbeat.
Where do you see a dhcpcd 3.x? There's a beta version of dhcp called 3.x, but the latest dhcpcd I can find is 1.3.19.
Red Hat 7 ships with dhcp 2.0, supposed to be the latest stable version.
I fail to understand why people are making so much of noice over Redhat 7.0 bugs. Does any one of you remember the first release of kernel 2.2. It was version 2.2.0 and was marked as unusable by Linus himself because of the show-stopper problem. Red Hat problems are nothing compared to that !! Remember how much effort was gone in from making 2.2 release (It took approx 2 years after 2.0 if my memory is right) and still it had problem in the first release !! This is nothing new in the open source world ..
For the RH70 kernel, there is an SRPM called kernel-2.2.16-22.src.rpm. If you install it (rpm -i kernel-2.2.16-22.src.rpm), you will see a bunch of files in /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES. One of these is the tar file containing the pristine kernel source code. All of the others are the patches that are applied before building.
Using appropriate rpm commands, you can then recreate the kernel RPM that redhat ships with the distribution.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
However, I hope you see that your original complaint was badly mis-worded:
It's like getting a Word document: you know it contains the information you want, but you don't have any convenient way of looking at it short of installing a different operating system.I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I adgree. Red Hat is ok and has done a lot to push Linux. Without Red Hat, Linux simply wouldn't be as big as it is today.
I bash Red Hat every now and then and I won't run it on my own boxes and I refuse to deal with Red Hat at work. I respect Red Hat for what they have done, but releasing code that breaks a system, that's just plain wrong.
I can understand releasing broken code in a "test", "devel", "unstable", or even "-current", but selling a $79 box with the intent of production usage which is intended for end user use that includes haft broken code is just moraly wrong. It doesn't matter what they are doing or have done which stuff doesn't work.
Maybe some of community code is buggy and half written, that doesn't mean anyone should or haft to release it for retail sells or included as the defualt. Doing so not only make the company look bad but the whole community.
Bob, I respect your company, but if you keep resleasing haft ass distros, it's going to be the end of the Linux community. Secuity and stablity should be number one above everything else at Red Hat.
MarNuke
I mean, if you do like RH, and you're pissed off cause all the bugs found, hey! just download the patches. Stop winning about the gcc, and install an earlier stabler version. Or even better, dont upgrade to 7.0, wait for a more stable release from the RH guys.
Anyone that has been around a litle while, knows that you should never install a new release for a production enviroment right after the software has been opened to the public. If you DO NOT like RH, why are you reading this anyway?, just use another distro.
Back from the days when it was cool to write these obnoxious programs on the demo machines at department stores, it should be this:
10 PRINT "BITE ME"
20 GOTO 10
With the trailing semicolon on 10 (in yours) it'll not put any newlines after each line...
Of course, these days its just an academic excercise...not much you can do on demo machines these days except write "Microsoft Sucks" in the copy of Word that was bundled with the PC.
I for one rather have red hat release this software as proprietary code than not at all. It's sad, but sometimes open source don't work.
Related links:
Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat
More on Red Hat...
Scared yet?
I use the word "infesting" because it's Ladybug infestation season where I am. Right now there's about 150 of those little boogers right above my head "doing their business" ... hope they leave me alone while I sleep.
I'm a karma newbie...be nice =PI feel such exclusiveness based on gender is sexist. I'd prefer more balanced demographics on slashdot and in my profession. Who wouldn't? I don't see how building a wall and saying "no men may pass" is going to make things more inclusive, though. If sexism is wrong, is your being sexist fundamentaly different? Truely?
Gotta disagree there. I started with Slack, went to RedHat (thanks to its supremely easy install, they definitely did get that right), and moved on to Debian. After experiencing Debian, I'm not going back to any other distro. I'll say why later here.
Eventualy I will need an anwser to something
Given. Commercial vendors are the only way to go for guaranteed support. That's the one very good thing about RedHat.
If I want to download some app, if it exists in some package format, it exists in RPM.
I'll give you even odds that it will also exist in
Let me repeat that: In the year and a half I've been using Debian, I have never broken my system due to installing a package of any sort, and I've done very regular upgrades of the software. And it stays running.
With RedHat, I've never been willing to even attempt system wide upgrades, and so have always wiped out previous installs and re-installed with a new rev of RedHat. No such fear with Debian. As I said before, I must disagree: RedHat, for me, is not the way to go. Debian is.
Now if only I could get a commercial support venture going for Debian
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
No argument there. rpmfind is a great site, and a fantastic resource.
I have to say I have never broken my system by installing an RPM in Redhat.
Neither did I when I was running it. Had some very hard times with some
Oh, and I don't recall even an update of any sort doing any weird things. Maybe I'm just lucky, but no upgrade has done weird things for me.
If RPM is so bad why don't SuSE and Mandrake use dpackage/dselect? (Debian still uses those right?)
And if Windows is so bad why do corporations use it and rely on it? That's the same sort of logic being employed in your statement. That being said, though, I should state a couple of things I didn't state before. 1) RedHat, as a corporation, has my approval. They seem to be staying true to the Open Source ideals on which they were founded. I applaud them for this, and wish them success. 2) RedHat Linux is an okay distribution of Linux. It does some things I don't like, but then again, Debian's installer is the installer from hell. The 2.2 installer is finally where Slackware was 5 years ago with the 1.2 kernels. 3) You're right, each distro has its good points and its bad points. I personally find (for me) that Debian's good points outweigh RedHat's good points. I also feel the Debian has fewer negative points than does RedHat. However, that's my opinion, and I want to restate this one piece of it:
RedHat is doing a great job, and I wish them well.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
Damn, be glad you are hearing from a real *human being* instead of getting some impersonal auto-generated form letter that talks about "performance issues". Mr. Young is taking a risk, putty his neck on the line, and inviting all sorts of personal criticism, to address Red Hat's critics directly. I think this is admirable.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Redhat marketing are definitely emulating Microsoft misleading information department. I asked the redhat booth at linuxworld frankfurt how long would it take after the 2.4 kernel is released before redhat would release a version.
The answer: We already ship the 2.4 kernel.
me: No sorry you are 2.4 ready, you do not ship the 2.4 kernel
redhat bot: Oh yes we do
me: show me on the box then
redhat bot; Its not there, you need to talk to someone else
At least Caldera stick "Technology preview" on a beta product
They're successful, sure, but their bugs always get turned into 'bugs in linux' by the press
Know why? Because they are the most known distribution. Also, because they were the first known Linux based company with a huge IPO.
Now, I'm sure you realize that, but you have to stop and listen to your argument. You 'don't mind that they're successful', but you don't like their success.
What should they do? Put their big business plans on hold to satify you? Who are you? Do you contribute to the Open Source movement as much as all the developers in RedHat?
If the answer is 'no', then you and everyone else who is complaining should SHUT UP. If you aren't doing as much as they are, you have no right to complain about what they do.
I can't remember the last time anyone said 'Slackware? That buggy piece of crap?
Well, we could rephrase that to 'Slackware? That ancient piece of crap?' The last major Slackware release was 7.1. Go download 7.1. Now wallow in misery as you update almost every stinking package that you just downloaded.
While RedHat releases buggy software now and then, it's fixed within a few weeks, just like everything else that's open source. So get over it. Things don't come to a halt when an exploit is found in Sendmail. If you're affected, fix it, but don't go complaining about the distribution being at fault.
_______________
you may quote me
>The next slashdotter who compares anything Red
:)
>Hat does to Microsoft will be punished. The
>punishment will be to find the nearest
>blackboard and write "freedom & personal
>responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical
>control bad" seven hundred times.
I'm looking forward to seeing this being written by Bart Simpson during the opening credits sometime this season.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
I'm just anonymous because I don't carry my slashdot passwords around in my wallet.
What? You mean you don't use the SAME password everywhere? Shame on you!
--------
Life is a race condition: your success or failure depends on whether you get the work done on time.
STFU. I did.
--------
Life is a race condition: your success or failure depends on whether you get the work done on time.
But we have to be careful about who makes the standards. We want the smart people making them, not the powerful people...
Just remember that the two are not mutually exclusive.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
I believe in a post by a RH employee, one of the
/why/ precisely why I was a stating this as a compiler issue (brain died)... but there are drawbacks to using this snapshot.
more compelling reasons mentioned was to make upgrade transistions easier...
I am far to lazy to find this post...
Striding to conform with a standard is a Good^Thing(tm)... but I seriously have doubts about some of the forementioned reasons.
Though, I'm not sure
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
*sigh*
Yes, it does break compiling on some programs.
You cannot test everything...
Maybe I should submit my findings to bugzilla, but
honestly, when I buy something... I just want
it to work.
I don't really care about ia64 support... I don't own one... I just want everything to work nice and run smoothly on the setup I have now. Perhaps efforts to support hardware that is not available be kept in the labs until it is needed?
*sigh*
So much effort seems to be wasted anymore...
I have patched most of my compiling issues...
I wish I didn't spend the time on it now...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Grow up and start to behave like real people. A dot-0 release is just a feature freeze dressed up for Sunday school. Wait for the bugfix release before you think about using it for real data.
By the way Bob, RH7 is excellent. It's let me finally get rid of all M$ products on my home network. I've installed it on my workstations and my notebooks, and I'll be patching them soon to get them there bugfixes. (The glibc/XMMS one annoys me...)
I still run 6.2 on the server though, coz I'm not nuts. Data safe, workstations featureful (And pretty damn stable at that) Hmmmm...
Gav
"There's no such thing as data that can't be manipulated"
Ah, but that wouldn't work, would it? Here on Slashdot our voices can be heard. And moderated up.
First: I like redhat. That could change, but right now I like them. They've been really great about subsidizing linux development, they've been choosing the right directions for development (gtk, gnome, python) and the distribution's not at all bad. (Maybe they release too often for the sysadmin in me, but that's another issue entirely. The developer in me likes the frequent releases)
Using gcc "2.96" was questionable, as was their choice of c library version. I can see how internationalization might have been important, so there wasn't a 100% good-for-everybody choice.
To me, the big question is, for example, "What are they going to do when gcc 3.0 is released"?
1) Will they pull a sun (not a terrible thing), and just expect that everyone will install 3.0 themself if they want 3.0?
2) Will they issue a patch that updates the compiler to 3.0, and hope it doesn't cause tons of problems that c++ libraries have to be recompiled? Will they then also patch all the libraries that come with redhat that were compiled from c++?
3) Will they release a "redhat 8" in a short timeframe to get back to binary compatibility with what the gcc maintainers intended?
4) Or will they try to pressure the gcc maintainers into preserving binary compatibility with "2.96"?
Basically the same questions are there for glibc too.
Exaclty correct, binarybits. I couldn't say it any better. I don't know if the coward is a programmer. As I program everyday of my life on complex database systems, I know that you make 10 trade offs a day. Some are fine, some you don't even like, but you have a deadline and when asked the customer will CHOSE to take the product 2 months earlier with bugs, than later with less. (notice I didn't say none.)
- I like pudding.
The point is that 2.96 is a very temporary thing, compatible only with itself, and soon to be replaced by something incompatible. So RedHat has decided to go with something experimental, meaning that there will have to be different binaries for the small amount of time that RedHat 7.0 is the "new thing." So now you have to have 3 versions of binaries instead of 2 (which would have been necessary for the upgrade to gcc 3.0). Why? For what benefit? It seems completely pointless to me.
Sometimes things have to change in order to move forward, and this often breaks backwards compatibility. When that happens, you just have to deal with it, but taking a temporary version that has a designed-in obsolescence is just very unwise. They should have stuck with the old version (for backward compatibility) until the new version had ironed out the way it was going to work. That way you'd have one upgrade to deal with rather than two.
That's a serious problem, and that's why it was a very bad idea for RedHat to ship with 2.96...
I hate the disto nazis who say `Debian is good', `Redhat is the hand of the devil'. It's just a bunch of geeks who want to be geekier than thou. I use RedHat, I like it, just like I use Windows sometimes and like that too.
Wait until the GNU Hurd becomes more accepted. I bet we will get Hurd users who look down upon the Linux users.
Everything has good & bad points, it doesn't mean that one thing is better than another
Actually, my comment was a sarcastic joke about his joke. Sorry I didn't include a /sarcasm tag. Hey wait a minute...are you a troll?
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
Sun's Solaris has less nagging bugs, and an NDA, while RedHat Linux has many nagging bugs, and is open to criticism, hacking, cracking, etc. How is RedHat any better than Sun in this respect?
Is not Sun's OS open to open to criticism, hacking, cracking, etc. It is just not forthcoming about problems.
~Sean
A company publishes a software product riddled with bugs.
That's where your logic failed. Someone going to a web site and adding up the amount of bugs in any software product is the most ridiculous method to evaluate a product that anyone's ever heard of, and if you were involved with softweare engineering you bet your arse you'd know this.
There are duplicates in the database. There are wishlists. There are existing bugs which we all know about - in KDE 1.2 when you apply a theme, and then click OK to get out of KControl, and waity while KDE applies the theme again. There are preferred methods of doing things. This is not just a complete Operating System, it's ready to go with a stack of end-user applications. Of course there's going to be bugs in it - it's software isn't it?
What about those of us that don't develop, yet give back to the community in other ways? Just becasue someone doesn't know a language [beyond shell and a little pascal] doesn't mean that the hours they spend every week getting involved in LUG committees, organizing events, advocating Linux, and distributing Open Source software?
Red Hat's bugs are bugs in Linux. There's more to Linux than the kernel. And yes, bugs in KDE and GNOME and Linuxconf are bugs in Linux. Red Hat create and ship exclusively open source software that becomes part of their distribution. And their distribution is a Linux Operating System. Apples for apples, if there's a bug in say, the Windows Internet Connection wizard, it would be as much of an OS bug as if there was a bug in Red Hat PPP Dialler.
Slackware? That buggy piece of crap? Forget it, I'm going to Red Hat.
> PLEASE FIX PING
Red Hat's role in life isn't to troll Slashdot and fix your queries. But they're willing to fix anything you post to bugzilla. So do it, and stop whining.
This isn't meant to be taken as flamebait. Just some constructive criticism.
How do you figure that?
You cut up his post, attack his intellect, accuse him of karma whoring, and then tell him he's not part of a community.
Old truckers never die, they just get a new peterbilt
Red Hat puts out a product, so does Mandrake, so does Slackware. If you think that Red Hat's is a stinkpile of doo-doo don't use it. Try Debian, try Slackware. That is the whole point here. They are doing everything they can to fix the problem. Loyal Red Hat users will stick behind them and many will help to solve the problems.
At least we have a choice in OS's
In general, microsoft OS's get better, but slower.
.1, .2). Performance tends to stay the same if not better.
Red Hat, on the other hand, follows a sawtooth pattern: it sucks, gets better, decent (.0,
Which is preferred?
It used to be that RH was positioning itself as a server OS. With this latest release, will Oracle bother to do a special RH7 release? What about the other commercial vendors?
Red Hat needs to work on putting a solid product out EVERY SINGLE TIME they release.
Their stock is hovering in the low teens and is battling my CMGI stock to see how fast investors can dump it... You would think they'd be trying NOT to generate bad press...
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
It's good to see Bob taking this stance in response to the debacle. The important part is when he admits that they made a mistake. Mistakes do happen in life, but it's the way you respond to and resolve your mistakes that makes the big difference. If RedHat learned a lesson from 7.0, then it is all well and good. Let's just keep our eye peeled to see if they screw up again.
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Ah, but you forget MS added WSH in 4.1 (Win98)
'biteme.vbs
Do
MsgBox "BITE ME", vbInformation, "BITE ME"
Loop
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
And the fact that he was perfectly content to repeat the poorly researched Computerworld article makes him look as dumb as Computerworld to Sun and Sun folk.
Isn't Bob's PR great. I for one believe him. The curious thing is that he is speaking to a community for which RH 7.0 was never intended.
RH 7.0 was intended for the guy/gal standing in 'THE BIG ELECTRONICS EVERYTHING SUPERSTORE' looking for Linux Distro's that will restore their coolness factor. What do they see? Mandrake 7, SUSE 7, and Redhat 6.2. What are they gonna buy? Redhat has a high confidence level in their branding... don't they? Well maybe not, better bump that 6 to a 7 if only to hedge their bets.
Don't get me wrong the guy/gal mentioned above are not to be dismissed. They are the people laying down the cash that RH in part, feeds back to some the more important development folk in our community. And when the guy/gal show up on IRC buffuddled and bemused we will, if we are truly passionate about this religion called 'Linux/Open Source', point them to the updates and to Bob's letter.
mitd -- old fart coder, grey appears to be my favourite colour.
mitd -- Made in the Dark
"One good thing about spam... You don't gotta answer it"
A company publishes a software product riddled with bugs. Customers complain. The company's response is, "Well, look how much worse the other guy is! At least we let you see the source code!"
What compelling defense of RedHat 7.0 am I missing here?
Well, I think the defense of RedHat 7.0 is that not only do you get to see what the bugs are and see the source code, you (and every other user out there) can know exctly what holes and bugs to expect. Wouldn't you like to know what causes that BSOD on your windows box? How about knowing what holes have been found in your WinNT server? On top of all this, if there's a bug that you see in their list that you're REALLY uncomfortable with, you can change the code that is in front of you (it's really not just to look at you know), and fix it. If you don't know how, you can poke around on the internet and find someone else who's working on that bug.
Besides, much of the code in 7.0 is development level code, so there are bound to be some bugs. The idea with releasing it was to give people functionality if they want it. It not like you have to install every toy on the CD or FTP site.
Addlepated - punk & metal
For what it's worth:
:)
Ping is supposed to work like that. Almost all network tools in the unix world (not just linux) will attempt to give a name first (traceroute, route, arp, etc. etc. etc.). It's a feature
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
I've been using linux since about '94 as well, and here's what the argument boils down to: They're shipping 2 compilers because their userland compiler doesn't work. It's a development release. I don't understand what possible benefit they derived from "gcc 2.96" that outweighs the simplicity of having one compiler for everything. Business practices schmisiness practices, this compiler decision makes _my_ life as a sysadmin considerably more complicated. How many installations are now going to have to roll 6.x AND 7.x rpms because they can't replace their existing servers? At least one (mine).
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
What you are saying is true for low optimization levels (-O0 and -O1). Those of us who use Linux for scientific calculations need optimizations to work reliably (or it takes, say, six weeks instead of two weeks for us to get an answer!). In gcc "2.96" optimization levels beyond -O1 (at least for the C++ front end) can be counted on to produce internal compiler errors or incorrect object code.
-------------------------Quote------------
The inclusion of heavily patched, alpha, non-standard components in RH7
was, in my humble opinion, a tragic mistake. Hard-core linux users have been turning away
fom RH for years because in an effort to make your products easier to use, you have strayed
far from the path that is Linux's purpose... stability and accessability.
-------------------------------------------
I consider myself a "hard-core" linux user. I love bleeding-edge stuff. I would rather have
the newset, maybe not greatest release, than on
older more stable version... It's still more
stable than my alternatives.
If you want stable, choose a different distro,
that's not my choice, as I'm not running high-availabilty servers... just a desktop and
a router.
/* CDM */
the paperclip cannot be far behind
I don't feel that all of the Linux distributions should follow the standards of the most popular. I feel the reason for having different distributions is because people have different needs for Linux. Many people like Redhat because it is easy to use, but other like debian because it is easier for experts to configure it to their liking.
And why should netscape give in to IE's standards. If anything netscape/mozilla is doing to right thing by implementing the standards set by W3C and other standards groups.
It should not be up to the most powerful to declare how things should be done for everyone. Just think...do you want microsoft to start telling the Linux community how to right Linux correctly to meet MS standards?
FoonDog
Please moderate this up I wrongfully moderated it down on accident. At least put it at +2 where it was when I mistakenly marked it down. Thanks
Hey, Bob, it's the marketing. Not the wonderful kernel/community support, not the refreshing open source policies and scads of GPL'd code. Just the marketing.
You'll never hear MS say "Computers don't necessarily mean Microsoft Windows."
And I've never heard Redhat say "Linux doesn't necessarily mean Red Hat."
There are companies out there who target products specifically for Redhat, and there are reviewers who use only Redhat for their tests/reviews, and so forth.
This does very, very little for the notion of choice which you so correctly trumpet.
In fact, it's one more bit of misinformation one must correct whenever talking to the masses: there is more than one form of Linux.
Thus, the marketing is causing two problems. First, technical and compatibility problems due to supporting and testing under only Redhat. Second, trouble preaching to the masses who think that Linux sucks because they ran into a Redhat-only bug and gave up.
So you're making Slashdotters' (and others') lives more difficult, and you wonder that there's some resentment?
