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Red Hat CEO Szulik on Linux Distro Consolidation

Posted by Hemos on from the from-your-first-drawing-breath-to-your-last-dying-day dept.

Rob writes "Red Hat's CEO has rejected the idea that a reduction in the number of Linux distributions would be good for the industry, and described Novell's acquisition of SUSE Linux as "theatre". There are over 300 distributions listed on DistroWatch.com, but Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat's CEO, Matthew Szulik, maintained that choice and specialization outweighed any advantage that might be gained by focusing customer attention on a smaller number of offerings. He was particularly disdainful of acquiring other distributions for the sake of protecting or expanding market share. "We have zero ambition to do that," he said. "I think when people approach the problem with an eye on consolidation it destroys the idea of natural selection.""

4 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Consolidation is a good thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    How many versions of Windows XP are there? Really just two, Home Edition and Professional Edition. How many versions of Linux 2.6 are there? According to that article, around 300. It is way, way too complicated for regular people.

    Maybe Linux needs to start following the Highlander quote: "There can be only one" and start having all of these competitors duel off, with the good features from each winner taken and evolved into Uber Linux, so that there can just be one version to focus on and get people to understand.

    And since my posts always seem to get modded as trolls no matter what I say, if you Linux people don't get off your mighty high horse and look at what could get people to migrate from Windows to Linux, it will never happen. I don't care if it is Ubuntu, or Suze, or Red Hat, or whatever. Just have one damn version and make the damn thing work for the latest technology, make it fast, and make it easy to understand for even the dumbest american.

    Please!

    1. Re:Consolidation is a good thing by oob · · Score: 0, Troll

      I don't care if it is Ubuntu, or Suze, or Red Hat, or whatever. Just have one damn version and make the damn thing work for the latest technology, make it fast, and make it easy to understand for even the dumbest american.

      George Bush won't shift until the golf video game he plays is ported. Could we go with the second dumbest?

    2. Re:Consolidation is a good thing by mrchaotica · · Score: 1, Troll

      I do care if average people start migrating to Linux, because I like what I'm using. The problem is that, considering patents and Treacherous Computing, if Microsoft maintains its marketshare it'll be in a good position to kill Free Software by (indirectly) making it illegal. I say indirectly because they wouldn't make the GPL illegal, but they would mandate Treacherous Computing, which means there would be no way to run anything you compiled yourself (e.g. unsigned code).

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  2. Troll's a bit harsh don't you think? by Slashcrap · · Score: 0, Troll

    I think modding the parent "Troll" is a little harsh don't you? I thought it was quite funny.

    I know you Americans tend to be a bit sensitive about your president, but you really shouldn't. I think it reflects well on the American people that they are so confidently in favour of equality that they can demonstrate it be electing a retard as their leader. What other country would have the balls to do that?