Red Hat Lays Groundwork for Fedora Foundation
rob writes " Computer Business Review is reporting that Red Hat has announced plans to hand over control of its Fedora community-led Linux development project to the new Fedora Foundation as part of a new three-pronged intellectual property strategy. "
seems like a dupe: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/ 1712208&tid=110&tid=106
What isn't clear to me is: does Fedora become a Linux distro on its own? If so, what is the official RedHat distro then? Would that move to (non-free) Enterprise versions then?
see a Text Widget
Finally a competitor for Debian, or is it just to much for Red Hat to keep investing in a release for users.
Not that Debian is a pure user release, but at least it is completely assembled by them.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
News for the amnesiac. Stuff that mattered.
Come on guys, not only is this a "dupe", it's a dupe from only this weekend.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Redhat still trying to figure out how to lure the opensource community back.
What I really want to know is will MPlayer ever be an official Fedora Extra package? I know the answer as long as Red Hat controls it is "No, there are patents and other questionably legal stuff in MPlayer". However, other distros like Debian ship it (anyone else like to comment on others like Gentoo?). However, with this change separating it from Red Hat is it possible that Extras could get some of these "Rogue" packages?
Personally, I think the answer is a solid "maybe".
Trolls scare it...
... seems to be an unusual ammount of them lately. Wonder what's going on?
Shadus
Wasn't Fedora Core 4 supposed to be released today and taken out of beta?
Is this so that they can release their paid-for version and still fullfill their obligations under the GPL at less cost?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/ 1712208&tid=110&tid=106
it's your abilities as a Linux admin that suck. The open source OS community doesn't want you, reinstall Windows now, or buy a Mac.
1) Do something.
2) ???
3) Profit!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Maybe it's because there are plenty of people like me who love Gnome. It's innovative, it works and looks great, too.
1. Post a story from some other web site. 2. Post it again a day or two later. 3. ...
4. Profit!
1) No unification in package management. RPM is flawed (hi dependancy hell), and YUM is only a bandaid on the solution. DEB is great, but only debian based distributions support it. Windows may have multiple companies doing install programs, but at least they're all doing mostly the same thing. /etc, which is good) and what it's named (HAHAHAHA, good luck). Or if you know exactly where the configuration utilites are on your computer (most likely in a console, and most likely named this really long name in a really obscure directory that you'll never remember when you need to)
2) The reliance of many people on "source only". Please. I don't want to download ten million different libraries and go through the hastle, however small you may argue it is, to build from source. I want to download this piece of software, install it, and get on with my life.
3) Alt-Tab. I don't care how yuo do it, but I want to be able to alt tab from a full screen graphical program to another graphical screen (not a console).
4) Drivers. There isn't much that can be done about this, but unless you're masachistic, you're basically forced to use an nVidia video card to get accelerated X. I want my piece of shit Intel EXTREME onboard graphics card to run accelerated X too.
5) GTK themes vs. KDE themes. I don't care if you like programing with GTK 2/+ or with QT libraries, but would it kill you to figure out some easy way to make the actual windows look somewhat similar? I have my awesome theme for KDE, I don't want to do some stupid hack that doesn't work 100% or wait for the author to convert the same theme to GNOME to get my graphical programs to display the same. Oh, and on a side note, can you please figure out why KDE's sound system is so terrible. I do not want to wait a few minutes for KDE to let go of the sound system so I can fucking start Neverwinter Nights.
6) man pages. Explain the contents of a man page for a basic command to a casual user. If he is utterly confused, rewrite it. At least group the fuctions into 'most used' and 'never use in a million years'
7) Configuration. It's easy if you know exactly where in the mess of configuration files on your system a certain file is (usually
8) Cockyness of it's fans. No, I don't have a reason to switch, other than curiosity. Granted, Microsoft zealots are just as bad, and have less well founded opinions, but that doesn't mean free software zealots are right, just a tiny bit less idiodic.
9) Documentation. The really easy to do stuff seems to be well documented and on every single Linux help site. And a UNIX or Linux pro is certainly a good help. But the step between basic end user and power user seems to be vast, and it's only gotten a little smaller over the years (thank god 90% of my hardware is finally being detected these days at least). Something like the Linux Wiki at LinuxQuestions.org, except on a much larger scale and more all-encompasing would be VERY useful. Even if I've been wrong a few above points (and yes, I've used Linux recently) can you people please update your god damned documentation so I don't have to have these misconceptions.