Wake up and smell the (not necessarily Columbian) coffee...
Actually a year or so ago I did say "hmm..my Slackware box is a major pain in the ass to administer...now what the hell program does this damn 3MB file belong to?" Hearing the things that I did about RPM, I said what the hell, anything has got to be better..I haven't switched back since.
(an ex-slackware user)
"(who can and frequently restrict access to information you does need)"
uhhhh, misplaced cursor problem? i think he meant
(who can and frequently does restrict access to information you need)
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
Mr. Young here seems to be painting a rather ridiculous picture in which the world is divided into two segments: The uber-proprietary realm of Microsoft et al, and Red Hat. Period. What about Debian? Slackware? NetBSD? OpenBSD? FreeBSD? Etc. etc. etc.?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Nope, they appear the same, whether I use 'ls', 'dir', or Explorer. And I still have no checkbox. Then again, this is NT4, Win98 may be different, I dunno, I don't have it.
--
Turn on, log in, burn out...
C:\WINNT\Profiles\christk\Desktop>ls
Eudora Pro.lnk docs on 'D'.lnk latin.txt
bad_ani.txt k1639386.txt mrobbins.txt
C:\WINNT\Profiles\wilsonkl\Desktop>
I see both lowercase and mixed case. No active desktop here and I don't even have that checkbox you mention. Maybe that's a Win98 thing.
And yes, that was 'ls', not 'dir' :)
--
Turn on, log in, burn out...
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All worl^Hk and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work ad no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play M^Hmakes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jock a dull boy.
Mr. Bob Young, Yes...It's good to keep problems in the open and converse about them. But two points: (1) If your customers are saying they don't like something, you can't just say "you'd be wrong". Do you make the distrobution for your customers or for yourself? There are certainly a lot of common sense issues that Red Hat simply refuses to see the way their customers do (and I don't think I have to document them here--look for yourself ALL OVER THE WEB). (2) When you Final Release a product, there is at least a basic amount of testing we should expect has been done. It is wrong to pass that off by claiming the Open Source method is too know about and work on these bugs together. If you'd simply just run the distro for a minimum of 3 weeks, then you'd have known. This is a no brainer and it's so obvious... And the other quality issues are poor in comparison with other distrobutions. We're talking about blatant negligence. You can't just give excuses. When a product is Final Released it doesn't have to be perfect, but there has to be some basic level of assurances. You've clearly gone below them with 7.0 and we certainly will not upgrade our servers from 6.2 until your next release--if you've learned something. --Matthew
You don't add features and stability at the same time: + features = - stability.
I will wager that the 2.4.0 kernel will be less stable that 2.2.16. More secure, more feature-full, yes, but not more stable. When it gets to 2.4.16 it will be another matter.
My understanding of point-oh releases in the commercial software world is that a sufficiently large number of additional features are included to justify incrementing the major release number. I understand patch levels and minor release numbers to treat with matters of compatibility, stability and security. But this argument is moot. This is not commercial software. It may be for Bob, but its not for me and I can only assume you are not foolish enough to be paying for the *product* Bob Young and Co are peddling. If you are, let me know and I'll burn you an ISO. I'll even pay postage.
Your argument only applies if your releasing some kind of locked-out, bolted-down, black-box software. This is open-source and the standards are different. I am asking why anyone would upgrade their system across the board based on RH or anyone else's release schedule.
I'm an apt-getter, but there must be comparable utilities for RH. Why anyone would just re-up system-wide is beyond me.
illegitimii non ingravare
I want to know what all these Linux users are doing upgrading with RH point-oh releases, or any other RH-official releases. I thought the point was not to be beholden to someone elses idea of a release schedule. Upgrade the packages you want when you want. The distro is just a foundation. After a few months everyone is rolling their own, right. Right. And if your a sys-admin, you know you should be waiting for point-two, don't you?
illegitimii non ingravare
The most succinct and lucid comment to come out of Corporate America this year.
Hell, Bill Gates' entire book did not contain a single paragraph that was as honest and clear as Bob's short letter.
Now class, go write the phrase 'Bill's vaunted "high bandwidth" is really a 300 baud modem.' on the chalkboard 700 times!
PS: Thanks for the feedback Bob!
Moderators need an additional choice: "Karma Whore" for people who cut-and-paste articles as their comments!
Am rather behind RedHat.. It's not my personal preference for Unix, but I do appreciate their dedication in keeping their relationship with their customers as open as possible.
Kudos to Mr. Young for such a mature response, relatively unadulterated by Marketing-speak.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
This is a great letter IMHO, he has stated what my english and vocabulary could not achieve, which is why i didnt say what he said earlier...
can i take 1/32 of the credit for thinking alike?
There is no can/cannot, there is only DO/DONOT...
-------------------- Success is a Journey, NOT a Destination....
I really don't understand how people can criticize Red Hat as becoming like Microsoft. Red Hat may have made some mistakes in their 7.0 release, but I challenge anyone to find a new release that has no issues. At least Red Hat is willing to admit it, and, more importantly, immediately move to fix the problem. Now on to my real point... In order for Linux usage to grow, Red Hat, and companies like it, need to grow into larger corporate entities. No, I'm not saying distros like Debian shouldn't exist. Competition between distros is good. However, the corporate world will not embrace Linux until there is enough "official" support for it. Sure, there are millions of places to find help on the internet, and people like us can find them quite easily, but try to explain that to your boss when you're trying to convince him to let you put Linux on that new server. I am constantly trying to get my boss to at least _try_ using Linux, but the answer is always the same: not a chance in hell until there is better support. So basically, I really love seeing Red Hat grow, because it means that someday soon, I might actually be able to use Linux at work.
that redhat has been embroiled in flames for their use of software - remember the "debacle" that was glibc? I guess they made the right choice then. i dunno about now, since it seems that the steering committee isn't too happy with their use of software not intended for production; i'm merely stating that this isn't the first time RH has stirred things up a bit...
Considering one in ten probably got installed, that's 50 installations. Big whoop.
Compare that to the scale of a Microsoft beta with the huge promotions they run. THAT was my point.
Wasn't new gcc part of redhat 7 beta
which was on their ftp for a while?
My last company paid for an ms "mvp" support guy who came in every week and tried to sell us all on the full ms product line. When he found out I was using open source xml parsers he told me at ms they are not supposed to look at open source because of the "restrictive licenses".
Don't get me wrong.. I started with Redhat, and there are certainly things I like about Redhat, but too often it seems that the "gee-whiz" gizmos and ideas are getting in the way of stability and functionality.
Unlike Sun and MS, Redhat is on the ball, does release fixes, and generally stays on top of things, but I wouldn't mind if they just held off releasing versions with beta software and so many bugs. Have more Betas! Get more of us linux freaks out here to test your releases, take a bit more time, hire more testers. What you have now isn't working well enough.
Until then.. I've decided to move to debian myself.. tired of things breaking just because I upgrade my version of redhat. Otherwise, I'll still be passing it onto friends who are just getting started with linux, I figure it is still one of the easier dists to use.
It seems that the majority of complaints with RedHat 7 are to do with the compiler. In all honesty, these complaints are unjustified. If your Linux knowledge is at such a level that you are compiling programs rather than using RPM's, and can actually differentiate between compilers, then build your own! That is the beauty of OpenSource.
When I first started using Linux it took some 3 months until I was actually compiling programs from their source with confidence. However, I am not every other Linux user. Chances are that a lot of the new converts, have converted because they want a change from more mainstream OS's. These people will probably never compile a program in their life, and probably don't even know what GCC is. They'll be content using RPM's for all their Linux life, and though they may never enjoy the satisfaction that comes from compiling a program from its source, they will know the joy of using an open, and reliable OS that does what it's supposed to do, when it's supposed to do it.
But then again I guess you can only read so many comments comparing Bill Gates to the antichrist and then the next comment comparing you to Bill gates before it starts to hurt your feelings. I am glad I wasn't one of those commentors, but at the same time I can easily see people making comparisons. We compare everything for sake of discussion, not just because we think they are similar but sometimes to show their differences. At least he kept this letter in a light tone and didn't write a cease and desist:)
I am 31337 or something.
The punishment will be to find the nearest blackboard and write "freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad" seven hundred times
OK I'm wrong , punish me .
My Punishment
-- Hasbullah bin Pit (sebol)
Okay, wow, where in Nader's platform do you see ANY libertarian ideas? Libertarianism is about cutting down goverment, while Nader has, from time of birth, been responsible for the creation of more government agencies than most politicians. Any resemblance in policies whatsoever between Nader and Browne is pure coincidence, and the two support their policies for totally different reasons, Browne because it will help the cause of freedom, and Nader because it will help the cause of unions.
Sorry to dive into that off-topic correction, but as a Libertarian there is no way I could let that stand.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Seriously. Every sentence should say something about how Redhat relates to Microsoft. As all marketers will tell you, there is nothing such as bad press -- if you get enough people to associate Redhat with Microsoft, then maybe some of Microsoft's mindshare will rub off.
This may true if the comparisons were about the good things that Microsoft is doing/has done. (There are a few...) As I recall the comparisons were regarding the bad things that M$ is doing/has done.
I do agree with Bob that those are not valid comparisons.
Kent
Bob Young diverts the argument by focusing on "big picture" type differences, the kinds of criticisms of the Microsoft vs. Everybody environment that were tired two years ago. This isn't about closed source vs. open source, trendy Slashdot-bashing "news" about Computerworld reporting the Sun memory NDA's a full week after it appeared on Slashdot, or whether gcc 2.96 criticism is wrong (whatever "wrong criticism" is). The computing industry demands that certain compromises be made by companies who want to be major players; those who might make the hated comparison are inevitably seeing those compromises being made.
;-) are three of the most recent similarities. Faulting people for making observations is bad form, and to treat them as a vote of no confidence is a scary defensive move that maybe points to a lack of self-awareness in the corporate decisions RH is making.
My sense is that the problem is stated by Bob himself when he regales us with historical tales of billg vs. Homebrew computing club without considering whether RH is creating (or duplicating) the same problems Microsoft created for itself by RedHat's being motivated by a similar resentful reaction toward M$ as was presumably aimed at the Homebrewers. Specifically, there are trend with RH that closely mirrors the Redmonster, whether you see it or not. Alan Cox invoking the logic of the enemy in defending the gcc 2.96 decision as a question of "innovation," the nondisclosure pacts regarding the gcc thing, and the 3-week crash being from a utility to simplify administration (perhaps everything we do will be easier and more fun
Bob seems to think that the comparison implies that RH is seen to be trying to duplicate all of M$, which is silly. There's already one Microsoft, the most anybody else can do is to appropriate pieces of it when they want to. Do you know which pieces you're incorporating?
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Dear Redhat; You can't be everything to everybody and even if you could there are still people that would say you are doing it wrong. Many people who used Linux (though they would not admit to it) started using it not because it was superior software but rather because it was away from the main stream computer users thus because Redhat is becoming mainstream Redhat is going to get all the criticism Microsoft used to get. It's a case of the "I'm a leeter geek then you" Fix the problems in your software, follow your own line of goals and be happy that you've gained the acceptance that people now hate you.
What about slackware? You have to configure X and your sound card to get them to work, there is no "sound wizard".
The user has to learn something in order to use it, this definately is not the kind of user that comes from a Microsoft background.
Lars -
So i guess all that is necessary to get Bob's atention is to compare Red Hat to Micro$oft. I would be upset if someone compared the place i work in to Micro$oft. I think it isn't so much that though. I think what really scared him was that if Red Hat is like Micro$oft then he would either be Steve Balmer,or even worse Bill Gates.
However, counting bugs is like counting money in today's world and like it or not, we are always being judged by illogical attributes. The fact that there are bugs in the products may indicate a sign of trouble. People or investers who cannot possibly understand the workings of the companies on which they invested hundreds of stocks in, like these indicators to control their risks. For that same reason, the media likes to publish these numbers because some people actually care about the number of bugs.
We see companies flashing or hiding their financial results for the same reason. Bob was hoping that the slashdotters who are considered insiders in linux would not be influenced by the media and stop posting bad comments that may affect his company image.
Like numbers carry any meaning in Linux distros... :) Slackware jumped from what -- 4 to 7? When you buy/get a distribution you don't look at numbers, but at what's in it, don't you? RedHat could've put "RedHat 33.3" as their release number, and that would've meant squat -- if you use Linux in serious environments, you don't look at distro numbers.
I got RH7 for it's GNOME 1.2 and XFree 4.0.1 and I'm pleased with it so far. Of course, some stuff doesn't compile, but that's not such a big deal on a workstation -- most stuff has RPMs that work.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Do you really feel that a kernel is usable as reference code for a compiler? An operating system kernel must be one of the "messiest" things to actually write in a not-so-low level language as what gcc compiles.
So, in other words, you expect a problem in a Red Hat .0 release to be fixed by a .0 release of the compiler?
With regards to xinetd, I have long ago replaced the original inetd with xinetd on my machines. Enhanced security features (like binding to specific interfaces) and easier configuration are two of the reasons.
Furthermore, I do feel that every once in a while you should throw away something and write it from scratch. Experience shows that this cleans up the design and makes the program better.
In my view, increasing the major version number is a very clear signal indeed. How much stronger a signal do you want?
What compelling defense of RedHat 7.0 am I missing here?
Bob was not trying to defend the bugginess of 7.0 or anything like that. His letter was mostly about people comparing Redhat to MS. I agree with him, they are nothing like that Microsoft. Redhat is better, no proprietary standards, everything is open. Above that, I get the feeling that Redhat is always at least trying to do the right thing.
garc
Most people running Debian are running unstable(woody). New packages/upgrades to old packages are added daily - that is rather up-to-date if you ask me.
First of all it's not 7.0, but just redhat 7.
Second, I run a small distro, about one user... Shall I inform you of my plans?
Should redhat talk to all 10,000+ developers that worked on the code they ship, or just you.
I actually like that rh7 has a later version of your code, and I don't think I will be bugging the gcc mailing lists for any problem I have due to it not being "released".
I cannot respect the wishes of the authors free software that I use if their wish is that I don't use it. I mean for that much hassle I would just pay for the software.
This is something else, How many CEO (beside the guy from FORD... :) ) would take the time to address the community like this?
Does Bill Gates read Slashdot? I would doubt it.
If you don't like gcc 2.96 as your default compiler, install another one off the CD!!! It's not difficult!
Thanks again Bob.
Jonathan Cowherd
This is my world and I am...
If RedHat had shipped all of their admin tools compiled against Inti, I might be able to understand your frustration. But as it currently stands, Inti is just a development library for interested people to try out. Sure, it's pretty far from complete, but since you have to actually do some research (i.e. reading API docs, at the very least) before using it, RedHat can be fairly sure that anyone trying to use it will be aware that it's incomplete. Actually, I'm puzzled as to how you managed to miss it! They're just trying to generate interest in their new class library. It's how Free Software development works. Generate some interest, get more testers and coders. There's no need to flame them for practicing their own art.
Slashdot has been incredibly irresponsible in posting many misleading and incorrect redhat stories lately, and it's a good sign that the site isn't in good shape anymore.
Hey Redhat people: How about a site listing some of the things redhat has done for the linux community? I know redhat has been involved with bringing a lot of third-pary companies more into the linux world, but the response on slashdot is always "Why Redhat? My mom says distro X is better" without realizing the work that is involved, and it's not a random event.
________
Somebody dust off the steel cage... :)
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
So will I. Thus follows the irrelevance of raw bug counts.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Egad! I've been de-geeked!
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I'm glad we've finally gotten a clear-headed view of this situation, and I'm particularly glad it's from the head of Red Hat itself. Have people become so brain-washed by the Microsoft way of doing things that they think Red Hat is inevitably going to control our lives? This is Open-Source software. So you get a copy of Red Hat 7: Don't like it? Don't use it. The software doesn't cost you anything! If you spend any money, all you're getting is the support from Red Hat, and if you don't want to use the software they choose to support, get your support elsewhere. The whole point of having a public license is freedom. Red Hat is using their access to the code to construct their own environment; it is no more than what anyone who has built their own Linux system from source has done. Complain about Red Hat's bugs, complain about the choices they made, but for heaven's sake don't complain about their freedom to use publicly-licensed software for whatever purpose they wish.
Given this, let's compare:
Microsoft asserts its market share by bundling products that users have no (easy) way to remove, and by using proprietary technology to give their own products an edge. (hidden APIs, for example)
RedHat asserts its market share by bundling products that users have no (easy) way to remove (much easier than Microsoft, but see the first paragraph above), and by using complicated open-source technology to give their own distribution an edge. (C++ binaries that are not compiled with GCC 2.96 won't link against the C++ library supplied with RedHat due to C++ name mangling; the user must either get a statically linked version (which isn't usually provided), compile from source (which they don't know how), or stick with RedHat's products).
There's a big difference between "it can be done" and "it will be done"; it's called barrier to entry.
Frankly, nobody needs to install RedHat 7.0 to know about the quality of this release. Starting with the inclusion of GNU gcc and GNU libc snapshots, more and more packages for newbies, and the need for 2 CDs, I'm not going to try it. Starting from 7.0 you decided to make it a distribution for newbies, only. Newbies aren't going to find all your bugs, are they? Newbies aren't going to maintain a server or develop applications with test releases. Newbies just like to say I have the latest version. I just thank you for the past, and really hope you're not using your own companies and employees as an advantage. RedHat isn't Microsoft, but the future may change it.
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
Except for the bug in the install, (do not try to mount FAT32 drives in the install program) I have found RH 7.0 pretty stable. I had RH 6.2 running on my system and had earlier tried to install Mandrake 7.1 on my system, but Mandrake 7.1 gave me so many problems, I went back to RedHat. (And neither of them have as many problems as Win 2K. Remember the 65,000 known bugs when it was released.)
And that difference is big enough to make the comparison completely invalid. RedHat 7.0 was available for free download for everyone who wanted to try it for for a couple of $$ from cheap bytes. This means you can effectively try before you buy. Try that with windoze and windoze software. If you like redhat then you can buy their support package if not then try something else nothing lost apart from a little time. I also wouldnt mind betting a lot of the complainers are people using cheap copies anyway and as such havent paid RedHat a penny. I recently installed RH7 on two machines for my work, although I swore about a few of the bugs over the last couple of days I am not going to go mental over them as some people are. This is Linux people, this is choice, if there is the wrong version of GCC then compile your own, download the 6.2 rpms. Help fix the problem if you that way enclined. But unless you paid real cash shut up!
Same here. That had to be one of the most ignorant posts I've read in a long, long time. So much for freedom of speech on /., now that the thought police is here.
So if you want to criticise us for shipping gcc 2.96, you have every right to do so - you'd be wrong, but it is at least a legitimate debate and I'd respect your opinion.
Bob I know you have a better sense of humor than most execs so I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on this. But if it wasn't meant as humor, it sure comes off as awfully arrogant. Repeat after me: "The customer is always right." This is something your competitors have forgotten.
Since you're a local, you ought to come out to a TriLUG meeting sometime and meet your customers. It's a pretty good cross section of sysadmins, managers, casual users, engineers, teachers, students, etc. The relationship with Red Hat and TriLUG could probably use some help right about now anyway.
Screw Micro$oft.
System Requirements:
RedHat 6.2, SuSE 6.4, Mandrake 7.1
What do you mean Slackware isn't supported by your RPMs?
Oh - not supported... I see...
Why did I move to Linux again?
...is falling on our heads! I think /. has reached a new level with the responses to this article. Well thought-out and considerate, a real pleasure to read something like that again! Kudos!
Yes.
How about labeling your releases as follows:
.2 releases that wish to upgrade. Software should be evaluated by IT departments before implementing in Mission Critical Applications.
:-)
x.0-CER (Cutting Edge Release) This is a Major Release that has been beta tested, but may contain known bugs and bugs not found in beta testing. This release is recomended for Advanced users only. Not for use in Mission Critical Applications or for New Linux Adopters.
x.1-MIR (Mid-term Improved Release) Contains improvements, updates and bug fixes found after public release of x.0. Recomended for users of previous.1 or
x.2-SIR (Stable Improved Release) This software has been thoroughly tested and debugged, it includes minor bug fixex and improvments for increased usability and stability. This software is recomended for Mission Critical Applications and New Linux Adopters.
These statements should appear prominently on the front and back of shrinkwrapped packages. Perhaps an explaination of all three could appear on the back so that those looking for Mission Critical or New Adopter releases would know which release to look for. It wouldn't hurt other distributors to adopt a similar system. Just my $0.02 worth
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
RedHat have released a product, which has bugs in. We can read / download the fixes to the product, or, if individuals have sufficient skill, help fix the problems.
