Slashdot Mirror
Ask Robert Young
Yes, that Bob Young. The one who helped endow online information resource ibiblio.org, but is better known for his role as co-founder and Chairman of Red Hat. Ask him anything you want, but please hold it down to one question per post. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated inquiries to Bob (who is in England this week), and he'll send back his answers just as soon as he can.
So, what's your second favorite distribution?
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Q: How do you see these acquisitions as helping Red Hat and its position in the market?
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
What was the most important decision for Red Hat, through its history, apart from deciding to IPO? Was there a particular partnership, hire, technical call or anything else which defined the future for Red Hat?
Hiya Bob!
The venerable Richard Stallman has a habit of saying that all software should be free -- he is therefor not interested in making Free Software too interoperable with Commercial, Closed-Source software.
On the other had, the also venerable Linus Torvalds has an opposite view; that free software has it's place and that non-free software also has place, and that all efforts should be made to make them co-exist.
Since you have on foot in each world, as it were, what are your feelings on this? Should Free and Open source software be expected to "play nice" with software from various Evil Empires? Or should it concentrate only on relation with other like software projects, and require the commercial world adapt to cooperating with Free software?
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Bob,
We had an Ask Slashdot a few days ago wondering whether a recession will help Linux or not. Since you're the CEO of RedHat, you probably have a better idea as to what effect a recession will have on RedHat and Linux. So, do you think you will gain more market share during a recession than you would otherwise?
With MacOSX arriving as a desktop Unix (more or less) backed by a known, (sometimes) respected name, do you consider Apple to be a serious competitor, the same as Microsoft? Would Red Hat ever consider a PPC release to try and steer people away from MacOSX? Or, instead, do you think Apple will remain largely a niche player, but one that adds weight to the all-purpose viability of Unix?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Bob, since you are England this week, what can you do to guarantee the sovereignty of Sealand?
Do you think the plethora of distributions hurts Linux as a whole? And do you view alternate distributions as competitors?
I'd like some insight on how the decision is made to include something in Red Hat Linux, how quickly to roll in new releases of software, etc.
For example, I've seen pre-releases of KDE get included and updated in rawhide (and I believe in actual Red Hat releases) rather often, but even the individual GNOME components are almost never updated until well after a full stable release is announced. There are other examples, but that's the main one that comes to mind.
There also still seems to be a lot of 0.x version software in Red Hat to this day. So, I'm just curious how you make these technical decisions are made.
RedHat has the biggest name recognition of all the Linux distributions. To many non-tech types Linux == RedHat. And you are now breaking even, yet despite that RedHat's stock went from $80 a share to less than $5 and there doesn't seem to be a sign of that turning around.
What do you say to people who ask why they should invest in RedHat? Also, as a high-tech company I'm sure employees got stock options, how are they dealing with the crash in share prices and how do you convince them their options are still worth something?
Recently we've seen several worms attacking vulnerabilities in the default install of Red Hat Linux. What is being done to make the default installation more newbie-friendly from a security point of view? The average desktop user probably doesn't want or need BIND, do they?
--
--
E_NOSIG
Yesterday on Slashdot we got responses from an interview of MS exec Doug Miller and he touched upon some areas of Linux that caused a lot of debate and discussion in the forum. My question to you is, would you skim through the Doug's reponses and provide us with your counterarguments or comments?
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
As a packager of some products, I have encountered the difficulty that is present packaging for RPM.
First, a small rant. The primary "ideal" source of information for how to package rpm's is of course the book "Maximum RPM".
However, this book is not available online in html format. It is however available in postscript which is easily read in X windows on a redhat machine.
However, *some* of us dont use X windows, and for us select few, we cant view it. I have however, converted it from that format to text, losing much of the styling and formatting.
In the spirit of open source, dont you feel that it is completely BACKWARDS to have a open source tool, where the documentation that allows developers to package using it is proprietary, non-open, and subject to licensing restrictions?!!?
The man page doesnt even *mention* half the creation commandline options, and I think that was on purpose.
Compunding the issue is the fact that the book has not been updated in years, let alone since the coming of rpm4!
As a developer, I would love to hear why you dont want me to package using your system. The reasons outlined above lead me to that conclusion.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
If openpackages becomes a defacto standard for *BSD, would your company consider switching from RPM to it, in order to allow the holy grail of "one package for all free/open (definition may vary) systems" ?
This of course presuming that upon reaching that status, it has features that are comparable or better than rpm. (Which the current FreeBSD ports/pkg system CERTAINLY has acheived -- wouldnt you agree?)
Further, have you considered switching to the apt-get/deb system? It is the number one reason most people seem to switch to debian, and in every way I know of seems to be superior technically to rpm.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Unfortunately, most hardware vendors support Microsoft because MS has the largest share of the market and they know it will pay to support MS with drivers.
Linux is not in that state, save for (perhaps) networking devices. Has RedHat considered helping to fund driver development for other forms of hardware? I'm thinking mostly of 3D accelerated video cards (by helping to fund the DRI group), but other items (scanners, USB->IDE interfaces, etc.) would be nice too.
www.eFax.com are spammers
In the recent interview with Doug Miller, he spoke of, or implied, that the lack of a standardized desktop could be keeping commercial developers from creating Linux applications. Do you think it's possible, or desirable, to come up with an 'official' desktop for Linux? If so, what do you feel is the best way to go about it?
Lots of Linux distributions (Mandrake-Linux is an example) have started from a version of RedHat and then added their own features and applications. This is, of course, the benefit of open source software. I'd like do know whether RedHat too has benefited from that by putting some of these enhencements back into RedHat distributions. If so, can you give the most important examples?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
This is the same question I asked Doug Miller of Microsoft:
When Compaq (later followed by others) loosened the GoldenRing from IBM's grasp by reverse engineering theirproprietary bios, theOpen Hardware PC platform revolution was ignited.Motherboards, memory, adapter cards, etc... could be made byanybody; hardwareinnovation increased at a rapid pace, and prices plummeted.