I do consider myself truely free. I owe my alligence to no one, and I've been on both sides of the fence, and made up my mind that XP better suited my needs than Linux did. That doesn't mean that Linux is bad, or Windows XP is perfect either.
Rather then posting on this topic, let's all do a virtual "sit-in" and just not respond to this posting! :)
No, his abilities as a Windows 98 admin are 1337.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
*sigh* Sorry about that. It's http://scientificlinux.org. --M
Because companies making expensive propriety apps (Oracle et al) prefer people to be using gnome so they don't have to license qt. And people who are buying to run such apps are redhat's core market. Someone who's spending $5000 on their database prog is more likely to be willing to pay $2000 for their OS, especially if it's the only one being officially supported by makers of said expensive OS. By using gnome redhat encourages Oracle etc. not to support other linux distros.
I am trolling
How can you call it innovative when the sole purpose of its existence is to provide a replacement for KDE? Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good things about gnome, and you should use it if you like them, but being innovative isn't one of them.
I am trolling
refactoring! And at least I'm refactoring myself ;)
As an addition, KDE's guts start and run just fine for most KDE based apps while in Gnome and they run their little windows full of goodness just perfectly. I even have various KDE based things start up at logon to Gnome. Not sure what the muss and fuss are other than KDE has superior controls over the desktop and some neat special effects.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
The problem is gnome distros are so rabidly anti-kde, often refusing to ship it until enough pressure is put on them by people who actually try and use their computers. You don't get it in the other direction. Gnome spreading fud about qt licensing 4 years on is one reason, but it can't be the only thing, can it?
I am trolling
Redhat has really screwed up with their ever changing strategy concerning their OS. They decide to ditch out on providing a free version of RH for none enterprise people. Then ditched out on supporting older versions and instead tell people to use the fedoralegacy project for security updates. Then the fedoralegacy project pretty much goes belly up. I have switched all my servers over to Debian and the last hold out will be switched when the current project ships in mid-summer.
The _best_ 3D pr0n -> http://www.hookup3d.com
However, that doesn't mean that I'm dead set against this split. I just want to be able to count on Red Hat sticking the best and most stable things that come up in the Fedora world into Red Hat. I also don't want to see a skill forking here where the two diverge so much that they become totally different distros and require doubling my learning load.
I'm happy with FC3 as is, a lot of neat stuff still hasn't been ported from FC2 (./configure, make, make install, lather, rinse, repeat, nope no luck), and now FC4 is on the verge of official dump into the clutches of the users. If this makes things better without making it all less stable and more wonky, then fine.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Oh, man. I was going to let this pass, but... man. You're just plain wrong. Licensing QT is nothing for even a small company, let alone Oracle. Face it, it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis - if the cost of supporting KDE was less than they money they could make by supporting it, they'd do it. Simple as that.
As it stands, though, Oracle and other major companies are not at all interested in choosing sides between KDE and Gnome. What they're interested in is choosing which distributions they will run on. The desktop environment is almost completely irrelevant to them. It was RedHat that choose to use Gnome as a default environment. IIRC, this was more of a political decision than anything else - no complaints on my part, mind you: I like both Gnome and KDE. But to imply that RedHat choose Gnome over KDE just because Oracle and other companies wanted to save a few grand is all-out wrong.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Besides, Oracle's GUI tools are purely Java-based (even for Windows). It's got nothing to do with which desktop environment, as long as Java Swing runs.
Who cares fedora sucks anyway.
Redhat still trying to figure out how to lure the opensource community back.
Are you talking about the open source community that includes people like Alan Cox, Ingo Molnar, Havoc Pennington, and Owen Taylor? It never left.
Are you part of a new, anti-RedHat OSS community? What have you written?
> Because companies making expensive propriety
> apps (Oracle et al) prefer people to be using
> gnome so they don't have to license qt.
I think, If companies like Nokia or Google are able to donate $50.000 to the GNOME foundation that these companies have no issues paying QT licenses either. 50k means 33.33 QT licenses and probably they would got even more licenses for the same amount of money.