A lot of work has gone into this new release, work that the rest of the community doesn't now have to do, and to me this seems like moaning because we have to put in that little effort, or show a little patients.
------------------------------ Only a fool has no doubts.
This has just been the argument against Open Source. People accuse Microsoft of treating its users as Beta testers by releasing half baked solutions. But here RH is treating its users as the programmers. "There's a problem Oh but u have the source Why not write a patch". At leat Microsoft bothers to hire programmers if not BVeta testers but it seems RH doesnt hire anybody except spokespeople to write Open (Source) letters to Slashdot. This is precisely the kind of attitude which is pulling back Linux. Bcoz if u build an OS only for the Hackers that is all u gonna get and believe there are a lot more users than hackers out there
**Life is too short to be serious**
correct.. think about it like this, there are two types of successful ad campaigns--those that inspire and those that are absolutely horrible. the purpose of ads is less to sell you a product and more to make you remember a name. if you doubt me, look at Mentos. those ads are _so_ bad, but the campaign is successful enough to still be alive after half a dozen years.
rh sucks. linux rules.
Down with GNU. Long live the ENL.
We have the freedom and responsibility to choose the best and highest quality products. Unfortunately RedHat in this instance has not demonstrated a quality product. Thus I think all of us should critically evaluate other linux distros and other great Free OSes (The BSD family) to see which one will suit our needs better than RedHat. I do not believe blind acceptance because of market position in the way to go...
p.s. we should beowulf Bob Young. Haha
Down with GNU. Long live the ENL.
I watched the entire debate, and that G.W. Bush quote was taken way out of context. He was simply making a statement about our social situation. He was not implying that the Internet turns childrens' hearts dark, but that something in our culture, somewhere, whatever it might be, turned some kids' hearts dark and caused them to kill.
Also, I would like to comment on the irrational knee-jerk defense of violent video games displayed by all too many slashdot readers, game lovers, and the techies/geeks. The writer of the article appears to believe that violent games make children "calm and peaceful". I don't think that any sane person could honestly believe this, and I'm not saying the author is insane. Instead, the author is most likely protecting his own copy of Doom 3 or other future games. Seeing violence desensitizes children to violence. I know that's what all the politicians and talking-head types day, but it's true. As an adult, I have experienced this "desensitizing" myself. Try it some time. Don't watch or play anything violent for an extended period of time, and then go watch/play something violent. At first it's abhorrent, but it gets a little less shocking each time you watch/play. Now magnify that because you are a young child, and now violence doesn't bother you or trouble you the way it used to. Desensitization.
As a real, live female who has never hidden this fact from /. posters, I have to say amen to that. It is indeed bad that there isn't much gender balance here...I suspect it's because of the pissing contests and testosterone damaged trolling that goes on here.
If it wasn't for the fact that Slashcode is so fsckn opaque, I might have been able to suggest an alternative. If there are any grrl geeks within the sound of this post who want to volunteer to help me untangle my install of Slashcode 1.0.7 on Slashhosting.com, please get through my spamblock (it's easy, just change a couple of spelled-out punctuation marks) and email me right away. Because if I don't get the damn thing working soon, I'm going to cut my losses and cancel my account.
Until and unless I can get my slashsite for grrl geeks up and running, I suggest more, not less grrl geek participation in /. And even if and when the site gets running I suggest continuing to participate here.
And for Goddess' sake, don't fsckn hide your gender! Show it proudly. Yes, there are grrl geeks out there. We exist. We stand proudly and say "I am."
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Okay ... while a nice reply to comparisons between Red Hat and Microsoft, this letter fails to address any of the real issues at hand ...
...
... but raises many SERIOUS questions over quality control with this product. I find it incredible that something such as this could slip through QA and make it out into production ! Does RH actually run these releases up on their own servers first before pumping it out to the community? Or is the open source community the guinea pigs for ongoing RH production? For which I might add RH is profiteering ... are we becoming merely pawns for the profit of corporates?
...
The question of the shipping of GCC 2.96 is obviously vexed. One other poster on this thread, questioned what the upside of the shipping of GCC 2.96 would be? Unless that can be honestly answered, in the face of the disapproval of the GCC steering committee, then Red Hat may just have to admit that they were wrong in doign so
Furthermore, the more concerning issue (to my mind) about the automatic update daemon and system stability at the 3 week mark. This was ignored completely in this reply
Then again, maybe I am overly critical and paranoid
Rob
Bob...you rule!!
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
Experence #1: installed on secondary machine, with USB mouse (stupid windows users complaining that they wouldn't work, bs) Installed fine, works great.
Experence #2: In my main computer, it has a semi-bad cdrom, and impressed by #1, I decided to try it. It failed. Oh well, reboot wait until I find a SCSI cdrom. On reboot I found out that it messed with my 45GB drive's partion table. (which contains everything except /, /boot and some swap). I had a presention on something at the next LUG meeting. I could not get it to restore the table, until after the presentaion (got all my data back). It was only rh 7 that could have done it. I use red hat, although if they had debian disks at LUG meeting... <P>
I had a bad experence. Oh, well. I will continue using red hat, because I happen to like it. I also downloaded and use (prior to this) kde1.9x, 2.4.0-testx and xf4.0xx. I don't like the 2.96 gcc, or the fact that rpm 4 won't install with rpm 3 from the rh7 cd (couldn't you have put rpm rpm packages on?). I think that if people want to be bleeding edge (there is a reason it is called bleeding) then there should be a seperate directory (which there is) and things like gcc 2.96 should have been in there. I will still use red hat because I first used red hat. I think that is why I like it best, and it had what I thought I needed or wanted, not to mention that when I had some problem with kde compiling bero responded right away, but it took an alpha kernel hacker to solve<BR><BR>
<P>How about "apt-get install rpm"?
This is a very valid point. First of all, RH7 is comprised of just about all free software, while Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional is all proprietary. RH7 may have 1000 bugs...but at the same time Microsoft has....wait a minute, we don't know that. Microsoft has never told us a single bug before they create a patch, and the .0000000000005394 bugs that do get patched are called "vulnerabilities," just to add a detail. Microsoft has never admitted a dangerous bug in it's life without providing a bullfeces excuse. Microsh1t has also never had as many features as any Linux Distro.
<RANT>
Let's say that Red Hat Linux 7 has a feature/bug ratio of 20:1. Microsoft's feature/bug ratio, with this data, must be 1 feature per 20 bugs. Trust me, if Microsoft had no bugs...why would we have these 3l337 h4><0Rz running around?
You also complain about RH7 System Update? Hey, it works for the first three weeks without a fix, but Windoze Update works for the 1st week only, without an Active>< error, and there sure as hell is no fix for that. That's my mileage anyway (Windows 98 Upgrade on my Grandpa's computer), I don't know about you. Now how else will you update your computer when you can't tolerate ActiveAss errors and JScript exceptions.
And then lets see....does Windoze come with superior terminal emus and consoles? No. But does Windows come with Skr1pt K1ddi3 holes in it's telnet? Oh yes, about 20 holes in telnet alone.
And RH7 has lots of features...features up the wazoo! But Windows has virtually no features compared to Red Hat, or even any other distro or BSD...TeX for Win? I haven't found that in C:\Program Files!
Oh well....I'll go home tonite and enjoy the freshness of Mandrake.
</RANT>
Definitions:
XML: Leading the way to make the web a ebiz thing
It's a known fact that good softwares without good marketing won't sell. However, I also believe good marketing without good softwares can just as well backfire (e.g. some north-western company), although that may bring good financial return. I mean backfire from those who are really into technologies, and not hype.
I've been using Slackware for a few years, and switched to RH since 5.1. Have also tried Debian and Suse in the meantime. But I decided to stick with RH. So far so good.
So I think RH should concentrate on making good softwares rather than fencing off the criticism.
Whatever you do, there will also be criticism. As long as you are not screwing up your customers/partners by some not-so-nice business tactics and by double-charging, and as long as you can stand up straight, why bother?
I now feel compelled to inform you that GPL licensed software, such as Red Hat Linux, is available for free download. Sorry that I couldn't let you know until after you make such a weak argument.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Open letter to Bob: Dear Bob, Please describe what computer configuration you use on a daily basis as chairman of the board of RH and (assuming its not windows) what software you have installed to to read mail, surf, view/edit word docs (internally and externally), Word processing in general, presentations, spreadsheets. What setup does your secretary use? What do your children use assuming you have kids? What does your wife use?
I don't quite understand why everyone bashes RPM.
Most of the people who complain about RPM are those who don't understand issues such as dependencies. Could you please explain why dpackage or N_Package_Manager is better than RPM?
Why do I keep typing pythong?
I'll give you even odds that it will also exist in .deb format. Debian has a collection of packages like
you would not believe. Well over 90% of the time, I go to install a package, and find it ready to five
minutes later (by typing in 'apt-get install package). Of the remaining times, I can still, more often
than not, go to the next rev of Debian (unstable), find the package, and install it, without breaking my
system. Ever.
.x release did some wierd things, but that's expected whenever upgrading just about any OS. Perhaps Debian is an exception, but that doesn't make Redhat less than average in that department.
www.rpmfind.net has got to be the best resource for finding packages for any RPM based distro. Occasionally when I try to install an RPM and I get that pesky "missing libObscureAsHellLibrary.so", I can go there and search the available RPMs by filename. Very nice.
I have to say I have never broken my system by installing an RPM in Redhat. I imaging if someone has they were trying to install something with a --force or --nodeps switch, which means you better know what you're doing in the first place.
Let me repeat that: In the year and a half I've been using Debian, I have never broken my system due to installing a package of any sort, and I've done very regular upgrades of the software. And it stays running.
I can't remember ever breaking a Redhat system by simply upgrading packages. I admit that upgrading to a
With RedHat, I've never been willing to even attempt system wide upgrades, and so have always wiped out previous installs and re-installed with a new rev of RedHat. No such fear with Debian. As I said before, I must disagree: RedHat, for me, is not the way to go. Debian is.
The nice thing about Debian is they are way more conservative with their OS revisions. The nice thing about Redhat is they have more up-to-date packages, b/c they release more often than Debian. With a more rapid release schedule, you can expect to have more problems than a distro with a not-so-rapid release schedule.
I use Redhat 6.2 at work for users Linux workstations and on servers, and I have to say that it's a great all around distro.
I'm not knocking Debian or other distro's, they all have their ups and downs. I'm just saying that Redhat's not evil as some people here like to make them out to be, and RPM is a great packaging tool. If RPM is so bad why don't SuSE and Mandrake use dpackage/dselect? (Debian still uses those right?)
Why do I keep typing pythong?
> As for having them define a standard and just have everyone else follow it, we all know that that is not a good thing
dunno, but isn't it that they too follow the opensource model, and anyone who wants can contribute to the redhat standards ? Can't I, for instance go ahead, sign up for a mailing list, and air my views on the discussions going on for linux standards ?
.sig ???
There is one kernel... i believe that anyone who is talking crap about microsoft and their bugs, can just download a kernel some software and build their own bug free distro.. but no instead they come in slashdot .. and talk sh*t about everyone ... why dont you guys instead of complain all the time do something usefull?... well probably they dont know how to compile a kernel ;) ....
thats my personal opinion.
sorry i mixed up things.. ;) it was RedHat
Replugge
I, for one, think RedHat is doing the open-source movement a favor by releasing the source to the stuff they write in-house.
But don't come down too hard on RH for this, they are helping to bring Opensource to the masses, which is a VERY GOOD THING. Take one look at the alternative and tell me otherwise.
Cheers!
Flash
For Bob to reply to such critisisms with "You're wrong" without offering any explanation suggests arrogance. That is the kind of thing one expects of Microsoft. Red Hat need to offer a better explanation than "you are wrong".
I want to know why I'm wrong blaming Red Hat for shipping an experimental compiler, too. I was using Red Hat since version 6.0, not too long, coming from Slackware, and I should say I was in love with it. But this last version, while having lots of improvements, cannot run my own software.
I compiled Qt, then my app, and it locks. Is it a compiler fault? The Mesa mess Red Hat invented? What if I remove Mesa and compile it myself, oh, what about XFree 4.0 without the Mesa RPMs?
Now I'm using Debian, not very happy, but it works. At least.
-- "Usefulness arises from what is not there" - Daoism saying
You can turn that off. I discovered that a while back. Of course, given MS's various customization methods, i'm not sure I could find that option again...
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
This does make a good point. The simple fact is that when I felt like upgrading my Linux system (was RH 6.1) I was able to look at several options and finally settled on SuSE. Not because Redhat is horrible and mean but because Suse Offered the feature set the *I* was looking for. This is why I love Linux I can select the features that matter to me instead of being told what what things I need the software to do. If Redhat 7 really is as bad as people are saying then it will fail because people have choices unlike what you get when you buy Windows. And i have noticed that anytime there is a report of company succeeding on slashdot it is like open warare by the 'Slahsdotters'
if somebody has problem with operating system distribution x, why not then using completely another os y or os distro zyx??
i vote for freebsd. hurray hurray!
ound the message used repetitively over and over still nothing grows silen
Dear Bob,
Blow it out your ass.
The success of RedHat only serves to fuel the fire of Linux being associated with a low-quality operating system.
The BSD camp whines enough as it is.
After years of watching the net flood with horror stories from RedHat installs everytime you release anything, I wonder how you can still be in business.
No wonder there is so many distributions.
Closed source is the one thing you do NOT have in common with Microsoft. Many other things about Microsoft that are hated have their mirrors in RedHat's behavior.
Security is important to Microsoft as long as it doesn't impeed the adoption of their products. Unfortunatly, quality and freedom are important to RedHat as long as they don't hinder RedHat's quest for world domination.
-Nathan
"Redhat is not Microsoft"
;-)
No ofcourse not RedHat == Linux
Everyone knows that!
---
---
"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a sick mind." (Terry Pratchett)
First of all, by the GCC Steering Committee's own admission 2.96 is NOT likely to have compatibility problems with C programs. Where talking C++ here as the main problem (as you mentioned). So a lot of software won't be affected.
2) Few companies or groups are going to release only for RedHat. They either release something that works on several distributions (thus avoiding this "problem"), or they'll release separately for different distributions. Either way I don't see how you'll be getting tied to RedHat.
C) In the unlikely event that they're releasing binary only for RedHat chances are they're not going to release only for 7.0. They'll want to maintain compatibility with 6.0+ at least so they'll either compile for 6.x which will make the binary compatible with 7.0 and other distributions or they'll provide separate binaries for 7.0 and 6.x.
In summary, unless a program vendor doesn't care enough about their users to want to offer support for more than just RedHat 7.0 there won't be a problem. If they do then it is the vendor at fault, so why blame RedHat? There are always ways to tie a program to a particular distribution if you want to, and that hasn't changed AFAICS.
Part of my response was inadvertently cropped, the bold part is the missing portion.
--
Me pican las bolas, man!
Thanks
--
Me pican las bolas, man!
Thanks
Jaco
Well, I mostly agree. I'll try to balance both sides, as I see them. IMO the most substantial concern about Redhat dominating the market is a question of when a company strong-arms the standards to suit their own purposes: we don't want Netscape playing continual catch-up to a standard set by MS (FWIW, I hate to use Crashscape and, while I use Linux for all my serious work, I'm reading this in IE; having your favorite browser run on your least favorite OS really sucks). IMO diversity is a way out of the fundamental problem of companies wanting to capture their market by not supporting open standards: if no distribution is dominant, they all have to work together to respect common standards or have their user base so fragmented that no one will want to use Linux at all. Redhat's only crime is being succesful when free software types are (with reason) suspicious of success; grabbing too large a piece of the pie always has the potential for undermining standards.
That being said, I really admire the way Redhat has respected the idea of an open source distribution and the way they have contributed to open source/linux related projects. As much as I trust any company to not behave like bastards, I trust them. My history with Linux has been Slackware in 1995 with a 1.2.13 kernel, Redhat 3.x shortly thereafter and, over the last year (I went through a few years without a PC, only using Sparc workstations), Mandrake 6.5. I only switched to Mandrake after trying Redhat 6.0 and finding Gnome 1.0 to be dubiously stable and the KDE setup in Redhat to be weak. I don't stay on the bleeding edge, so it might be a while, but I'll probably try Redhat again next time I upgrade because I respect what they are trying to contribute (even Gnome, although I haven't tried it since 1.0). No one is perfect, but Bob Young is right; comparing Redhat to Microsoft is ridiculous---they're just unusually succesful good guys who occasionally make disputable calls on when to release things. I'm less certain of the viability of open source business models, but if Bob Young wants to justify Redhat being a nice company by arguing that he would be cutting off his nose to spite his face by giving up on open source, I'm not going argue with him.
Well, except that I think differential pricing is illegal. If it isn't, it is at least unethical.
So the Greens are now out in favor of the flat tax?
I'm even more surprised that Bob mentioned Sun AND neglected to research the facts on the article he quotes.
The problem in Computerworld was a problem with cache (ie hardware), NOT a problem with Solaris (ie software). I would have expected that he would have at least known the difference between hardware and software!
As far as I can determine by sifting through the FUD to find any gems of truth, the NDAs were not to forbid discussion of the problem, nor were they a requirement of any work being done on the problem. The NDAs that were used (and I believe there hasn't been one in quite some time) were to cover disclosure about future products, which is perfectly reasonable and standard business practice.
If you read this Bob, as a long time user and supporter of RedHat Linux, I am disappointed that you feel in that in order to take a defensive position, you need to sling mud and attempt to create FUD; even more so that you couldn't be bothered to get the facts right first.
Disclaimer: I have trouble enough speaking for myself, let alone my employer (or anyone else for that matter).
If the kernel doesn't build out of the box, the box shouldn't ship.
What part of this is confusing to you? I'm no newbie - but I'm talking on behalf of those who are.
"You shouldn't be messing with that stuff anyway" - yeah, well if you want to add a soundcard or other hardware, you sometimes have to, even if you don't want to or don't know how. That's why make xconfig is an option.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
There's a difference between something being unstable, and something being useless.
I don't remember reading the word "Experimental" in the install phase when I selected Inti. Just "Inti".
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
If it's Pre-ALPHA, why is it in a paid-for packaged distribution as a "feature"?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Am I the only person who has a problem with this scenario?
Either you can do development work, or you can compile the kernel, but not both.
Huh?
Doing a kernel rebuild is BASIC. It's one of THE things that should work.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Since I only read things that have been moderated well up, I missed most of the controversy. The posts I read were rational responses and discounted the 'bug' infestation account for the most part.
Dear Mr Young.
It was very refreshing to see your letter on Slashdot today. I think you represented yourself and your company very well.
However, I do have a rebuttal for you.
While I applaud you in your strong stance against those who feel that Red Hat is the Microsoft of the Linux world, I do see some (possibly unintentional) similarities. The most recent one being the decision to include a development version of GCC in the Red Hat 7 product.
Many critics of Microsoft are familiar with it's embrace and extend (unofficial?) philosophy. It has been seen in their reworking of the Kerberos security protocol, and it's initial attempt to take over the direction of the Java Virtual Machine and Development environment. It is a simple process: take something that is open and readily available, use the desktop dominance of the Windows platform to force their own changes upon the customer, and allow the original product, protocol, or idea to die, as the new variant takes hold.
In itself, this process can be beneficial. It may add new features to a product that were sorely lacking in previous versions. Or, it may serve as a way to create incompatibilities, and with market share dominance, can lead to a split with current competitors, leaving the others on an uneven playing field. And if it's a reworking of an open source project, which is released as a proprietary, closed source product, it's definitely not beneficial to the continuation of open and compatible software.
In the case of the Red Hat 7/gcc 2.96 issue, I can't quite understand why Red Hat would do this. First off, the GCC Steering Committee has issued a statement, saying that this development version of GCC will not function correctly with previous versions, is not supported, and will not be supported in the future. In fact, they state that the next version of the development compiler will not support GCC 2.96. This leaves anyone with a Red Hat 7 system in a bit of a bind. Do they go with the latest version, and lock themselves into a compiler that is not, and will not, be supported? Do they switch to another distribution? If they've invested a lot of resources into rolling out Red Hat on their systems, they're probably not going to want to switch to SuSE, or Slackware, or TurboLinux. In short, they're stuck.
I believe Alan Cox defended the decision by saying that Red Hat had every right to innovate and to make decisions which further the fight to make a better Linux distribution. While I don't disagree with him, I think it can be done in a better way, something other than creating incompatibilities. And recent claims that Red Hat started the open source movement are a little disturbing. I can think of two particularly prominent people who might take issue with this statement. Aren't we all in the same camp here?