That left only two proprietary pieces atop the Open HardwarePC: the Intel CPU and the Microsoft OS.
Intel's been losing ground, especially with clone maker AMD(but, AMD still has to pay Intel royalties for every cloneprocessor).
The OS, though, has proven tough to emulate. Not only doesit reach the pinnacle of complexity (where chaos kicks in),but any emulatormust chase Microsoft's tail: the emulation will be worthlesscome Microsoft's next OS patch (i.e. the DRDOS settlement).
In Judge Jackson's findings in the Microsoft Antitrust case, he concluded that Linux is not positioned to overtake Windows, because it isn't Windows compatible.People won't switch because of the training costs and potential for incompatibility with their existing data.
Personally, I believe Open Source is a software revolution, just on a different tangent from the average user. In order to win over the average user: they don't just need a great desktop, they need full Windows compatibility.
How will Open Source lure the average user from Windows?
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
How do you feel about the fact that Red Hat Linux was 'the womb' of what would now have to be considerer one of the strongest Linux distros for the desktop, and a major competitior to Red Hat on the desktop with it's claimed "99% Red Hat compatibility"?
Bob-- Given the way the tech market in general and the Linux market in particular have gone over the past year, Red Hat, as the brand leader, is clearly in the catbird seat. In order to give Linux the credibility and reach it deserves, there need to be more end-user applications, and application software vendors want standards. Microsoft is a standard by its sheer dominance; Java is a standard by Sun's grace, but Linux has the opportunity to be a much more open standard. What do you think of the current direction of the Linux Standards Base and where do you see Red Hat fitting in?
DaBuddha
What is your view on the Microsoft .NET and its impact on Linux in general and RedHat in particular?
For example, we Linux users have a choice of either KDE or Gnome for a desktop. We have a choice of prompts, choice of window managers, choice of MANY different things. For the tech-head, this is great. Freedom in development is great. Though, for the average, ever-elusive novice Linux user, this freedom to choose is complicated and can be very confusing.
How is Red Hat planning on this interoperability/easy user experience without pigeon-holeing(sp?) themselves into one market or another, or splintering into sub-distributions?
thelocust[dot]org
What are, if any, Redhat's plans for the enterprise desktop? Has there been any consideration towards working with Ximian?
-= jester =-
What is your reaction to this comment, and do you think the current Open Source business model works? Does it need to be changed?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
How do you see free-software companies like RedHat staying viable in an increasingly dot-com-hostile economy, when their main product can be obtained for free?
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
Doug Miller, a Microsoft executive, was recently interviewed for Slashdot. Many of the questions posed were regarding the competitiveness of Linux with Windows in the medium-term. To paraphrase, Rob said that there was no viable business model based on Linux, that the lack of standardization (ie. KDE v. Gnome) would be enough of an economic disincentive to commercial application developers to prevent them from venturing into the market.
On the face of it, he seems to have a point. What do you think? Does Linux need to be herded down the path towards a super-majority recognized 'standard' to be successful, or can the type of open-source movement to date provide enough tools and applications to drive Linux to dominance?
Milo
Bob, if you had a non-technical friend or relative who currently uses Windows, Quicken, Office, IE and AOL, could you in good conscience tell him it would be in his best interest to use Linux instead? What exactly would be in it for him?
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Do you think that laws such as the DMCA pose a threat to open source software, in that they may lead to the creation of proprietary, encrypted file formats, running only on proprietary operating systems, for media such as films, music and books?
Will you stick with the GNOME environment to feature "killer apps" like Nautilus and Evolution or will you ever switch to KDE now that anti-aliasing support and similar heavy-hitting apps are available, not to mention the GPL'ing of Qt? Do you feel Red Hat made the right choice to go with GNOME?
What do you think of cnnfn.com's recent "Top Ten Tech Stocks to Avoid" article that mentions Red Hat as one of them?
Will we ever see a SPARC platform release of Red Hat again? Red Hat implied that there just wasn't enough customer demand. As someone who has used it, I have to admit - I kind of miss it, especially now that the 2.4 kernel and many heavy advancements have been made to things like GNOME and XFree86, etc.
As a shareholder of both Red Hat and Microsoft, among others, it has been gratifying to me to see Red Hat doing so well in becoming profitable.
My question is, where do you see the profitable areas of Linux as being for Red Hat (or other distros)? Is it embedded systems more than servers, or info appliances? And has the introduction of major players such as IBM into the Linux R&D space been a help or a hindrance to Linux growth?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Let's be optimistic and assume that RedHat will achieve profitability through its support services for businesses running RedHat Linux.
Would it then make sense for RedHat to use some of its resources to help intensify the struggle towards desktop-readiness for Linux?
It seems to me that would be a good thing to do, since it could help expand the RedHat user community, ergo the customer base for RedHat's services... especially if Linux could become a viable desktop OS for larger enterprises, in which case RedHat, as the leading distro brand, would probably get the lion's share of support contracts.
Do you see this happening? Why or why not?
thanx.
- frosty
www.medienkunst.com
This Like That - fun with words!
A pimp. How appropriate. In other words, a guy who makes a profit by selling something that most people could get for free with a little effort.
A lot of CEO's spend a lot of their time trying to "work deals"--partnerships, big contracts, co-branding, etc. A lot of these deals produce nothing, or next to it. But some of these deals are spectacular successes that propel a company into the stratosphere (on more than just paper).
What do you think RedHat's "dream deal" would be?
--
324006