Yeah its in portage (as is its horrible firefox / mozilla plugin, mplayerplug-in)
I don't think this is true. Generally I think Redhat chooses Gnome because they feel that the future is in higher level languages and since Gnomes object model is written in C it can be altered to match the needs of high level languages such as Python java C# etc. C++ on the other hand does not have this flexibility. The GCJ implementors chose the route of using the C++ object model and its not been a resounding success people are not writing C++ java objects in general.
Someone! Please give this guy a cluebat!
continuing to provide updates to legacy redhat/fedora systems since their inception, then I guess you are right.
Yes, they had their problems in the beginning, but that hardly constitutes going "belly up."
I very much doubt that. Qt's python bindings are superb and have been for a long time, while the gtk ones are only recently getting up to scratch. Now with C# gnome is ahead, but redhat went to gnome far before all the fuss about mono. I don't think it's that
I am trolling
I'm sure this is a contributing factor to this dupe since the /. Editors aren't able to do their exhaustive searches for dupes that they normally do, plus I'm sure they are busy fixing the broken search functionality ... ;-)
I think this move by Red Hat is trying to lock-out free-as-in-beer Linux.
Before I get modded down:
-Red Hat will continue to contribute to Linux.
-Red Hat will still promote most things good for Linux as in patents and other IP issues.
I think they are becoming as proprietary as possible. For example, they recently open-sourced the Fedora Directory Project. http://directory.fedora.redhat.com/wiki/Main_Page
I (boldly/foolishly) predict the administration tools won't get open-sourced. Because there is way more value (to PHB's) in delivering point-and-click GUI admin than just foo.conf admin. That there might really be IP issues will be the official reason for keeping it proprietary.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
GNOME is ahead of what ? The entire architecture is a bloddy mess and fixing it would require huge code refactoring or major rewrite. I know what I am talking here since I spent a couple of years with GNOME and hacking.
You're right. The reason is probably because Red Hat didn't want to be bound to Qt and Trolltech is my guess.
Gnome is ahead when it comes to C# support, that's all.
I am trolling
Inclusion in Portage doesn't have to be based on legal issues, as its not considered 'shipping' a program. Any ebuild in Portage is just the script telling you how to install the program, not the program itself. It's like providing you the hyperlink to mplayer's website, but not including it on your cd.
As far as I can tell, mplayer is not included in the GRP list, so it is NOT shipped with Gentoo. The ebuild is there for you to run if you want to install it later, but it isn't shipped with Gentoo.
Because it costs too much money to support two desktops.
Most (smart) distro's try to only officially 'support' one app. only firefox, only xine, only OOffice. If someone thinks K office is better then its still there but most of that development was done by a KDEish distro. and if someone on SUSe thinks gedit is better most of that work comes from RedHat guys. see how it works? we don't have to do aggressive development on every application included in the OS. they do the aggressive development in the direction they want to go, but include the apps other shops are aggressivly developing.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
What's wrong with the plugin? It rocks. Allows me to see all the important parts of the semantic web.
As a company, it serves its own best interests. It has always been honorable in doing so.
You will not find Red Hat "stealing" OSS code, compiling it into proprietary work, and not telling anybody. You won't find them attempting to "extend" open code with proprietary extensions without releasing those extensions, too.
They pay for a good, healthy staff of developers that work almost solely on GPL and otherwise released code. They release source binaries as though all their stuff was GPL, even with projects that are BSD-ish licensed.
It's not that difficult to take their source RPMs and create your own "Enterprise Linux", as done by Scientific Linux, Cent O/S, and (my favorite) Whitebox Linux.
I don't like that they don't support good old "RedHat Linux" like they used to, but as a company, RedHat has been nothing but good for the community. If you choose to have a hissy, then enjoy your hissy, and move on to Debian/Gentoo/LFS/Ubuntu/Mandrake/Whatever/YALD (Yet Another Linux Distro) to your heart's content.
But, I see no sign that RedHat is doing anything evil at all.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
When reading the headline, was I the only one who completed it as "Redhat Lays Groundwork for Fedora Foundation ... at the other end of the galaxy"? Oh. Guess not.
Bitter and proud of it.
Wrong. you've never worked for a small/medium size company have you?