Now, in theory, Red Hat Software is not very Microsoft-like. Red Hat is committed to the open source movement. Microsoft is not. Red Hat is very forthcoming about bugs, security issues, and instability problems. Microsoft is not. Red Hat allows Linux users to operate in a very user friendly environment, while still maintaining the power of the Linux kernel, as it is developed and maintained by the excellent work of people like Alan Cox and Linus Torvalds. Microsoft will not.
Yet, I feel a little insecure about Red Hat's decision to release a product with as critical a component as a compiler that is not supported by it's creators, and does not permit interoperability with other distributions of the GNU/Linux operating system.
I must admit, I am not a Red Hat user currently. I started my Linux experience with Slackware, before there were any other distributions. I did run Red Hat on both x86 and SPARC platforms for a short period of time. In one of my work situations, I was exposed to the SuSE distribution, and since then, have only installed and managed Slackware and SuSE servers. However, I do give Red Hat an immense amount of credit for the visibility, and indeed, excellent additions to the free software/open source community. However, by including GCC 2.96, you have shaken my faith in your commitment to aiding the advancement of GNU/Linux as an open and GNU compatible operating system.
As I know your mail will be swamped, I have opted to post this letter on Slashdot, in the hopes that it might spark some further discussion, and that you may read it at your leisure.
Thank you for your time, and all the best to Red Hat for the future.
"And the band played on..." A man who can never have too many computers in one room.
I loved it.
Wow a letter right to /., shows how much infulence we all have in the Linux world.
I completely agree with this Coward..To expect a new OS to hit the shelves 100% bug free is just stupid. It's impossible for any QA team to possibly test an OS against every possible situation. The glory of Open Source is that if I try something new and it p00ps then I can fix it myself and then let everyone else know about the problem. It seems to me that Open Source means that everyone who uses the product is part of the QA team...sorta...
"This goes out to those that smoke out the bong..." -Busta Rhymes
I see them including gcc 2.96 as a positive thing.
I have a fairly large piece of simulation code that, for some reason, works slower on a RH6.0/6.1/6.2 machine than the same code compiled on a RH5.1 machine. In other words, I have 2 executables: one compiled on RH5.1, and the other compiled on RH6.x. The 5.1 version runs 10-20% faster on the same box compared to the RH6.x compiled version.
But now, with gcc 2.96, the compiler has finally caught up(!!), and the code runs as fast as the RH5.1 code. Yay!
Yeah, it was a nice letter. I'm glad he has the guts to write it.
The thing that bothers me is that he, and Red Hat in general talk like they wrote all the software. If they did write all the software, then all of his points make great sense. But the fact is, they didn't. They get attacked for being like Microsoft because they are trying to be innovative and controlling. And there is no way they should have had gcc 2.96 in their distro! The thing that I see needed most in the commercial companies is more respect for the many individuals and groups who did write the software. And I'm not talking about things like calling their distro GNU/Linux,(which isn't a bad idea, although it is very limited, should be more like GNU/XFree86/etc/etc/etc/Linux) but about respecting the authors with releases, and giving more credit to the authors.
That's the end of my rant. I would like to thank Red Hat for what they have contributed in terms of software, especially funding authors, and running the Labs, and such...
Daniel
There is the older GCC available (2.7) in RH7 which lets you compile the kernel. I think it comes under the label 'kgcc' for 'kernel gcc'. I don't remember the exact details would someone elaborate?
I'm not sure I understand any of this "WELL REDHAT 7.0 SHOULDNT HAVE HAD ANY BUGS IN IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!" stuff that's getting posted. *OF COURSE* it's going to have bugs. *NOBODY* can produce flawless software, especially when you're working on something as complex as a Linux distro. Thankfully, we can all go download the latest RH distro for free, give it a try, and if we don't like it, than we can go back to using what we were before. This contrasts with having to go out and buy a buggy Microsoft (or any other commercial OS for that matter) operating system, and finding out that it doesn't work right, and then having to wait for "service packs" or whatever for those bugs to be fixed. I'm not trying to say that Red Hat software is perfect, it's not, quite obviously, but expecting them to release absolutely flawless software is not only unrealistic, it's pretty arrogant as well.
"Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
I still do not see any answer to the main question: why gcc 2.96 ???
I passed on September 22, 2000. I don't particularly care whether you believe me or not. You can be disgusted if you feel like it, Anonymous Coward.
-j
Why am I trolling again?
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
This is a major flaw in the open source advocacy (no not open source, i'm not a troll today, just the way in which some people defend it). It's not laziness if I don't read gigs of source code, learn how it relates to itself, and find bugs and fix them - hell, I can do so why don't I?
It's common sense not to bother.
If 1% of computer users had the skill and knowledge to fix software - then 99% of people have to trust their distrbution not to have major flaws in their product.
The X days and Redhat7 will fallover bug is a bad one.
Redhat 7 isn't a toy that you found on an FTP site, it's being billed as commercial level software and being sold as a boxed edition.
Now we all know software never ships bug free. So the standard by which we measure software is the number of bugs and whether they should have released it.
I would say no.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
What a brilliant idea, oh, it's already been done.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Really? I thought people were bashing them because their distribution was buggy and should have been held back a few months. My mistake.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Don't mistake me, I think RH is arse too. Not because they're sucessful (hurrah to them for that!) but because they mislabel software. RH7 is fatally flawed in many ways and doesn't even have the stability of a regular point oh redhat release. I'd like to see redhat defend that rather than take it sideways into "but we're better than MS" teritory.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Granted on one level, but did you have a junior administrator "update" a server with 7.0 and then wonder why the mail wasn't being delivered? Then discover the Microsoftish rhn daemon spanking you with file descriptors galore because the have an incompetent coder in the fold. Sounds like MSFT and RHAT are equivocal in some respects: the ones that matter.
Soter me
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
OK, let's rephrase this. You have a choice. You can go use Microsoft, and while they hide their bugs from you, the rest of us will be fixing ours. Just don't come crying when someone hacked your system using some whole that 'didn't exist' according to Microsoft.
Don't like RedHat? Buy SuSE or Turbo or Corel or Stampede or Debian or one of several others.
Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but isn't this kind of missing the whole point? Why buy a distro at all...
~confused, UK *8-)--
Chris Naden
"Sometimes, home is just where you pour your coffee"
We all know what it's like for MS to relentlessly force ridiculous changes on us (I am always amused at how many ways MS NT can format or obsfuscate a filename!). It's nice that he acknowledged the criticism. But, he offered no response to the criticism of using gcc 2.96. He just says the critics are wrong and moves on! That's the same kind of unbelievable arrogance Microsoft has displayed for years. While Bob Young pointed out some contrasting aspects between RH and MS, that doesn't somehow erase the comparisons that many people have drawn.
>the correct term is "slashbot"
creative, but not correct. the term is unused, unusable and stupid. a bot is something to get fragged by in quake, or a metal person who talks funny.
thank you, machiavelli. just so long as the peons are still ABLE to conform to the prince's totalitarian standards (in commercial settings, one might abuse his primacy to force others out of the market, which is why we hate microsoft {halloween documents, pollution of IP with proprietary protocol overlay to gain control})
...everyone is entitled to use the OS/distro they like, I like Windows 2000 and the Linux distro known as Slackware. I use them because I like them, and to be honest I don't give a *peeep* what you think.
I understand perfectly why Red Hat feels that they are under the wrong kinda criticism(sp?). How many of you that have criticized Red Hat 7 has tried it? Let's be honest? How many? Very few...? Is it really that bad, I don't think so. Don't get me wrong I think that Red Hat is more bloated then ie. Slackware but I'm still not shouting to everyone how bad it is. Why? It's simple: I haven't tried it.
Sure, Red Hat has more bugs than other distros but they fix them as soon as they find them (unlike Microsoft). And often it's not even Red Hats' fault, ie software that comes with Red Hat and other distroes but for some reason Red Hat get's the credit...
I have feeling that I'm going to be flaimed for this. And no, I'm not trying to start a war here, this just how I feel and these are my opinions.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I've been using RH7 and Windows2000 for a while now, both with very few problems. Both operating systems/corps have some good things to offer. I like RedHat better -- but remember, they're just operating systems.
He keeps mentioning a blackboard, is that some kind of software that runs on a monitor to emulate a whiteboard?
"You can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time" --not sure who said this.. but it wasn't me.
Anyways, I for one am pleased with open source and its ideals. It's a pity that people would rather moan about something and compare it to something completly unrelated then actually contribute to something. Ah well, human nature.
-- MrMud
Hint: An OS that's as buggy as a termite hill.
I snagged RH a few years back. Nice, but I've since traded (up) to Suse. When a new release comes out, it should have LESS bugs than the previous version. Others can do this, why can't you?
There are many things for which we should be justifiably criticised (I have no idea what these might be, but I'm certain they exist ;-) but trying to act like Microsoft is not one of them.
There are some areas in which I suspect you are acting exactly like M$ - trying to make a profit, trying to establish yourself as the standard, trying to dominate the market. All of these are good goals (to varying degrees), but the route you take to get there is vitally important. M$'s policy of proprietary software I'm glad to see you don't follow. M$'s policy of active FDU verges on the criminal (i.e. any reasonable person would accept they've broken the law: getting a court to convict them is virtually impossible) - DON'T follow this approach. Intelligent users - that would be the kind who fix those problems you mention - don't like it, and are far more likely to go elsewhere if you spout PR that verges on lies.
Red Hat's business is built on solving the problem thatMicrosoft's business model has imposed on the software user since Bill Gates disagreed with the members of the Homebrew computing club back in 1980.
A little bit of stretching the truth, covered by a jab at Gates. RH is in the business of making money: don't follow Gate's axiom that the ends justify the means.'Embrace and extend' has resulted in some of the worst POS software around - IBM did it with their 'extensions' to standard COBOL, and M$ has been f$cking people over for years with this approach. There's nothing wrong with 'adding' new features - just try to follow the bl00dy spirit of *nix development - something you seem to have forgotten. Don't incorporate s!@# into the kernel that should be external - that's an M$ stunt that has 1/ left any machine running M$ products a security nightmare 2/ crash the entire machine when one program goes down.
Now, after this rant right back at ya, do you understand - just a little - why you're getting compared to M$?
What's this? Multiple First Posts in the last week have been (at least somewhat) worthwhile. Did Natalie Portman go down to the Bahamas with the Penis Bird as consultants on the Beowulf they're building?
While the PaperClip imagery is rather entertaining, wouldn't it be more appropriate to make reference to Eudora?
Criticism, yes, maybe. But Sun's technicians won't change a component at the whim of an online wanker, as RedHat is prone to do once enough popular demand ensues. Name one situation where a group of Solaris users stood up and said "Put X in Solaris," and where Sun actually complied with their wishes.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Does this seem like a déjà vu from RH6.0? It seems that they do this after every .0 release. If this rule held true for everything Linux, I wouldn't even touch anything x.0; but thankfully, other people constantly check their syntax and bugcheck feverishly.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Public Relations is a form of crowd control; if you don't say what the public wants to hear, then you're liable to have a stampede on your hands.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Or they're just plain dotty.
After watching the microcomputer industry rise from the home-built monsters to the current hand-held pieces of perfection, I would be remiss in not congratulating Bob Young and RedHat for promoting an excellent product - with an even more excellent business model. Microsoft, my assumption is, started out to make a fortune for those who founded it. Somehow, I think that has happened :).
However, somewhere along the way, I think the focus changed from making a fortune to creating an empire.
Empires are passe.
Frankly, the open source movement and the results from the movement are one of the only things keeping me working in the indutry anymore.
Ultimately, there is no business value in providing a client/customer with a solution that is dead-ended. Yes, it may make for good money in the short-term - but does the solution serve the customer?
I feel that the open source model and Linux (all derivatives) *are* serving the customer - me.
Least he's talking.
A Commercial product will yield to customer demands. Thus should go the 'gcc thing'.
Open Source + Open dialog = success? I think so..
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
I personally don't recall anyone questioning Red Hats commitment to open source which is all that he really addressed. What he didn't address was the fact that some claims about shady practices were directed towards Red Hat. Is this really anything more then market(ing) speak?
BOSTON SUCKS!
electricmonk wrote:
;)
[That I wrote:]
> > Anyway, I'm sick of companies that think they
> > can charge innocent users good money for buggy
> > releases that should still be in alpha or
> > beta, and then think they can show their faces
> > in public.
> I now feel compelled to inform you that GPL
> licensed software, such as Red Hat Linux, is
> available for free download. Sorry that I
> couldn't let you know until after you make such
> a weak argument.
1) Go to any store selling Linux products. Usually there are boxes marked Redhat 7.0. Note that these boxes have prices on them and that sometimes people actually pay these prices to take the box home. Believe it or not, this actually qualifies as "charge innocent users good money". The fact that others download the software does not change the fact that there are people paying for it.
2) I am not ignorant of Linux or the ways in which it is distributed. The machine I am typing this on is not the first one I have built, nor is SuSE the first distribution I have tried.
3) Not all Linux programs in a given distribution are under the GPL. Some are even, gasp, proprietary!
4) I'm also not so happy about companies that make users sit thru long downloads for software that is supposed to be a major release, and instead is a buggy beta. Feel better?
I apologize for the lack of formatting. First-timer.
I gotta say that although I'd love to disagree with all this and take some sort of college student highroad like I normally would try before being shot down by someone who has lived in the real world, I just can't. The fact is, one of the main problems with big business is that there are those people in power with questionable ethical standards who try and stiffle legitimate good new ideas simply because it might bring in less revenue for them. ie: LA used to have a great electric rail system, until GM, Firestone, and a number of other companies banded together and formed a front company that destroyed thousands of electric rail cars after buying the systems, in anticipation of gasoline powered busses.(actually they were all found guilty of violating anti trust laws but were subsequently fined only 5000$ per company and 1$ per exec involved) Or, Microsoft for example. (you all know all about them so I wont bother explaning why I think they have the potential to suck) Essentially however, the problem with this is that in their efforts to be a good business and make lots of money, they sometimes sacrifice, subdue, or outright try and stop fresh new ideas that would in effect be far better for the consumer or society or whoever you want... So, while big business ain't that bad in itself, it's the execs who make it hard for people with better ideas to make it big that suck.
"Save me jebus!" - Homer Simpson (btw, I'm probably talkin out of me arse)
'So if you want to criticise us for shipping gcc 2.96, you have every right to do so - you'd be wrong, but it is at least a legitimate debate and I'd respect your opinion.'
Somewhat 'arrogant' don't you think? I respect your but I'm afraid your wrong.
-- Hob - Java Spectrum Emulator
Maybe a Paul Allen.
Of course, since I own shares in both the Evil Empitre (MSFT) and in Red Hat (RHAT), I'm kind of biased.
What I think people are saying is that they are perceiving a willingness by Red Hat to ship dot zero releases that are of similar quality to Microsoft dot zero releases.
And, while the Open Source model allows the bugs to be found faster, fixed faster, and patched faster, they're still bugs.
So, unless Red Hat starts donating to the GOP and George W Bush, I don't think they've turned that corner yet.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Damn straight; kids these days! Do it the way we used to in the old days:
10 PRINT "freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad";
20 GOTO 10;
-- Anne Marie
Seriously. Every sentence should say something about how Redhat relates to Microsoft. As all marketers will tell you, there is nothing such as bad press -- if you get enough people to associate Redhat with Microsoft, then maybe some of Microsoft's mindshare will rub off.
The only question left is: if this is an open letter, then is it also an opensource one? I'd love to implement my above modifications.
-- Anne Marie
Why is it that every time a woman participates in a male-dominated forum, she's assumed to be a man? Really, now. It's bad enough that you're in the vast majority here; you don't have to persecute the few of us in the minority, and it pisses me off.
-- Anne Marie
If you protest the negative enough, it'll imply the inverse. Saying "Redhat is not Microsoft" over and over again will associate their two names. People who've just arrived in the audience will start to wonder what this Redhat thing is about, since they've heard about Microsoft (at least from their commercials on network television) and wonder whether it's something they should look into.
-- Anne Marie
Windows rules
Linux drools.
Sure is a good thing redhat sucks ass annyway
Debian, IBM PC-DOS, hell even Windows is better
RPMS are the work of the Devil
RedHat likes RPMS
Ergo Redhat is the work of th Devil
Or at least Al Gore
"Sun recently acknowledged a problem involving an external memory cache on its UltraSPARC II microprocessor module. Under certain conditions, the problem has been triggering system failures and frequent server reboots at customer locations over the past 18 months. "
NOTE: UltraSPARC II == PROCESSOR ; Solaris == OPERATING SYSTEM
Granted, Solaris has his own share of bugs, and SunSolve is the site where they're documented, and where public patches are available. If you happen to have a support agreement, you can even access the knowledge database used by their engineers to determine a resolution for the issues you're running into.
The bottom line is that you're comparing a badly-mangled OS release such as RedHat 7.0 to a enterprise-class operating system environment (yes, Solaris is *that* reliable), and using a *HARDWARE* problem on Sun's processors as an excuse to defend your rush-job and say "Hey, our stuff is free, and we have it out in the open, so you can't really complain that much. We still rule and whatnot".
Sun made customers sign an NDA like any other company would, when it came to resolving some of the issues they run into. I'd sign one if it meant that I'd have stellar support (which companies like Sun have, and EMC makes it a standard) and my problem would be resolved.
Now, when you start shipping your own hardware, provide support for both hardware and software, and have tens of thousands of corporate customers, then you can start pointing fingers at Sun and whatnot. Until then, make sure your people take the time to release a decent product, and at least take the time to read the articles you quote on your 'Open Letters'.
P.S. - Oh yah... for the record,I did buy a copy of RH 6.2, and attempted to work with 7 as well... Only to go back to Debian on my intel boxes, and Solaris 7 and 8 on my Sparcs.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Well, I think he meant that like the *kernel*. A lot of code has hacks specifically built for gcc 2.5.2 (the KERNEL!!!!) which don't compile with 2.6. :)
Well, 2.4.0-test9 won't compile at least. Anyhow, point said...bad choice RH... Other than that...installing 2.5.2 works fine. I like the new updated packages
If it wasn't for RH, Beowulf would not be as popular as it is today.
Wow, talk about nit-picking, it actually made more sense to me using the term slashdotter. I.E. "The next slashdotter who compares anything...", this would not sound correct as "The next slashdot who compares anything....". Is there more than one slashdot?
You know it's times like this when I am glad I use Slackware. Version 7.0 hasn't had any of the problems it seems plague RedHat *.0 versions of Linux. Now if only people would make LINUX versions of software and not RedHat versions/varients that don't run on all versions of Linux. Ah well I prefer stability and security over not having to hack programs to work properly. (grin) Jurrel
He obviously gets it more than you do. I don't have a problem with you cutting him up like that, but it wasn't even close to being constructive criticism. Constructive criticism is supposed to help the person you are criticizing, not belittle them.
> But who's to say what form criticism must take?
Ummm, you did. You said it was constructive, yet there was nothing constructive about it, more destructive than anything.
>Or should I tell it like it is so he and others
>realize what pettiness they're truly engaged in
Hello kettle, this is Anne Marie. Your black.
> There is time yet, and I hope he'll see the
> error of his ways 'fore long.
I hope you do too.
BTW, this isn't flamebait just constructive criticism.
The pot calling the kettle black has nothing to do with race. Its an analogy for hyprocrisy, I actually got that from an episode of friends. So do me a favor and don't bother responding unless you know what your talking about you idiot. There's some constructive criticism for you. I bet you call people racist when they talk about black and white TV's too, don't you?
Good grief. I had to register just so I could respond to this. (Oh well, there goes my lurker status ;)
Perhaps you're just trying to evade the real issue, but it appears to me you're off the mark here.
The pot calling the kettle black has NOTHING To do with skin color. It is no more a racial slur than using the word "niggardly" (look it up if you're confused), despite the trouble that word caused a Washington DC official.
I depise racism and do my best to eradicate whenever I encounter it. But this is NOT a case of racism.
...me too.
it is exactly this kind of thing (open letter) that makes causes my jaw to drop when i see the MS/RH comparisons. when was the last time such a letter came from redmond? i don't recall ever, EVER seeing an article ANYWHERE pointing me to a letter from bill and friends saying, "we're sorry that some of our customers have trouble with our software. we honestly thought we were improving something, but if you don't like what we've done, you are certainly entitled to disagree with those decisions, that's what makes the next version better." have i just missed that letter, or am i right in assuming that such doesn't exist (obviously, i already know the answer). thank you mr. young for the response, thank you for paying attention to us (all of us, not just the large companies, but also the poor students), and thank you for your belief in the OS model. i've used RH in the past, and i've been trying to decide what to put on my old box. looks like RH wins, if for no other reason than you guys at least take the time to explain decisions to your users. i don't expect perfection, but i like it when the developers can admit that they don't offer it anyway. now, where's that RH7 iso, maybe if i like it, 7.1 will get an order and a new user.
The problem is that what redhat needed was to delay releasing 7.0 and instead come out with a 6.3 releast that fixed all the bugs and numerous security holes of 6.2.
Installing Redhat 6.2 is a very burdensome process because of the number of fixes required. However, the consequences of RedHat 7 are much more severe because of its incompatible version of gcc.
What was such a big deal about coming out with a 6.3 release, which would have been stable and useable, instead of just quickly pushing RedHat 7 out the door?
Well, given that this is on your desktop, I bet you don't see the names that way under your DesTop Icons. In fact, you won't see them that way in your Windows Explorer, unless, of course, you have that infamous check box checked.
The point made, methinks, was that the names you see were not the actual names of the file. WYSINWYG.
You may not believe you should be held to the standards that Microsoft is held. I agree with you: I think you should be held to a higher standard still.
I also agree with you that knowing exactly how bad the bugs are is a blessing. It IS good for us to know if there are problems with a product. And the fact that we have full control of the technology is also a Good Thing; it's the biggest reason to use a distribution like Red Hat.
Whether you like it or not, however, you are in the business of providing many of the same things that Microsoft provides. The software you ship must work. RedHat 7 dies after three weeks. If Microsoft were to ship code like that they would be drawn and quartered in the press. It would literally cost them billions, both directly in stock price, and indirectly in reputation damage, were they to ship a product in that state.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Redhat to not only do as well, but to do BETTER than Microsoft does. You have a whole army of people working for you for free that Microsoft does not. Isn't it your job to make sure that the bugs are ironed out? You're starting with some of the most stable code running anywhere, and assembling that code into a system for general consumption. If QA isn't Job 1 for RedHat, what is?
You have frequently compared RedHat to Heinz ketchup. People can make their own ketchup, but Heinz still sells an awful lot of the stuff, because the consumer has come to expect a consistent, quality product. Well, you have just shipped millions of bottles of ketchup that leak. Admittedly, it's good that we know about the problem, but the bottles still leak. What do you think this would do to Heinz' reputation?
Personally, I am firmly in the Eric Raymond corner of the Free Software world -- what I want is software that doesn't suck. I'm willing to pay for it if I need to. I am a professional system administrator. I need to build systems that run and run and never fall over. The control over the technology is important, but it is a secondary goal for me; having access to the source is good, but FIRST it must work. SECOND the source must be open.
The fact that you open source everything is not an excuse to ship bad software. Open Source garbage is still garbage.
That was 98, and 98 isn't exactly known for reliability. You occasionally hear about machines lasting that long, but it's almost unheard of for systems that are actually doing anything. Yes it was a bug, but it was a bug that didn't matter in practical use for 99.9% of the customer base.
A problem is, however, a problem if people notice it. Linux crashing after three weeks *matters*.
RH7 is, for lack of a better description, a stinky pile of horse doo-doo.
heh
The inclusion of heavily patched, alpha, non-standard components in RH7 was, in my humble opinion, a tragic mistake.
OK, please tell me which parts of RH 7.0 are alpha quality , heavily patched. I'd especially like your insight on which parts are non-standard.
Hard-core linux users have been turning away from RH for years because in an effort to make your products easier to use, you have strayed far from the path that is Linux's purpose... stability and accessability.
Yes, we all know that people are swarming to Slackware because it is bare, raw linux. Sure a distribution with no configuration tools which forces the user to dig in via the console is far more likely to seem accessible to users.
Making your products accessable to Joe every day windows user by making it easier to use is great, but serves little use when it is done at the expense of those that brought your company to where it is today, the hard-core hackers.
How are these changes at the expense of hard-core hackers? I have never come upon a task or function that I couldn't make ANY linux distribution do for me. I think you're just being willful, or you are not one of the hackers you mention --in which case, why champion someone's else's gripes?
You claim that you publish the source that your company creates; where is it? I know it's on RH's site, but finding a patch on your site is next to impossible, even for the advanced user.
Yes, even hard-core hackers have trouble finding patches, especially on a site as complex as Red Hat's.
As I write this, I'm downloading the latest revision of Debian to install on the remainder of my redhat servers. Until RH releases another product that conforms more to the spirit of open source, I cannot use its shoddy distributions.
Why don't you wait until the latest revision of ANY distribution has undergone some tire-kicking by experimenters, and refining by the developers before you go placing it on your production servers. Or why don't you just HACK a distribution together yourself, seeing as hard-core hackers like yourself are what basically gave RedHat what they have today, right? As a disclaimer, I don't use redhat. I did for a while back in the 2.x --> 4.x days. I tried all of the distributions available at the time and settled on Slackware. That is my personal preference. Still, I won't let someone spout uninformed garbage when I see it, regardless of who it's aimed at. Moderate down as needed. ;)
The Simpsons are as mass market as it gets. They do feature a large number of "inside" jokes, and obscure references, however. I think you mistake these for esotericism.
...
However, Groening's first major accomplishment, Life in Hell
"Akbar and Jeff, brothers, or lovers, or possibly both, whatever offends you the most."
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
I wish I could make it to ALS to grab just 5 minutes of your time, but alas I took a teaching job teaching intro to Unix starting this week.
Deus Ex Machina said,
Again, as a Debian user, I feel that there is a hell of a lot WRONG with RedHat's distro - for ME. This more of a personal taste though - and don't anyone dare tell me that Debian hasn't had it's share of crippling bugs....
So I think we should back off and turn down our flamethrowers here - if you want to criticize RedHat, fine, but at least find a good reason.
I too am a Debian and a Redhat user. I like the elegance and commitment to structure that is Debian, but don't be fooled that really doesn't matter to most people. They want it to just go.
Please build or accept somthing like apt-get that doesn't depend on unique ID numbers or "Priority Access." My gut tells me if you don't, one day Linux==Debian instead of Redhat in most peoples minds. What you lose in CD sales you will gain in acceptance of Linux in general.
Please don't lose your dominance. I appreciate your contribution, and I fear the morality of your replacements. Thanks for listening.
Matthew Newhall President of LILUG
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I've been using RedHat since 3.0, and have even spent time rolling my own RedHat-based distro. I also write code and release it as open source. So I think I know what I'm talking about, when I say that I have yet to see RedHat do anything that is against the spirit of the "open source movement". Go pick on SuSE or Caldera...
Unlike you, I'd like to applaud RedHat for some of those "pointless changes" that they made - I love it that there is SSL support in things like Samba and that they finally dropped inetd for the vastly superior xinetd. These are genuine steps forward - they may increase the learning curve for upgrading a bit, but they have good reasons for doing these things. I'm not sure I'm happy with the gcc thing, but I'm not going to let it ruin my opinion of this excellent company. So what if some of the new stuff has bugs? They'll get fixed, just like they have in the past.
Unfortunately, no Linux distro has jails... so I'm installing FreeBSD these days. :-)
--
Host your own websites, anywhere!
The other problem that you mention, exit() being broken, is /not/ a compiler issue. That's an issue with glibc. However, there is an update to glibc available -- 7.0 shipped with 2.1.92-(?), there's a 2.1.94-3 available on your local mirror.
-30-
Yup, that's much better than "Hey, we're the standard, we're not gonna give you the code or the specs, just buy our stuff. And hey, if anybody else figures out how to do it without us, we'll just change the standard again . . .", ain't it?
----
"A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind."
As far as waiting for KDE 2.0, why bother? No distribution maker is under any obligation to delay their distro for the benefit of an app vendor. I don't see SuSe, Debian or Corel doing this either. Really the best thing to do - imho - is ship the latest KDE stable, offer the development snapshot as an option and provide the 2.0 stable when available as a download. In fact doing this with gcc might have averted some of the criticism.
Welp, I didn't really mean to imply that they should wait for KDE 2.0 -- more that rather than releasing a 6.3 as a minor update (since 6.2 seems pretty solid in my experiece -- we've got it running on 3 boxen here), release 6.5 as a more major update (with newer release software) while discarding the attempt at making the transition to kernel 2.4 easier (which seems to be the major driving force behind releasing 7.0 w/ "gcc 2.96" and the like).
In any case, I do think you're absolutely right about releasing a stable gcc and offering the next revision as a download . . .
----
"A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind."
That product will then only work on either Red Hat 7.0 or another platform that chooses to discard the views of the GCC steering committee.
However, the gcc folk only released their statement after the release of RH 7.0, so it's not like Red Hat decided to include what they call GCC 2.96 in spite of objections by the gcc steering committee. On the other hand, I think that the inclusion of a snapshot of the compiler in a distro is at best not wise.
That being said, I do understand Red Hat's motives for doing so. They're caught in a difficult position -- marketing wisdom drives them to try to be the most cutting edge distro (after all, having the newest features first looks good to PHBs), while on the other hand it seems like a much safer move to ship a currently stable compiler (yes, I understand that there are questions about the state of 2.95.5 or whatever it is . . .).
Personally, I think I would have chosen to keep the stable release of gcc in, wait until KDE 2.0 was out, add in XFree4.0 and the latest stable GNOME, upgrade some other useful packages, and call the whole thing Red Hat 6.5. Then, I'd sit tight and wait until gcc 3.0 and kernel 2.4 were on the immediate horizon, and then start developing what would become RH7.0.
----
"A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind."
We work hard to build products that please most of our users most of the time.
.02
it isn't like MS even gives a fuck about pleasing ANYONE. They kind of just force the software on you and make you like it (b/c there is really no alternative). I want an honest show of hands about who likes that fucking little guy in the corner of Office products that is there to "help" you. When you first started up Win95 did you really like the Start menu or the way that the screen looked? I know I didn't... I hate having the clutter of icons all over my desktop. I don't even like having the taskbar "hidden" at the bottom of the screen.
At least RH is giving us many options to make our systems the way we want them... Until they start mandating a single WM and a single way to setup partitions and programs, I say that they are superior to the MS model.
You can flame me all you like for being pro RH, but for someone who is more interested in having his system work w/o much effort (yes, I know how to setup and use other distributions) RH is good for me. I want to burn through the install w/o having to download this and that to make my system complete. RH is providing a service, they are making Linux easier to use for more people, if you aren't into that, fine... Go off and use Slackware or Debian, or whatever, but don't you dare complain about RH..
Just my worthless
- Bill
Have you ever read The Cathedral and the Bazaar? The whole point of Open Source is to, "Release early. Release often." That's what makes Open Source a colaborative development environment. Linus didn't wait until he had a complete, SMP enabled kernel with full support for every conceivable device. He got something working, pushed it out on the Internet and let other people start hacking at it!
Now, obviously, the situation with an integrated commercial product is different from a single developer putting out pre-alpha code for others to start playing with. Commercial distributions have people depending on them for stability, But to say that Open Source historically waits until something is "done" before releasing it is to be completely ignorant of the Open Source development model. This is a "point zero" release, and as much as I diskile parroting the mantra that x.0 releases are never stable, I think that RH7.0 is another example of that rule. If you don't want to be on the bleeding edge, then wait until the bugs have been ironed out. If you want all the latest new features, then learn to live with the risks.
(BTW, I've been using 2.3/2.4 kernels for months. They don't always work on the first try, but they have the new features I need, and I've gotten used to living with the risk. I haven't had any catastrophic failures yet ((knock on wood)), but I make sure I have good backups...)
--
Your Servant, B. Baggins
So if you want to criticise us for shipping gcc 2.96, you have every right to do so - you'd be wrong Whaadaya mean?! Half of what I'm used to building, won't - if this was a rawhide release, then fine, but 7.0? And has anyone seen any errata pop up for their system on the Red Hat Network? I'd think we'd see them by now....
Yes, the gcc was included in the beta. This doesn't change my criticism. Red Hat (and other major distributors) should discuss plans to include snapshot releases with upstream maintainers, not to give them a veto, but so that any problems caused thereby can be worked out in advance.
> Um, what if the standards set by the dominant distro happen to be retarded?
Then fix them. Christ, do you people refuse to step up to the plate because you can't guarantee you'll hit a home run? Redhat isn't telling anyone to go away, but they aren't lying down to give everyone a chance at being great. So they push their product like it's all that matters to them -- because it is.
What do you suggest Redhat do? Advertise Debian?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> I can't remember the last time anyone said 'Slackware? That buggy piece of crap? Forget it, I'm going to Redhat.'
I have. You can quote me on it. I don't consider it buggy per se, I just found it even more cumbersome to work with than Redhat. Then I found FreeBSD, which I consider to be the best of both worlds. Haven't looked back.
Guess what, I have different needs than you, and others may have different needs than me. Deal.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
It's called innovation.
Yes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Microsoft considers it an "innovation" that they changed what letter signifies a standard option in a standard utility.
-
Well, it IS true that some people have compared Red Hat to Micro$oft lately. Some because they seem to have a paranoid fear of anything commercial, be it open-source or not. But what has been the most voiced opinion lately, is not that Red Hat's goal, intentions or business methods are Micro$oftish, but rather that Red Hat's .0 releases, and especially the latest, RH-Linux 7.0, has a lot of Redmondish features.
Which, one might wonder?! Well, for one, the .0 releases seem to have been rushed out before going through enough beating. It is indeed impossible to fix every bug, but if the bugs hit the everyday users rather than "just" the geeks, maybe something is wrong with the quality assurance process?
Another thing is the handling of the gcc 2.96beta issue. There is no gcc 2.96, despite what the name of the package in Red Hat Linux 7 might be. There was a developmental branch of gcc named 2.96 which hadn't been blessed as finished yet. This branch is now renamed to 2.97 to avoid misunderstandings. The reason for releasing RH7 with the gcc 2.96 beta branch rather than gcc 2.95.2 is, unless I've misunderstood things completely, because of the flakey C++ support in the latter one. This I can understand, support and agree with. What I don't support, however, is naming this compiler anything else than gcc2.96cvs or gcc2.96beta, something it is.
To quote directly from gcc.gnu.org:
The bottom line is, that the handling of gcc in RH Linux 7 was clumsy. And rather than just saying that "You're wrong", Red Hat should admit that something didn't come out right and at least apologise to the community. Do not give those who believe that there's a secret agenda behind the acquiring of Cygnus get even more reasons to be paranoid. They're far enough from the reality already.
Like it or not, Red Hat has become synonymous with Linux in large parts of the non-initiated computerworld. And therefore it falls on the shoulders of Red Hat to do their utmost to make their product better than any other Linux distribution. Because the verdict of Linux from the "real world" won't be based on the stability and security of Debian Linux or the cutting-edge features of SuSE. It will almost entirely be based on how bugfree, secure, easy to use and easy to install Red Hat is.
Maybe with time, this will change, but until then, Red Hat must never, ever race to a release or include beta-software that isn't clearly labeled so. And indeed, this should be in Red Hat's own interest more than anything else, right?
The compiler not being able to build the kernel is the kernel's fault, not the compiler's.
If I'm not mistaken, gcc 2.95.2 can't even compile the kernel.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I did attack your claim to womanhood through the nick of Anne Marie.
Still, your points in this forum a quite valid, and I welcome the diversity a man posing as a woman can bring.
Got any pics?
I second that. Except Anne Marie is a man. Read the posting history.
I can totally appreciate the desire he has to explain the situation his company is purportedly contributing to, but realistically, all he acknowledges is the comparison of RedHat to Microsoft.
The real things he needs to be doing is explaining to us WHY they included gcc 2.96 rather than a stable, proven version?
WHY are they encouraging the concepts of propriety in the software that they're distributing?
WHY are they regularly taking software that the open-source community and environment have strived so hard for and creating situations where no one can work with them, and incompatabilities and instability arise?
One could argue that while they are definately users and evangelists of the open source movement, they are still a closed-shop. If they were truly open source, and constantly contributing back to the community, wouldn't someone have known BEFORE it was released that they were doing some wacky things in their software? I mean, consider it...yes, we get to see their sourcecode, but we only get REAL access to it when they release it, not during the actual development of it. So while we've all been hacking away at the RH6.2 source, making improvements and sharing these to the rest of the community, we couldn't plan for and anticipate the changes that were being made and improvments (AND BUGS) that would be introduced in the RH7 source because we only get access to it AFTER it's released.
The point is, it's these kinds of closed-office things that create and instigate the comparison to Microsoft. And in the same respect, it is these kinds of responses and letters (The ones that don't really address the issues, but dance around them) that are typical of Microsoft (and any other software/hardware behemoth) to put out, expecting to somehow use marketing-speak to appease us.
I may be going off too far on one side, being a bit extreme, but I'm simply trying to raise an issue here. I love RedHat... I love the concepts and togetherness of the opensource effort... I just don't want to see them screwed up by any one company just because they become the dominant player in the field (like Microsoft).
I don't know what the problem here is. I ran over a month with RedHat 6.9 (the 7.0 beta) with a dual-CPU and dual-headed setup. How many crashes? 0.
Will my production servers get 7.0? Hell no! Will my production workstations get 7.0? Hell yes! It's stability against features. You have a choice with RedHat ... a free [speech] on at that.
Learn the RedHat . release ruling: .0 = bad, .1 = tolerable, .2 = stable
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
When I found out that RedHat 7.0 was finally coming out, I basically shrugged and made a note not to go to sunsite for a few days. Now, I'll admit that I did look at some of the 7.0-beta packages, but was dismayed when I found out that I needed to upgrade my version of rpm -- and I did not see a way to upgrade it. (Admittedly, I failed to look in the 6.2 updates directory.)
I'm just going to go on what I have read here and heard otherwise... Apparently, gcc 2.9.6 has issues. Yes, most software has issues, but these seemed to be serious issues.
I'm going to wait on upgrading my version of gcc, it seems. Although my computer was initially an installation of Red Hat Linux (version 5.2, in fact, which had a buggy-as-hell implementation of GNOME on my box), I decided about the time 6.2 went into beta to move away from the rpm system software methodology. Now, if I can't compile the software packages I want to install, then I'm sunk.
I have to agree with those that say that Bob Young's letter was long and pointless. No, Red Hat is not Microsoft. Red Hat will never be Microsoft. It is impossible for Red Hat to become Microsoft without breaking the GPL, which most of the software for Linux is distributed under. It's just not going to happen.
And, for those of you out there who don't realize this, you don't need Red Hat to run Linux. Debian, Slackware, and SuSE are all alternatives if you want major distributions. Or, hey, go hit freshmeat.net for the tarballs and build them yourselves!
I just have a few questions: How long was 7.0 in beta? How many people tried to download the packages? And was gcc 2.9.6 one of the beta packages?
If gcc 2.9.6 was amongst the beta packages and there was a long enough review period, then Red Hat had no reason to use a different version of gcc if they did not receive bug reports or complaints. The purpose of a beta is to iron out the bugs before a gold release. But one cannot fix bugs that one does not know exist.
However, if gcc 2.9.6 was not within the beta packages, the test period was insufficient, or Red Hat ignored the bug reports, then complain, piss, and moan all you want for you are justified.
And, remember, everyone makes mistakes. If you want proof of this, look at some of the changelogs for the 2.4.0 test kernels. (Okay, maybe this is unfair, but it proves a point.)
Linux is an open source, free operating system. Most of its software falls under the GPL, which ensures open source software and whose developers choose to release the programs for free. It is impossible for any one distributor to gain a monopoly over it like Microsoft over Windows.
Linux is a movement; its user base supplies its voice. Yell loud enough and you will be heard.
--CAE
Maybe Bob doesn't get it because he's not really paying attention to what his company is doing.
Redhat, the company, is going about setting up deals with many businesses, such as Dell and IBM, in ways that cause them to prefer the Redhat distribution over others. What Microsoft has done in the past, and what I compare Redhat with, is the practice of trying to make sure that I have no choice in OS for my computers. In the case of Redhat, it's no choice of distribution.
This is different than encouraging some company to offer Linux, and Redhat, with their hardware. These are cases where the hardware vendor will refuse to support their hardware problems when the software being run isn't Redhat (or Windows).
Bob, if you want to be a better member of the Linux community, then work to encourage hardware vendors to not just support Redhat, but to also support their hardware with not just any distribution running the Linux kernel, but other operating systems, such as xxxxBSD, as well.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You know, it's odd you mention that. I've worked on HP boxes, Sun boxes, AIX boxes, etc. And the only place where ping was different as to that -n switch was with windows, which does 4 pings and stops by it's default. I susupect what is happening is that you're seeing new Red Hat users run ping, and are suprised when it just keeps going...