If you're producing an app then as a developer you have to fight for *Every* penny that gets spent. That means if you have the choice of using GTK for $0 or QT for $500 (or whatever it costs) you'll use GTK. Not because it's too expensive, but because the pain of justifying the expense is too great, will take about a month and cause you to miss your deadline.
(example: At one job we had 5 developers working for 2 weeks to track down a memory leak that boundschecker could have found in about an hour. We'd already spent 6 months trying to justify the cost of devpartner and it had been thrown out again... companies have a strange view of costs - by my reckoning that one bug cost them $50,000 out of the developer (or 'resources') budget but spending $1000 out of the software budget was too much... different line in the spreadsheet).
First - the discussion wasn't about me or my work history; it was about whether or not Oracle's desire to save a few bucks per developer was the reason that RedHat went with Gnome over KDE. I don't know if you consider Oracle to be a "small/medium sized company"; I certainly don't.
Second - yes, I have worked for small companies my entire adult life (modulo a short stint in the US Navy.) The largest company I've ever worked for consisted of less than 250 people. I have never had a problem getting the tools I needed to do a good job; whether those were compilers, product libraries, source control systems, defect tracking systems, debuggers, memory profilers, licensing protection libraries, automated test tools, or what have you. The whole purpose of my employment, in every case, was to make money for the company. If you can show that investing $2000 per developer per year in some random development library (like QT) is likely to shave 10-12 developer-months off of a project, for example, it doesn't take a whole lot of selling to convince someone that those kind of tools are an advantage.
Maybe I'm just lucky, and every single one of the last four companies I've worked for has been unusual. Honestly, though, I don't think so. Getting approval for something in a smaller company is easier than getting approval in a large company - it certainly doesn't "take about a month and cause you to miss your deadline", as you say. There is usually just one or two people (owner/CEO/CTO) that you need to convince about the worthiness of an expenditure. If you're prepared to make a case, and can clearly demonstrate how something will be of value, then you can get a yes or no answer from a decent CTO in less than an hour. If he says no, then drop it. If he says yes, the two of you will probably spend 10 minutes getting a yes or no from the CEO. If you can't manage all of that and get a yes/no answer and budget approval in less than 2 days time for a tool you're already familiar with, then there's something wrong...
...and there it is. If you're being told that spending $1,000 to save the company $50,000 is impossible because it would put you overbudget in some category, someone in the company is a fool who doesn't understand the value of money - and it doesn't sound like you.
If you take a great deal of pride in your work, you may want to quit and find someplace where they're able to hire managers that can understand complex statements like "50 is larger than 1". On the other hand, if a job's a job is a job to you, you might want to shrug and continue sucking money out of them as long as you can, taking solace in the idea that you're at least managing to contain those infected with "bumbling idiot manager disease", keeping them safely quarantined within your current company.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
But the gnome distros often don't even include KDE. Major gnome distros: Redhat/Fedora, Sun JDS, Ubuntu, possibly Debian. JDS still doesn't include KDE, Redhat didn't for a while until their users insisted, Ubuntu similar. (Way back, Debian didn't. It was dependent on non-free Qt but surely they could have put it in contrib. Anyway, water under the bridge now). Major kde distros: Mandrake/Mandriva, SUSE, possibly Slackware (I'm leaving livecds out of this). While pat has grumbled and they may not officially support it, all of them include gnome if you want to install it.
I am trolling
GNOME *may* owe its existence to being a replacement for KDE.
But...
- It draws "better" Less pixels refreshed, which means its better remoted than KDE.
- Its object model is CORBA. More widely supported.
- Just my opinion, but it just looks better.
- Easily locked down desktops
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Corba is less widely supported overall, because it has to be specifically included, so far from all applications within gnome support it. DCOP gets added to actions with zero effort from developers, with the result that even if they're all within KDE, overall there's more applications using DCOP than CORBA. And since both are moving to standardised DBUS it won't make much difference canyway.
How can you say that? It's so horribly bland. You can change the theme, but there aren't any good ones that ship with gnome, leaving you relying on look that may become unavailable with the next version if the author can't be bothered to port it. KDE gives you the choice of about five genuinely different widget looks in its startup wizard, there's something to suit most tastes.
Really? I haven't seen much fuss made about that, wheras kde's kiosk has had a lot of work and big deployments in German museums.
I am trolling