Unless you're talking about a different problem with the number of counts produced with a ping, then I think you'd best ask more than just Red Hat to "fix" their problem. :)
Well put, Bob. Even if there were 2500 bugs in RH7, I'd rather _know_ they exist, and disable the running code that I can. If you run a Windows 2000 Server, you know there are bugs in the code. But where are they? Microsoft knows about many more bugs, because a SP2 is in the works. But Microsoft will not tell you about a bug if you don't find it.
:-)
Would YOU step up to your boss and say "look, you would have never seen this, and you may fire me because I'm telling you, but I did a half-assed job".
I run Win2K on non-mission critical systems. And I like it. But I understand the Microsoft Way of business. I also run Red Hat Linux 7 servers for more important stuff. I know what works and what doesn't. Appreciate both sides of the coin. If you don't like, it, say so and say why, but let's stop crying
Or use a little perl
perl -e 'while(){print "freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad\n"}'
---
"...silence is a dangerous sound."
Neither will binaries compiled with 2.95.2, so I don't see your point here.
The GCC Steering Committe have declared that gcc 3.0 matters are still subject to change - so both 2.95.2- and 2.96-compiled stuff won't necessarily work with 3.0. So the "gcc 3.0" compability argument is moot.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
That may be so, their x.0 releases are still buggy as fuck-all, but that is almost inevitable. They are doing something difficult, and they can't possibly test every part of the distribution (including the hundreds of software packages that come with it) on every possible hardware and software configuration. If some things don't work, they'll be patched in later minor releases, or even better, incrementally in the updates directories. The same people who are bitching that x.0 never runs without hiccup out of the box are also the same people who'd piss and moan to no end about how long it took for the next release if they took longer to do more extensive testing. So, in short, buggy x.0 software has been around as long as software has existed, and people can lump it and deal, it is a fact of life, just like hangovers, conservation of energy, and gravity.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
>model. By comparison (I'm not sure if anyone
>noticed this) Computerworld had a front page
>story a couple of weeks ago about how there were
>problems with Solaris on Sun's Enterprise
>systems, yadda yaddda
I'd have more respect for Bob/RH if he hadn't responded to all this.
Here's a very basic premise of life in general (IMHO) - "Comparing your own stupid, boneheaded move to someone elses MORE stupid boneheaded move doesn't make yours any better."
>Remember that this debate was begun by someone >going to Red Hat's public site and trying to add >up all the registered bugs in Red Hat 7. When
>was the last time Microsoft (or any other legacy
>software vendor for that matter) gave you access
>to their complete bug registration system?
Microsoft giving access to their bug database has NOTHING to do with the # of RedHat bugs.... or does it
Microsoft _may_ be evil (not a silly debate that i let myself get pulled into), but don't try to make yourself look BETTER by comparison. I mean, we could bring Stalin into it and make RH look amazing!
j
All three of the above categories have different reasons to form opinions about Redhat (and other opensource/linux companies, too BTW).
Slashdot readers are a combination of all of these. I think it's important that we consider Redhat from a number of different angles.
1) Opensource developers: well, we'd (I'm one...) probably quit our day jobs and code for peanuts if we had good management, brilliant co-workers, a fun work environment, and good coffee. - Face it, we love to code and we do it in our spare time. We probably don't care too much about a particular distro, since all of our machines are so highly customized as to become almost a custom distribution. BUT... we do appreciate the fact that Redhat and others pay talented developers to write opensource code that everyone can use.
2) LEECH: - don't care about anything except what they can get for free, complains about anything that doesn't work, makes lots of noise, has more free time than money, doesn't contribute back, thinks Redhat sucks because they're trying to make money.
3) shareholder: - wants to know that RedHat is looking out for it's business interests. Giving back to the community has yet to prove it's business value to investors.
it's a difficult balancing act...
As one of the people who's posted some of the stories that Bob may be thinking of here, I'd like to put in a quick word about my attitude toward comparisons in general and Red Hat in particular. a) I like Red Hat -- it's one of the 1st distros I ever installed, and the boxed 7.0 is one of the distros that I ve bought and recommended to other people. b) Comparisons *to* Microsoft and not the same as comparisons *with* Microsoft. Not that either of these might not be appropriate in certain cicrumstances, but there is a difference. Saying that MS has bugs and that Red Hat Linux has bugs may sound alike, but which of these would be you trust to be fixed quicker / better? I'd rather bet on Red Hat for most things. Since I'm not hugely interested in Windows, I can't comment on their bugfixes with great knowledge, but there are certain long-standing bugs which I'm familiar with . Red Hat, on the other hand, seems to fix things pretty quick. That's my take on them. I hope they continue to grow and improve Linux at all levels. timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Of course Red Hat isn't like Microsoft.
:)
Microsoft is a publicly traded software company which sells operating systems and is currently trading at their 52-week low.
Oh, wait a minute...
(it's funny, laugh)
I don't feel that comment deserved the flamebait moderation, the comment may be wrong, but it wasn't flamebait.
plastickiwi here feels that Bob Young was wrong in defending his company in this matter. Apparently plastickiwi didn't understand how the complaints people were making about RH7 were going to far.
People were attacking the company saying that the entire coroporation was at fault for a buggy release, and that Red Hat wouldn't let the situation get better.
I've never used RH7, but I have used pretty much every release from 4 - 6.2. Some were buggy, some were'nt. But I never saw a major Red Hat-caused bug in two versions in a row.
I also have used pretty much every version of Windows. I don't think I should have to tell you that I have seen many bugs pass through to the next version unfixed.
This is the point Bob Young was trying to make, he was not defending RH7, he was defending Red Hat.
Of course by know this is redundant, doh! slow typing.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
I don't know actually. Perhaps I should have said "arbitrarily differential pricing". For instance, I don't think it is wrong for insurance agencies to charge for different age ranges and car models. That's plain sense - it's more risk for them. However, something like Amazon charging *arbitrarily* different prices, for no other reason than to gouge, doesn't seem to have much ethical grounds (yeah, ok, they said it was a "test"...hopefully it doesn't become their modus operandi).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I'll repost this:
I don't know actually. Perhaps I should have said "arbitrarily differential pricing". For instance, I don't think it is wrong for insurance agencies to charge for different age ranges and car models. That's plain sense - it's more risk for them. However, something like Amazon charging *arbitrarily* different prices, for no other reason than to gouge, doesn't seem to have much ethical grounds (yeah, ok, they said it was a "test"...hopefully it doesn't become their modus operandi).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Bob, what the heck is the point of that letter?? Was it to justify the release of 7.0 or just to divert the attention from the real issue of a buggy release by using the ever_successful "Microsoft" name ??
/. I was expecting a good rebutal, trying to support the decision to release 7.0 and maybe a list of what all is good about 7.0.
.Why ?? Well, I tried to install 7.0 . Everything was ok until the dhcp part. 7.0 ships with a dhcp client with a version 1.3 or so , when the latest is 3.x !! How more outdated can you be.
I really dont get it when people just tend to use MS anywhere and everywhere. When I read the main page of
But now, when I have finished reading the letter, I feel cheated. And for all those who are keen to know, I am using 6.2 and not 7.0
That was enough to put me off..
Thanks but no thanks for 7.0. I am waiting for 7.1 (hopefully I will be able to use it).
... "follow me" the wise man said, but he walked behind
By posting you managed to unmoderate it yourself. :)
--GnrcMan--
So if you want to criticise us for shipping gcc 2.96, you have every right to do so - you'd be wrong, but it is at least a legitimate debate and I'd respect your opinion. But to compare Red Hat to Microsoft indicates an ignorance of what is driving our success.
I am sorry, but the simple fact that exit(0) breaks in certain programs really upsets me. I do not have this problem with RH6.2...
The GNU team released a statement as to why this is bad juju... defend this one all you want, but I feel the majority of us are fairly unhappy with this move.
RH's defense on using a snapshot compiler for a better transistion to the 2.4 kernel is not a worthy defense. It isn't out yet... and still has some time to go. Why not address kernel 2.4 issues when, well, kernel 2.4 is out?
RedHat is not Microsoft, I do believe they are a very good company, but others and myself still believe this snapshot inclusion of GCC to be a Bad^Idea(tm). It may be an opinion, and of course opinions really can't be surmised as wrong or right.... they just reflect our views.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I don't think that is valid. It would be 2007 before all the bugs are fixed. No one waits to deliver a "perfect" product, at least not of this size, and they shouldn't. You correct all the major ones, publish all the rest for people to see to let them determine how it would effect their deployment, and put it out there. ......
It's all a judgement call, whats major, whats minor, even what is a bug.
Should they have waited? I don't know, I haven't had a problem with my install.
Including "beta" releases of components in a final release is very questionable, but hey, they weren't keeping it a secret. You don't have to deploy it. Stay with 6.x or shit go over to Debian, Slackware, SUSE,
- I like pudding.
If there was a head on the proverbial nail of Slashdotters, you've hit it. Folks around here just don't to see success from anything other than their select group of interests. While the whole "one click shopping" patent is a little obtuse, Slashdotters instinctively think they should hate Amazon.com. When the issue about Amazon charging different prices to different customers came up, most of /. jumped all over it. What's the problem here? If you don't like it, don't shop there. "Amazon.com has sold out!" No shit. They're in business to make money.
/.'ers hate for no good reason other than the fact that they're successful.
Lately I've seen a lot of pro-Nader posts. I prefer Browne, personally, but Nader makes some good points. But it seems to me that a large number of Slashdotters heard Nader was anti-corporation and jumped on the bandwagon. No, I don't think large corporations should run the country. Yes, I do think that a corporation, no matter what size, deserves to make money if they provide a useful service. I'll spare you the list of companies that
And now we're at a new stage ever since Big Money entered "our" world (meaning OSS). Slashdot is aquired by Andover who files for an IPO, Red Hat goes public, etc., etc. Now all of the sudden it's "Slashdot sucks!" and "Red Hat is too commercial!" Fine. Don't go to Slashdot and use a different distro. It's just a matter of choice and opinion.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Duplication of effort is what open source software's about though! Well, not quite but:
- Developers work on what they want to work on. You can't reassign them as though doing OSS development is their job or something.
- Parallel development is a good thing. The way Open Source development coordinates tens of thousands of developers (or however many) is by saying "go do what interests you", and
.. well, no two people write the exact same programme. If it's all open source eventually the best ideas get integrated.
I percieve that "why are you wasting your time working on similar projects" argument as a whining remark that not every developer in the world is focusing their energy directly on making your life better.In fact, I would say that open source development is a good example of mimetic evolution. Multiple programmes sharing the same niche allows more vectors for improvement. The more journaling filesystems that bring ideas to US the better off we are! (given that we're working with a modular kernal that can support multiple filesystems formats easily).
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
Mr. Young is obviously right on track with Microsoft as evidenced by his blatant threats to those who may oppose (i.e. You will be punished - now start writing!).
Interesting article, but I'm a little surprised that he skirted the RH 7.0 stability issues as skillfully as a politician.
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
I totally agree with bob on this letter. Comparisons with microsoft & stuff like that are just echoes of the way people sometimes do this stuff simply to "play catch up to microsoft", ie, see themselves as something that can be compared with it, and limit themselves and their software by seeing proprietary versions of what they do as some kind of perfect and unobtainable goal.
Open source is a completely different thing, from the nature of the software to the way it's made and you can't compare the ideal microsoft world to the ideal open source world, because they are in many ways complete opposites.
Red hat is only trying to do what open source stuff is meant to do: release early and often, get the eyeballs to report (and maybe fix) the bugs, and release a followup version with less bugs. It's not the same as when a commercial company that writes proprietary softwear releases something like that, where in some cases you could argue that they are meant to deliver a working product. Red hat 7.0 users are taking part in the actual process of delivering a good followup to 6.2
On the other hand, it can sometimes be worthwhile to use our knowledge of the workings of proprietary methodologies when working on oss: that mention of bob's of microsoft's bug database made me think: if microsoft's bug db is consistent with the way they usually write apps, they probably share a lot of the core stuff they're made up of. I'm sure their bug db, and the internal communication tools they have between programmers, and the content revision system they use must be integrated to some extent. Maybe it's all the one app? I have no idea.
I heard somewhere that cvs is 10 years behind it's commercial equivalent. ALso bugzilla has no strong integration with developer mailing lists or the cvs tree (but please prove I'm wrong here) so when are people like red hat, with large scale stuff going on like distros, going to have a suitable tool to make the debugging process more manageable. I wonder if the tools available now are adequate for things like distros?
Maybe the communication between developers should be integrated with the code itself somehow, so that people can have an easy way to find out about design decisions and how bits of code evolved over time.... But I ramble...
Ale
Very insightful, IMHO. I agree that someone needs to be the MS of the Linux world, so to speak. You can't really be like MS in the Linux world, since the community and development model completely prohibits that.
I wish Bob Young would realize that Red Hat is pretty much the MS of the Linux world, and just admit it.
As for having them define a standard and just have everyone else follow it, we all know that that is not a good thing. Provided the new "standard" really is technologically superior, it makes sense for other vendors to stop competing and just jump on the bandwagon. Compatibility is very important. But just because Red Hat says it's good, doesn't mean that it is. For instance, I still think this kgcc/gcc thing was a bad idea.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
This is a problem with many grass-roots efforts. It's a big problem in the OS/2 world. For instance, there are a number of OS/2-related magazines (online and print) each of which is effectively competing against the others, although the editors of these magazines will deny that. So what happens? Instead of one awesome magazine that everyone knows about, we have a handful of smaller ones all over the place and they all have weak content. It's especially frustrating when you hear the editors complain that they don't have enough time to get the issues out promptly!!! It's so stupid.
The same is true with software development. OS/2 used to have about four commercial and shareware news readers. All of them eventually ceased development because of poor sales. Well, duh! There aren't that many OS/2 users out there, and by having three competitors with almost identical products, you've effectively reduced your potential market share by 75%!!!
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
It is great to see that Bob Young is addressing these problems. It is troubling, that this problems existed in the first place. To compare RH with Microsoft would, of course, be a mistake, but to say that all that is not MS is good, would also be a mistake.
RH admitted mistakes, I think we should all take a deep breath and wait for RH to fix the problems, not address them.
-Moondog
Nothing too large to say here, however I would like to point out one thing...
/var/spool/mail/, instead of using mbox files in the user home directories.
I had problems with the IMAP server shipping with RedHat 7 after upgrading from RedHat 6.2. By being able to query the bug database, I found that my problem was not really a BUG, per se. It was the way that the IMAP server places mail (using
It would have taken an amazing amount of time to find such an issues in other OS's (and even some other Linux distros), but by RedHat having BUZILLA open to anonymous, public access, I was able to migrate user mail to the proper placed without any major hassle.
Just my 2 cents.
That's slashBot.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The Microsoft response was "Very strange. We've never seen this problem anywhere else. It must be something strange that your company is doing. This went on for weeks (if not months) until my friend talked to his counterpart at another large company that was having the same problems with recurrent file corruption.
The next time 'Dave' talked to his MS contact he mentioned that he'd been talking to this other support person.
Dave: "I was talking to X at Y company, yesterday." MS: "Ah yes, Him. I talk to him all the time"
Dave: "Oh, so you know about his problem?"
MS: {long guilty silence}.
(names withheld to protect the NDAed)
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Would it help if Red Hat released a very public beta distro prior to the actual distro? Like a "Red Hat 7 Beta" distro?
They probably have a beta posted on their FTP site, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm suggesting a much more grand release, automatic free CD's sent to customers who have purchased multiple Red Hat products, etc.
That would let these 2000+ bugs be worked on by developers before people start installing the distro on critical systems. From reading comments on RH7 the problem is not really the quantity of bugs (just over 2000 is not many, there were several times that with Windows 2000 when it came out); the problem is that several basic functions were inherently broken/altered - people had problems with *ping* and *gcc*, for crying out loud. These are not frills, they are essential to daily operations on Linux. A beta period would have captured comments from early users and supporters and (a) guided Red Hat in making decisions about what to include, and (b) given the developers time to iron out the most pressing bugs.
Obviously a beta works best with the most number of users, and a lot of people like me enjoy Red Hat but we use it mostly at work where we don't want to introduce potential problems. So you'd want the beta installed on less important systems and home/hobby systems. Perhaps Red Hat could combine this with an incentive program. For example, if you download and install the beta distro, you can run a program to register with redhat.com and your username is credited with $15 off the purchase of the full package when it comes out... or they send you a cool T-shirt or something. Whatever.
Of course "beta" packages are a huge tool of Microsoft, but in their case they use them for marketing purposes, to grab mindshare early on. It would be nice to see a company run a serious beta program with the objective of connecting with customers. This would be another way to differentiate Red Hat from Microsoft.
Just MHO.
Actually, Win 95 had a bug in the system clock that caused it to die after 45 days (integer overflow). Although a few people have heard of this, they were not drawn and quartered, and their stock price did not fall. The fact is that you have fallen for the MS marketing hype too.
Bob,
Regardless of the model, yes it works and it's great but how for the love of Linux could you box that release?
Ok now me I'm a RedHat user just because. RH6.0 with a few updates is my happy alternative home when not Windozing. I have no compelling need to get up to a more current version, so I probably won't. I really don't see myself going to RH7 though, not maybe till some time middle of next year, if at all.
Are you going to follow the MS model of shiping junk and waiting till SP(large # here) before people trust your releases to deploy critical systems on? Come on, we can do better than that!
Uptime of 3 weeks? I would hope you would at least have some test systems running that say we at least have to be able to run longer than the 49 days or so that a Windows machine would max out at before this gets RTM'd.
Bob, you've got a chance to lead here, there is no rush to release because you're afraid someone is going to be first to market with anything. You have to have some kind of quality standards if you want to be the #1 distribution. All the support engineers in the world are not enough if your released product doesn't have the big bugs shaken out.
Linus won't let 2.4 out the door till it's ready. That's why he's got the respect and confidence that you really need to get. And you can. And the community will gladly help. Get it right, show the closed shops how it's done.
Thanks,
sunking7
"a powerful and unexpected ally..."
When it happens, we'll see. What I do know is that I will not base the future of my company on closed-source technology. If not *PL, then at least source code license.
I don't care if my word processor is Open, but servers and middleware components are Open/Free and have been since 1997.
Besides, when I do develop a killer app I will release it for a simple reason: doing so makes it better.
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Stop. How can you quantify nagging bugs as less when a company (no, an industry) employs NDAs?
I've seen the future and it is Open.
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Why did people compare you to Microsoft?
.0 releases just makes you look like a dumbass.
Your boy, Eric Troan, referred to the idiocy of shipping a experimental compiler with RH 7.0 as "innovation". That's the only reason anyone needs.
My personal reason? RH 7.0 thrashed my machine -- absolutely refused to run XFree/DRI no matter what I did. At lest 6.2 worked after some massaging.
Debian 2.2 may be tougher to install, but it is obviously a higher quality product for the experienced user. They don't experiment with my machine the way you do.
Stop playing "race to market" with Suse, and start making quality releases...these stupid letters defending your low quality
I strongly urge anyone at RedHat who will listen -- DROP YOUR DISTRO AND USE DEBIAN. Add helix-gnome, and stop putting your lame logo all over the screen, and actually test something before shipping.
This is not about Sun, Microsoft, closed or open source. It's about a shabby product being defended by someone who refuses to admit they hosed the release. That does sound like MSHAFT.
We expect/demand better from RHAT -- deal with it, dumbass.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
You see this sentance fragment comes off as very cocky and self-assured. But with the proper smiley insertion:
So if you want to criticise us for shipping gcc 2.96, you have every right to do so - you'd be wrong :),
Your point comes across as the semi-joke you meant it to be.
-Zane
This sig is worse than my last.
Personally, I'ma bit disappointed with RedHat this time. Not because of GCC (though I think it was a bad idea), but because they have tended to stray from the standard. Here's my personal story:
I wrote a tool to make configuring LPRng easy. I really like it. Several other people like it too. RedHat started using LPRng in RedHat 7.0. But, while the LPRng rpms available on the company's site (as well as their tarballs) set the deafult user/group for spool directories to daemon/daemon, RedHat decided to make the default lp/lp. Sure, the change makes sense, but now I've had to patch my program to work with their new Linux release. Why didn't they just keep the original rpms? The original LPRng rpms worked fine, but RedHat's change has forced me to waste several hours working out a way to fix this. Why must they be different? If it was a major improvement, maybe I could understand it (or even a minor improvement, for that matter).
Just my $.02.
I am surprised Bob mentioned Sun as a negative example (regardless of the merits), given that Sun's contributions to the Linux world (Java, StarOffice) must be very helpful to RedHat (putting aside licensing concerns re Java).
I for one agree with Bob Young. Large scale software products alway have bugs and always will. The difference is the business model which i think in Redhat's case is heads above M$. Dot 0 releases in almost any product have general problems and it is not until the product has been put through the extensive tests of production do most of these bugs show up. If you want bug free code wait for 7.1 or 7.2. If you want a company that truly doesn't care about its customers go buy Windoze. But just quit busting on a company that is working hard to do the right thing.
--Billwashere
So, let me see if I have this straight--
A company publishes a software product riddled with bugs. Customers complain. The company's response is, "Well, look how much worse the other guy is! At least we let you see the source code!"
What compelling defense of RedHat 7.0 am I missing here?
-- He's fantastic, made of plastic....
This is true to a large degree, but glosses over a significant difference between consumer products from The Software Industry and the mass produced output in other categories. Many corporations, large and small, engage in practices that many would consider shady, unethical, or similarly negative. Company X may be exploiting workers in OtherCountry, but that's not what Joe Consumer sees. He sees a Widget from Company X that comes with a money back guarantee. Granted, if Joe isn't satisfied, he's probably not going to take the time to actually get his money back (depending on how expensive the Widget is), but he still doesn't think too badly of Company X because they have a standard practice of "customer satisfaction".
On the other side of things, Company Y in The Software Industry has wonderful internal policies and practices. The employees there get tons of benefits, etc. But the flagship product, SoftWidgets, ships with no warranties, no "customer satisfaction" policies and a "license" that often amounts to legalized censorship. If Joe Consumer is unhappy with SoftWidgets and wants it fixed, or his money back, or any sort of customer satisfaction, he's out of luck. The end result? Joe Consumer feels like he's being exploited, and paying for it.
With practices typified by Company Y being endemic for over 10 years, many people have become reactionary to dealing with any problems with software. If the normal approach to dealing with customer problems doesn't work, turn up the heat. And this is applied categorically.
In this specific case, RedHat shipped a product that made many customers unhappy. And a large number of these people are still fed up with the hostile practices of places like Company Y, so they're dealing with RedHat the same way they would deal with places like Company Y, where such tactics are the only way to get anywhere.
T. M. Pederson
"...and so the moral of the story is: Always Make Backups."
T. M. Pederson
"Lies, Damn Lies, and Documentation"
Bob, if your listening:
I completely disagree with this guy - keep up the good work. I dont think he 'gets it'. By putting 7.0 'out there' you will push the implementation of the solutions... moving us all forward -quicker-. Release early - release often. The reality is we dont even have to pay for 7.0 - we can all wait for 7.1 then buy a boxed cd. So if the 'stability' is an issue, stay @ 6.2 until 7.1 then buy yourself a box... otherwise simply make the 'features' you _need_.
Oh, and Ummm Bob, thanks for not filtering your letter through the mindless-pr-markatroid-bs department. This group can smell pr-speak a mile away, and you did the right thing by not pushing that BS on us.
Hi Lawrence, my name is Jonathan. I started using Linux with Redhat 5.0 about 2 1/2 years ago and my first installation was on a Compaq.
Welcome to our little 12-step program.
This was one of the most difficult things I have ever done with a PC; and one of the most rewarding.I agree.
I encountered the "Ll" problem and so many others that I cannot recall them all.LILO problem aside (not Red Hat's fault, but it needed to be addressed earlier than it was), how was a later non-x.0 installation?
After a while I realized that I needed to R T F M. It was an uncomfortable realization - I actually had to learn something before I could *use* this OS.R T F M, *S*. I did. And yet, I was completely unprepared for the *loads* of problems with RH6.0.
That installation took weeks. WEEKS dammit! But it finally worked. And it has gotten easier all the time.I agree. One of my boxes still runs RH6, mostly because I haven't been able to accomodate the downtime required to shut it down and reinstall everything. But, I restate: RH 6.0 was an unacceptable product; too many problems. More problems, in fact, than a 1985 Hyundai Stellar I bought for $100 as a winter beater one year. I appreciate that Red Hat works hard for our community, but I also ask that they show that by not releasing stuff that's not yet ready for the big leagues.
I value an OS that is user-installable as Redhat now is, but I learned to love Linux because I first hated so badly how little I knew about it.A well-equipped neophyte can install DOS 5.0 and up and have it work first shot. It's far from perfect, to be sure, but it works. Any Linux distro, aimed at the new Linux user (as, I would argue, anything sold in shrink-wrap at Fry's, is), should actually work first shot.
Maybe that is a distinction between a Windows user and a Linux user, maybe we are just more stubborn.Oh, in my case, that's not an issue. That's how it is that my Linux systems, even my RH6.0 system, all work now.
Our common, mostly unstated goal as a community, is to usurp Windows, right? Screw the server market; anyone with any sense is already running Linux/*BSD/UNIX there. But to get the desktop, *most* installations, especially on low to mid machines (most people I know seem to try out new operating systems on the machine collecting dust in the closet), will have to work properly, first shot. Or else users less stubborn than you and me will simply go back to Windows. That which is easy (known) is comfortable, even if it blue-screens twice a day.
Out of the gate, any Linux distribution in shrink-wrap should work out of the box significantly better than Windows or indicate prominantly on the box that it's for advanced Linux users, or we're just shooting ourselves in the foot.
I applaud Red Hat for their installation program. I boo them for the fact that when it's done, the system (RH6.0 and probably RH7.0) still doesn't work.
This is unacceptable.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Mr. Young you're talking to an askew view of the gripes being hurled at you. The sentiment is, RH implements major tool changes, such as your nominal gcc 2.96, that are way outside the logic of most Linux users. I know it bothers me when I read the GCC steering commitee's announcement chiding such a move without any =general= public disclosure as to why such a change is being implemented. Further, it irks me to read RH spokesmen try sophistry when explaing your rationale for such kinds of changes. But, what gives rise to the cake is that by the de facto influence of RH market share RH possesses great leverage in Linux policy. Thus, because I greatly like Linux, Red Hat Linux engenders no similar loyalty in me. IOW, you have the greatest market share, you have (undeniably) therefore great influence, you need to be doing *it* better than the other guy or anybody else. The 'it' is concensus -- you must be doing soemthing wrong to have a bunch of serious users ticked-off at you, accept that fact already.
Lastly, I'm a RHL6.1 user, but I have to tell you, in all sincerity, this distro has given me nothing but grief. From xterm not working properly, to being unable to mount CDs because X has started first (a very quirky bug; Deja mentions several occurences; RH Web support at last look {
I don't hate RH but I love Free Software(TM). BTW, I am surprised ni one else is mentioning this, but it is my theory that RHL ditros are released too soon (Again, I disagree with you on this point, B Young) because RH is trying to surpass SuSE as the highest release-number distro available first -- point in case, RH marketroids suceeded in the silly ommission of the dot 0 in the Official name of "Red Hat 7", the latest RH distro. Isn't that something goofy.
--
Me pican las bolas, man!
Thanks
--
Me pican las bolas, man!
Thanks
Jaco
My answer to them, Use KGCC, it's EGCS 1.1.2!
For all of you who don't believe gcc 2.96 is useful, you're dead wrong. Lots of heavy commercial shops building inhouse C++ software NEED gcc 2.96. I work at one. Our company will now make much better and faster leaps towards using linux for real corporate computing (as opposed to just sendmail/apache servers) because of gcc 2.96. And the more corps jump on the bandwagon, the more support Linux as a whole gets...
Which of course will lead people like IBM and SGI to keep turning over key technologies to the open source community, and feed the whole process.
11*43+456^2
In the interest of good open source-dness, I'd like to know how it's "wrong" to object to the presence of a compiler that's not a public release, not a stable beta, and not even considered a "stable development version" by the team that designed it. No offense intended, sir, but that's a lot to swallow, and even more to defend in front of a client or executive.
I understand innovation. I appreciate some dominant distro taking a bit of a technological leap to push the progress of the whole Linux market. That's actually a good thing, and RH has done it before in *.0 versions. I would prefer, however, that 7.1 greet my machine with a rock-solid gcc 3.0 and recompile my kernel in the process. I'd prefer that my inet superdaemon be the industry standard, Berkley's inetd, with a single config file that I can scan at a glance, instead of "xinetd" with its whole directory full of config files. I don't consider that an improvement. I'd rather the exciting new Red Hat Network daemon be, at least, a debugged product before finding out on the internet that it crashes the system after three weeks uptime. I understand improving RPM to 4.0, but making it completely backwards-incompatible is a real leap. It makes experimentation with 7 more of a wholesale leap into the deep, red fog. (BTW, thanks to RH for the cd full of apps already packaged with RPM 4, which eases the transition a LOT!)
Bugs in a *.0 are not unknown, and IT pros know better than to go mission-critical with a first releast of *any* OS. The whole business of unsupported, unfinished, unknown, unstable ingredients that forces a soup-to-nuts upgrade cycle is made even worse when the non-compatible nature of that upgrade is not (at the very least) advertised clearly beforehand. It brings to mind the two-year life cycle of MS Office 95 and all its file formats. Educated users should be equipped to make qualified decisions about upgrading from a top-notch 6.2 to a pre-release quality 7.0. How difficult does this make the job of Linux professionals who have to explain why their bosses should *not* respond immediately to the hot new release from Red Hat? Red Hat's not Microsoft, never intended to be, but the unidirectional nature of the development of key components is a big pill to swallow, especially when they're not Unix industry standard.
No offense intended, but we're not just "wrong", sir. We're concerned.
John Beamon, RHCE
-j
The legacy software industry is built on the proprietary binary-only model where not only does the user not get the source code he needs to make changes, but worse he receives the product under a license that essentially says that if you make any improvements to the technology you are using, if you solve a bug that is causing your systems to crash, or add a feature that your users or customers desperately need the vendor can have you thrown in jail. (If you don't believe me, just read any shrinkwrapped software license). This kind of business model, where the customer is completely beholden to his supplier exists in no other industry in any free market that I know of. It harks back to the old feudal systems of 12th century Europe.
This is what it is all about, folks ! The only thing to get upset, serious and exited about !
This is the forest, which you can't see for all your little quarrels about bugs, premature releases, jealousy and greediness about how much a commercialized corporation RH has become (oh, oh how naughty).
I am a somewhat older lady and my brain is starting to fall apart, but I can still see the forest, I believe.
Want to hear a joke ? I had open source code apps on my Linux box, before I even knew that software could come any other way than "open sourced". Yup. I remember very well when I opened up for the first time a Perl program file and thought it looked like a nice chinese-like wallpaper pattern. Well, my heartily unwelcomed questions I posted to my consultant, made me understand, believe me, click by click. :-)
I am the most loyal open source distro whore there is, in spring I feel like redhaddish, in summer I need slackware, in fall I cuddle up with Debian and in winter I just can't live without my SuSe-chen. C'est la vie. Chaqu'un a son plaisir. :-)
So, don't pollute the atmosphere. I want open source code companies to be successful, a lot of them, small and large, and I want to be able to read your code the way I can read chemical formulas, math formulas and study biochemistry.
I want transparency of what is going on in this technology in a way, that any person can learn about it and influence it with its own input.
I think Mr. Young has all the reasons to remind you all about it. Your in-house dirty laundery washing on a public forum like slashdot may be an honorable effort to prove your sacred freedom, but it would be quite a dumb thing, if you end up throwing out the baby with the bathtub's water.
You forget whom and what you are up against. And you have by no means won the battle. Even though open source code is IMHO an absolute necessity, so far you guys haven't found the code solution yet, which would make each copy/clone of an open source code program sellable the same way the proprietary software industry can sell their's.
Suffice to say that's all there is to it in the end. May be you all can survive on service-based open source business models only, but one needs a LOT of faith, stamina and stubborness to hold on and through with it. RH has proven and stated that they are determined to do so. Why not just be grateful for it and that's it ?
Most people don't fully understand why Microsoft is evil. It seems to me most Microsoft bashers are young techies, trying to vent their frustration at the most obvious target. I'm not arguing that Microsoft's products are good, or that the company isn't evil reincarnate. I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy. But it is most important to understand why Microsoft is evil (and the reason isn't because they make crappy software). Given this understanding, it's also much easier to see why RedHat will never become Microsoft of Linux world. The way I see it, Microsoft's products aren't targeted at the technically gifted. The programs are buggy and performs poorly. Despite the faults Microsoft's products are perfectly suited for most of their users, e.g. secretaries, middle management, pre-meds, etc.) Normal users don't mind rebooting every day or two, or having some unknown, cutting edge innovations muffled. They are happy simply having 90% of the things working 90% of the time. What makes Microsoft evil is the fact they want to perpetrate mob rule using their size. They try to corrupt open standards, stifle competition, and overall do its best to ruin the day for those of us who want rapid innovations, fierce competition, and to be at the technical edge. Microsoft was successful because they provided what the customer wanted, and now that other companies threaten to outdo Microsoft, it wants to use its size to compete, rather than the quality of their product. Now this becomes a problem for normal users and techies alike. Microsoft's actions ruin innovation that the techies crave, while at the same time keeping the prices high for normal users. However things are different with Linux, RedHat can't become a Microsoft because Linux is a GPL OSS. Unlike Microsoft RedHat cannot maintain tight control over their product. No matter what RedHat does, it is simple (relatively speaking) to create another distro of Linux, that is perfectly compatible with RedHat. No matter how big RedHat gets, they won't hold the monopolistic power held by Microsoft. Also remember that the "normal user" for RedHat is highly knowledgeably, technically savvy, unwilling to deal with the frustration of Microsoft-like bugs. So the bottom line is if RedHat makes crappy products, they'll simply go out of business, rather than dragging the industry down like Microsoft.
To abandon open source is simply not in our customers interest and hence not in Red Hat's financial interest. Abandoning Open Source would also probably force you into developing your own Unix(like) environment; something your business model couldn't withstand.
-- Hob - Java Spectrum Emulator
Um, what if the standards set by the dominant distro happen to be retarded? One of the reasons I don't use RedHat is because of the awkward standards they try to set.
Microsoft makes the dominant operating system. Shouldn't we all just use Windows?
Intel makes the dominant PC processor. Shouldn't we all just use Pentium IIIs?
Nike is the dominant producer of athletic shoes. If we oppose their labor practices, we should just sit down and keep quiet about it, because they're number one, and we should buy their shoes.
McDonald's has more fast-food restaurants than anybody else in the world. What do we need Burger King for?
Coca-Cola is king of the soft drink industry. RC Cola should just give up.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I felt people were making the comparison by the stereotype of closed source projects shipping whenever it was in the best interests of the company versus open source's historical "when it's done" ship date. I think a lot of people consider Red Hat 7 to have been knowingly shipped prematurely. I'm not saying I agree, but that is what I gleaned from the discussions that have unfolded on slashdot.
We're still with you, Bob. We believe Red Hat will stay open source and give us power to control our own software. But a lot of people felt profit was driving this release, and that's a small step down the road to the dark side.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
I agree to a certain extent. One thing that pisses me off is watching all of the duplication of effort in the Open Source Community. For example, if all of the groups out there working on accounting projects would combine forces and agree on technologies (Perl, Apache, PostgreSQL, RPM, etc.), we could soon have an Open Source, modular, scalable accounting package comparable to something like Great Plains Dynamics. If you don't agree with me, browse around sourceforge.net sometime and look at all of the groups working on similar projects. Imagine what would happen if you combined some of those projects and focused that productivity into one kickass line of Open Source applications!! Don't re-invent the wheel!!
Now... I'm not saying that RedHat should have full reign of Linux standards. However, those of you who have read the book Net Ready know that there are four pillars to success in the modern E-conomy: Leadership, Governance, Competencies, and Technologies. RedHat is providing leadership for much of the community. We should be using the Open Source model not only to support them with the other three, but also to help them with a good system of checks and balances.
Bob's got some good points, and I think we should stop beating RedHat down and instead stick out a hand to pull him back up. Face it, we're all in this together. We might as well stop pointing fingers and try some "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" instead. Then, and only then, will we truly be on our way to world domination.
Personally, I'll be installing RHL7.0 as soon as I can purchase a copy. Why purchase you may ask? Because RedHat, for all they've done for the community, deserves $29.95 of my money.
--Gunfighter
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
What they did wrong was failed to consult the gcc steering committee to get approval for a new stable so that other venders can also use it. They also failed to modify the contact numbers and emails for the compiler such that it directs problems to RedHat rather than the Gcc group. Third, they failed to roll back those changes to the C++ ABI so that their version would be able to generate code libraries which could be used across platforms. This is bad because it makes shipping C++ libraries more difficult and error prone. Some venders may only chose to ship RedHat versions and thus users of other dists are left in the cold. Also they placed the burden of handing the library problems on the free software developers such as myself without a lot of notice. I only test my software against known stable compiler versions and thus this release caused me some problems.
With all respect to Bob Young, I think that RedHat did make some mistakes. He certainly doesn't deserve the horrible Microsoft comparisons and other flames. However, on issues like shipping snapshots I don't agree with him. Summarily declaring all people who disagree are wrong with him seems quite arrogant. I think RedHat deserves to hear at least on that issue what mistakes they made and where they miscalculated.
Further, I also disagree with RedHat on the production of Inti rather than supporting the GNOME's current C++ binding, Gtk--. That like shipping a version of Gcc which is not compatible is divisive and intrusive into the workings of the Free Software community. A great many people did not see cloning an existing free product nor moving Havoc away from gtk+ development as good for the community. Obviously, RedHat felt it was in their best interests. I do hope that this situation wakes us up to the fact that what companies do is best for them and not necessarily the best for everyone. After all the point of a company is to make money. We should praise a company that does something in our best interest, and point out why we won't support them when they don't. After all it is in a companies best interest to release as little information about what they will support as possible to maintain competitive advantage. At the same time this is really against our interests as free developers such as myself have little chance to fix the bugs that shipping a snapshot compiler causes. However, flaming them like some people have choosen to do helps no one. Constructive criticism is a better approach.
--Karl
That's interesting. I find most people that bash Redhat are people that have been using Linux or BSD for a long time, way back when the kernel was in its late 1's and early 2's and before. I gave up on Redhat after 4.2, and from all reports, it's a good thing that I bailed before 5.0. RedHat has always been the leader in irritating bugs, and moronic applications that are supposed to help you administrate your box. It's the newbies that *use* Redhat because it's the biggest name in Linux right now.
Frankly, I think Redhat is giving linux something of a bad name. They're successful, sure, but their bugs always get turned into 'bugs in linux' by the press and the M$ cronies.
I'm grateful for the money that they bring in so that Alan Cox and folk like him can devote their time to the OS, but they have to do *something* about their buggy releases. I can't remember the last time anyone said 'Slackware? That buggy piece of crap? Forget it, I'm going to Redhat.'
So, to some up, I'll repeat something that my friends like to use (stolen from Something Awful):
'Use Redhat Lunix! Lunix si moar fastar!'
Generally, stuff that doesn't compile is one of three things -- the compiler (possible, but unlikely - I think there's only one confirmed this-code-is-valid-but-doesn't-compile bug), glibc (very possible -- make sure you apply the update to at least 2.1.94-3), or the code is broken with respect to the standard, and /will not compile with gcc 3.0 when it's done/. The most likely of the three, especially if c++ is involved, is the latter.
-30-
On the other hand, there are some areas where competing standards don't really hurt folks too much, given that the standard is well documented.
I do, however, like the idea of Red Hat taking charge. At worst, given the manner in which the "community" works, if the standard they attempt to implement ain't no good, it will more than likely get ignored.
----
"A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind."
Five years ago, we had the same problem, only in a different fashion. Then, the debate was over libc5 versus glibc. At that time, RedHat was seen as evil because they 'forced' everyone to use glibc with their distribution. After all the flames subsided, glibc came out on top, and the world went on its merry way.
Now, granted, this isn't exactly the same thing. GCC 2.96 isn't necessarily the best choice to maintain compatibility with anything else out there. (And that's an understatement.) But without a leader, no decisions get made.
Maybe the bigger question is, should RedHat be that leader? RedHat seems to me to be the distribution taking the bigger risks and trying to get the biggest lead to show 'how far Linux has come'. So they include patches to the kernel that aren't in anyone's tree yet - AFAIK, that hasn't been a big problem to date. They use bleeding edge software they deem to be stable - hasn't seemed to backfire yet, current issue excepted.
It just seems to me that people criticising RedHat over this decision haven't taken the time to realize RedHat's overall contribution to the community, in terms of writing software, hiring developers, and taking the lead to bring Linux to the average Joe.
If you can't stand it, there are plenty of other good distributions out there that you can use. Slackware, Debian, Mandrake, Stampede, to name a few. Just because RedHat makes a decision you do or don't agree with doesn't mean they are the final word. Plenty of other people have worked long and hard hours to bring what they wanted to the table; try their solutions out.
people not knowing about the -n switch for ping (if anyone at redhat reads this PLEASE FIX PING, what it does is unexpected and has sent many people looking for deeper problems in their netoworks)
ping -n has behaved exactly the same for 15 years on every operating system except Windows.
Tell Microsoft to fix *their* broken ping, and RTFM.
-
Engineering is all about tradeoffs. If you're designing an airplane or the power system for a hospital, you can't afford any errors under any circumstances, so you over-engineer everything and spend most of your resources on the debugging to make absolutely sure there are no bugs.
If you're writing a word processor, you don't want to lengthen your development cycle by a month to fix a problem that only affects 1 in 100000 users. You don't want to double the price of your product so you can chase down the last few bugs that causes poor formatting of certain files.
In the tradeoff between bug-fixes and cost/time, you choose based on how mission-critical an app is. You'd be crazy to use Red Hat 7 to run an airplane. But if you're running someone's desktop machine, it's just fine.
It's just not possible to iron out all bugs without astronomical cost. To make that the standard would cripple the industry and make us wait twice as long for already-delayed software. In most cases I'm willing to accept buggy software with new features. If you aren't, stick with an older version. But don't demand that the rest of us be prevented from seeing a release until all bugs are released to your satisfaction.
I trust most Slashdot readers to see through that kind of stuff.
/. readers to have half a clue...shudder
whoa. I have never seen such misplaced trust.
...trusting
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
... except that it happened in 1975. And Bill's letter read:
I don't think that calling an entire community as thieves qualifies as "disagreeing"...
In short, if Bob wants to quote Levy's Hackers, he at least should do it right!
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
I dunno . . . I'm not so keen on the idea that the dominant powers-that-be should make standards, and the rest of the world should then follow.
If there is a dominant vendor, whatever they do becomes a de facto standard. I'm not too keen on it either, but that's reality.
What I am keen on, though, is for that dominant vendor to say "Here's our product. It will become standard. Here's the source code. Copy and reimplement to your heart's content."
cut and paste dosn't count!
---
"...silence is a dangerous sound."
Okay, Bob, let's deal with this issue, then. You say that those of us that disagree with the shipment of gcc 2.96 "would be wrong". Even though the GCC Steering Committee was strongly opposed to this, and that its existance in Red Hat 7 may cause all sorts of compatibility problems.
// optimized Hamlet
I want to know -- what's the upside of 2.96?
---
question = '\FF';
--- question = 0xFF;
Including alpha components??? If you think this is the first time that RedHat or any other distribution has included an alpha-quality component, then you haven't been paying attention. Right now, I count 133 packages on my system with version numbers starting with "0."!
They included a compiler that has much better C++ support. If anything, this was done precisely to help developers, and "Joe every day windows user" will never even notice the difference. Goodness, what world are you from? Go to their FTP site. They have these things called "source RPMs". They have instructions for installing them. When you install them, you will see not only the pristine source code for the component, but also the individual patches that they apply to them. Debian is a wonderful distribution, so have fun! I certainly hope that the 2.2.17pre6 kernel that they provide doesn't give you any trouble!I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I wouldn't ever compare RedHat to microsoft. I don't particularly like RedHat's distribution, bu that's just personal taste.
I Do know that last night while hanging out on IRC there we gobs of perople having problems with things specific to redhat.
Stuff not compiling on rh7, people not knowing about the -n switch for ping (if anyone at redhat reads this PLEASE FIX PING, what it does is unexpected and has sent many people looking for deeper problems in their netoworks), and linuxconf in general munging stuff.
I applaud redhat for making a mostly easy but flexible distribution... but please try not to break things that people depend on to work (ping, gcc, etc.)
Consider that Red Hat do engage is a policy of encouraging proprietary vendors to release their software "for Red Hat Linux" offering binary products only.
This only appears correct; it's not. Red Hat engages in a policy of encouraging proprietary vendors to release their software for Red Hat Linux, yes--but I suspect they also encourage people to consider releasing the source to their software as well, if not going the full open-source route.
The real incorrectness comes from the implication, that Red Hat encourages vendors of proprietary software to only ship for Red Hat Linux. Nothing could be further from the truth. Red Hat encourages vendors to make sure that their software works with Red Hat, which is pretty sane business advice--Red Hat has an extremely large market share.
Vendors will (often) choose only to officially support one distro, because QA testing is a long and costly process. Making sure that their software also works on Debian will cost them a small fortune, and the Debian market is small in comparison to the Red Hat market.
If you want to blame anyone for contributing to the non-support of non-RH distros, blame the software vendors and not Red Hat. Red Hat only encourages vendors to support Red Hat (a policy which is as unobjectionable as it is eminently sensible); they don't encourage vendors to get locked into a Red Hat solution (a policy as objectionable as it is monopolistic).
The former is the Red Hat way of doing things; the latter is the Microsoft way of doing things.
Oh, and by the way--I run Debian, and I still like Red Hat a heck of a lot. There's an awful lot of software on my Debian system which came from Red Hat, and one of the books on my shelf is Linux Application Development, written by some Red Hat guys.
I bought the Deluxe version of Red Hat 7.0, even though I'm a Debian user, just to say "thank you" to Red Hat for the software they've contributed to my Debian system.
What's the problem here? If you don't like it, don't shop there.
Well, except that I think differential pricing is illegal. If it isn't, it is at least unethical.
And no, not everything can be solved by "if you don't like it, don't shop there". Hey, maybe I don't like the practices of Archer Daniels Midland, or Monsanto. Try and buy food that *hasn't* passed through their hands. You pretty much can't. How can you tell? You can't use that excuse against monopolies. And while there are many corporations out there, many are equally as bad as the others, so there is effectively no "choice" to be made.
It's a crime that corporations are treated as individuals under law, because in many cases they don't have to hold up to their responsibilities and are unnaccountable for their actions. Yes corporations and businesses should be allowed to exist. But it should *also* be understood that a corporate charter is a mandate given on the good graces of the hosting society, which can pull it when the corporation does not behave well.
And for the record, I sympathize with many of the Libertarian ideas, but think that "pure" libertarianism verges on irresponsibility. I believe government can and should play a positive role in providing fundamental services to citizens, if it is architected to resist corruption, and open to a real democracy. I feel the Green party, and Nader's candidacy, is the best of many worlds, by mixing some good libertarian ideas, a passion for social justice, and a good helping of civic responsibility and "daily democracy". That's why I'm voting for Nader.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad, :)
freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad,
freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad,
freedom & personal responsibility good, serfdom & tyrannical control bad
...
I installed the Inti class library [...] because the gtk library that got installed [...] is a devel one that's prone to crashing
Inti is not yet beta code. Neither is the gtk version it uses. And that's quite clear even from the packagename (gtkbeta).
Red Hat Linux 7 also includes gtk 1.2.8, which is the most stable gtk release yet, and that's the version of gtk that's used unless you want to play with experimental stuff.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
...RedHat Linux is something that his company has created/assembled - and shared with the world. Only to have some people say "you suck".
His point is that, any innovation is going to have its faults, and that they have to be worked through. RedHat publishes publishes its distro's faults to the world - something that MS and Sun do not fully disclose. That data is being used to say compare Redhat to MS and Sun - an inherently flawed concept.
Now, comparing RedHat to MS because they are trying to make money from Linux is also wrong (IMHO). RedHat gives a lot back to the Linux community - and heck, they even employ Linux geeks to do just want they want to, add to Linux and open source software.
People are too willing to throw stones at RedHat - helping them find the bugs, and correct them would be more in the spirit of Open Source, and definitely more productive.
BlackNova Traders
Doug Alcorn
Well it appears that Red Hat has been hit by the growing popularity of Linux.
/., the news groups, a web site etc. So everyone can make the changes themselves if they want. Then Red Hat might even be a leader in the community and post the info or code to their own site for users to get to. Or someone else might just find a new company that does this for them.
There was a time when this would have been a non issue. If you didn't like what the Distro contained, you'd replace it yourself. Maybe compile some source code and stick it in, or install a new binary. It would be no big deal, something everyone did to use Linux.
With the growing popularity of Linux, the user base may no longer have the time or skills or both to do this and some definitely don't have the tolerance for any need to do it. Is this a slam against users? No, just recognizing the fact that it's not just the type or kind people it used to be.
All the rants, open letters, diatribes, posts, etc, against Red Hat certainly starts to look like the reactions against Microsoft. To that degree it starts to look like Red Hat is the next MS. It's not all their fault, it's the demands of all the users. The can certainly fall into Microsoft's error of trying to be all things to all users.
This is still Linux though. Everything is still open, the code hasn't been hidden. We can still change it ourselves if we need or want to.
Why not stop all this stuff and start acting like a community of users again. Someone replace gcc 2.96. Then post the code or changes to
We can act more as a community and realize, on all sides, that this won't be the last time this happens and be better prepared to solve the problem when it arises again.
I noticed that you used the term "Slashdotter" in your letter several times. This is incorrect.
The correct term is "Slashbot".
Please take note of this in your future correspondence.
Regards,
AC
However I think that there is something in the worries expressed by many about Red Hat's decision to include a gcc that the gcc people have publicly stated is not up to the standard of an official release due to incompatibilities.
Consider that Red Hat do engage is a policy of encouraging proprietary vendors to release their software "for Red Hat Linux" offering binary products only.
Now consider what happens should one of those binary only products is compiled against Red Hat version 7.0 and the product makes use of C++ in it's development.
That product will then only work on either Red Hat 7.0 or another platform that chooses to discard the views of the GCC steering committee.
Red Hat is the biggest player in the Linux market. They control the biggest share of the biggest market for commercial Linux use and they know it. By including "GCC 2.96" in Red Hat Linux 7.0 they are creating a situation of vendor lock in for the users of any proprietary software that is released "for Red Hat Linux" and compiled on the latest version.
I am sure that this is not a deliberate policy at Red Hat - were it deliberate it would certainly suggest a certain leaning towards the position of companies like Microsoft - however the effects remain the same: vendor lock in.
For Bob to reply to such critisisms with "You're wrong" without offering any explanation suggests arrogance. That is the kind of thing one expects of Microsoft. Red Hat need to offer a better explanation than "you are wrong".
Dear Bob,
I admire your company greatly and have had very productive relationships with Red Hat and Cygnus engineers going back many years. I am a member of the GCC steering commitee. I wish you nothing but success.
However, you do have a problem with openness that you are not acknowledging. There is one sense in which your practices do resemble those of Microsoft: your practice of keeping outsiders in the dark about upcoming plans that will affect them. To be specific: your management ordered its employees, including those who were members of the GCC Steering Committee, not to discuss anything about your plans for Red Hat 7.0 with other members of the committee. Advance discussion could have led to improved quality in 7.0, better relations with the outside developers you depend on, better planning by your customers and a whole lot less anger against you.
Joe Buck
They're shipping 2 compilers because their userland compiler doesn't work
Untrue. It works almost perfectly. There is, so far, one known problem that fails to compile code that is ok (and that's currently being fixed).
It can't compile 2.2.x kernels because of bugs in the kernel code (ask Alan), that's why the two compilers are needed.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Quoted from Bob's article:
But if you don't like something about Red Hat Linux you don't have to use that feature or function.Hi Bob. My name is Lawrence Wade, and I have root on four Red Hat Linux boxes.
I'm still a relative Linux newbie. Though I was on the Internet (Arpanet) in 1988 and am therefore very familiar with UNIX heirarchy and commands, my first Red Hat Linux system was my first attempt at administering a UNIX(-like) box.
So, looking around, everyone told me how wonderful Linux is, and how light and easy on resources it is.
At the time, Red Hat 6.0 was current, and I installed it on a 486DX2-66 that I had kicking around. (Linux doesn't need much hardware, right? One would expect that the geniuses at Red Hat wouldn't expect that knowledgeable computer users are going to give a new OS a spin on their main computer, right? One would *think* then that a 486 would be a reasonable place to try out Linux.)
My first problem came when the installer detected that I had a monochrome VGA monitor, and set my text to the same color as my background. I plugged in a color monitor, and still couldn't read it. A reboot with a color monitor on, then a swap back to the monochrome monitor after booting, and the installer was still legible.
Next thing was, RedHat 6.0's installer asked me if I had PCMCIA card slots. This was a VESA-bus 486. I indicated NO.
The installation continued, and then finished. I restarted the machine:
"LI"
Stuck in the rescue disk, booted off that. Eventually found out about the LILO >1024 cylinder BIOS issue. Oops. Not Red Hat's fault, sure, but new users don't understand enough to distinguish that.
After I finally got the machine to start up, the machine hung at "Bringing up PCMCIA services". Still being a complete neophyte at the time, I had no idea how to go and kill that from the machine's startup. You'll note again that when the installer asked me if I wanted to install support for PCMCIA services, the response was probably sent to /dev/null; the installer apparently did what it wanted to, independent of my input. It took instructions about as well as my cat. With a cat, that's cute. With a computer, it's not.
Frustrated to all hell by this point, having wasted a weekend farting around, I took my RH6 disk and threw it across my home office. It landed behind a desk. Windows 95B went back onto that old, occasionally-used 486.
A few months later, I decided to get DSL internet service, and there was no way that I was going to use Windows for my gateway/firewall. So, I hit the Linux websites and got a list of supported network cards.
I rooted around under the desk, and found my RH6 disk under a dustbunny and an empty coffee cup. This time I knew that the LILO bug really only affected 486-vintage machines. I had a Pentium 133 ready to go. With 2 identical and supported ISA ethernet cards installed.
I'm not an idiot. First off, these network cards were set properly so that they didn't have any conflicts. Even Windows 95 was happy with them. Yet, every time RH6 tried to use the second card (eth1), a kernel panic happened. This continued until, in frustration, I replaced eth1 with a PCI NE-2000 card. Immediately, things worked.
After RH6.2 came out, I put it onto that machine, and then swapped back to my original matched-pair of ethernet cards. The machine worked like a million bucks, and has ever since.
So, Bob, what is this, a rant without a purpose? No.
I run Red Hat because, from the perspective of a newbie, Red Hat makes the most sense. Information is readily available. And 6.2 has been very good to me.
And while I realize that you have shareholders who will lose interest if you don't frequently bring out new releases, I'm afraid that most people, upon going through what I went through with RH6, would decide that Linux wasn't worth the trouble.
All the advocacy in the world isn't worth squat if the impressionable Windows user goes out to the local software store and buy a copy of Red Hat 7 to discover that nothing works as it should.
It undermines the Linux movement as an alternative to the scourge of Windows. And while I'm very sensitive to the fact that you have to keep your shareholders happy, discouraging new users by releasing buggy software in colorful boxes only serves to hurt Linux.
We simply are not pursing a business model that bears any resemblance to Microsoft's, so just quit it.New users don't distinguish between distributions - they don't know the difference between SuSE, Caldera, Debian, Slackware and Red Hat. To them, Linux is Linux. If Red Hat is flaky ("and golly, they're a big name!"), then *all* Linux must be flaky.
So, don't be surprised when someone falls asleep at the switch or buckles to shareholder pressure, releases a shitty version of your operating system, and Linux users all around the world start to compare you to Microsoft.
No one asks for perfection. That's simply impossible. But even Windows 95 Upgrade was more stable, reliable and functional than RH6. If RH7 is anywhere near as bad as I'm led to believe it is from here, let the comparisons begin.
I run RH 6.2. I like RH 6.2. I look forward to when your firm releases 7.2; until then, I won't be upgrading any systems. And I'll keep on burning CD copies of 6.2 for my friends, with the explanation that Red Hat bowed to shareholder pressure and released 7.0 before getting it to work properly. <sigh> Sounds just like any product Microsoft has ever released.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I understand your frustration with this scenario - many of these bugs are not with your code but with others, but there appears to be frustration all around. I applaud you for publishing your errors and fixing them, as well. However, there are certain things I can't abide by.
I'll give you a personal example of what's griping me. I installed the Inti class library because I was looking for a decent object oriented framework under which to develop Linux/GNOME apps. I can't even compile a basic tutorial program with it, because the gtk library that got installed with RedHat 7.0 is a devel one that's prone to crashing, deprecation problems, etc. The error message advised me to go and get a different version of the GTK in order to compile a basic "Hello World" style program.
I'd understand it if I found a complex bug. Really, I would. But what I found was something anyone could have found by taking a blank machine, installing RH7.0 and then trying to compile a program that RedHat has on its website as a tutorial.
A packaged, paid-for distribution is NOT the place for devel code, for alpha code, use at your own risk code, strange new worlds of compilers that can't even build the kernel, etc. Make that an option if you wish.
The best way to continue in your business is to get out of the CD world entirely - except to publish one on ISO and at nominal cost as a baseline, and then have a subscription-based service whereby when I log on to my RedHat machine I'm advised of new developments and offers to upgrade given packages.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Ok, This Is gonna get a lot of people pissed off. In My opinion Red Hat Is doing the right thing by taking charge. They might end up looking like the new microsoft of the linux world, but someone needs to. The standards that the dominant linux distro makes should be followed. I've made comments before about netscape giving in to IE's standards. Why Not? This would make everything a lot easier for the rest of the world. But Oh Well, Just My opinion.
Btw, Make A Reply to this, i really want to know other people's opinions.
I have found that those who bash Red Hat the most are often newcomers to Linux who have maybe been part of the community for a year or perhaps even less. I am a bit confused about why they do this, perhaps they think Red Hat bashing is cool. I have been using Linux since 1994 and I think Red Hat is a great company! They pay people like Havoc Pennington to work fulltime on GTK 2.0, Alan Cox to hack on the kernel and many many other. Also, since when does Slashdot represent the community? Most people here don't contribute anything, the core community has always and still consists of the various mailing lists (the kernel, debian, mandrake, redhat and many other lists). Just MHO.
It's always nice to see an open letter, and even nice to see that Red Hat are actually watching the flow of conversation on Slashdot.
When something goes wrong, it's so usual for someone to sit around and say 'not my fault', that it's nice for someone to sit down and honestly say 'We may have made a mistake, perhaps.. But we made decisions we believed to be right, and you're quite at liberty to disagree..', and actually take the time to read the arguments against, and weigh them up.
I guess there's no progression without controversy and dissent over the paths to follow, and somebody has to spark controversy.
Maybe I speak just for myself, maybe for many, but thanks Bob, for paying attention to what we have to say, and for letting us know that you are, indeed listening to our many voices.
Cheers,
Malk
Well, there is a lot here to digest, both in terms of what Mr. Young wrote, and in terms of the larger debate about RedHat. Personally though, I feel that there is, in fact, a lot of paranoia in the Open Source Community - and rightly so, for we effectively LOST our community back in the early 80's. So here we are, in fear of RedHat becoming another Microsoft, or at the very least, a Sun (which I find to be an infinitely more likely situation, and a totally different debate altogether). Well, I can say in all honesty that I have used RedHat's products before, and I have kept up with all the various claims against them - and as a Debian user, I can say that I believe RedHat has done NOTHING to deserve the kind of claims against them that people have levied against them.
Now, this issue is moot in my mind - Young, in effect, seems to be feeding the trolls more than anything else here. No one who had actually researched this debate would claim RedHat to be acting like Microsoft. Again, as a Debian user, I feel that there is a hell of a lot WRONG with RedHat's distro - for ME. This more of a personal taste though - and don't anyone dare tell me that Debian hasn't had it's share of crippling bugs.
In the end, this is all just incredibly silly for me, and I have finally made my decision about RedHat. RedHat is a company, like SuSE and the Turbolinux guys... they are selling a product. RedHat has supported it's product admirably, and though it isn't in my decision the product that I want to use, that doesn't mean that when something goes wrong we should all point our fingers and scream "REDHAT IS BECOMING MICROSOFT!!!" RedHat, as a company, had done a great deal of work for the Linux community and for the acceptance of Linux in places that in turn have made Linux a better OS (IBM, Dell, etc...). So I think we should back off and turn down our flamethrowers here - if you want to criticize RedHat, fine, but at least find a good reason.
Know ye not that ye are Gods???
Most of the criticism of RedHat seems to be coming from college students with a selective dislike for what they see as large, successful businesses. I say "selective" because these same critics also fawn all over corporately produced mass market products, like Mountain Dew, The Simpsons, and anything Star Wars related.
One great thing about Linux distributions is competition. Don't like RedHat? Buy SuSE or Turbo or Corel or Stampede or Debian or one of several others. If you want to jump on corporations, then there are some pharmaceutical companies and food processing companies that really need public vehement public criticism of their practices. But don't bother pointing the same kind of fire at RedHat.
From: bob@redhat.com
Dear Slashdotter,
"it appears that you're trying to write an Open Letter. Would you like some help in choosing defensive words and phrases?"
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."