Red Hat Co-Founder Bob Young Resigns

Anonymous Coward's Cousin writes "Yahoo news is reporting that Red Hat co-founder Bob Young has resigned from the board. From the article: 'In a funny way, my resignation is perhaps the finest compliment I can pay to everyone associated with Red Hat today, I have complete confidence in the future of the company'"

Comments

Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[Debian Troll's Best]

The resignation of Bob Young is both surprising and saddening. Bob has arguably been one of the key figures responsible for the rise of Linux in corporate settings, complementing the technical nous of people like Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, with an innovative and daring business model. The deep penetration of Linux into massive corporate entities such as IBM probably would not have happened as rapidly as it did without the pioneering advocacy work of Red Hat Inc, and Bob Young.

However, Bob's record hasn't been free of the odd black mark. Competition between the various Linux vendors for lucrative support contracts and bundling deals has often brought out the claws. For example, in 1999, a small group of anonymous users started posting extensively to the Debian discussion groups, claiming that Bruce Perens and Ian Murdoch actually used RPM on their Debian boxes to perform package administration, instead of apt-get, (which they also claimed was contaminated with IP belonging to an un-named x86 Unix vendor). The whole aim was to discredit these high profile individuals and have them forcibly removed from the Debian project. However, the whole scam backfired about 2 weeks later when the Debian list server admin revealed that the offending posts had originated from Red Hat's own network, and in fact were being sent directly from Bob Young's personal workstation, where he had concocted an apt-get driven script which automatically spammed the Debian mailing lists with pro-RPM FUD. Bob later admitted his part in the scheme in a Linux World interview in 2002, admitting that he had used a modified apt-get to "install packages of anti-Perens propaganda on the Debian mailing list server", and quoting "the superior ability of apt-get to deal with flamebait and troll dependencies over our own RPM tool". That particular story had a happy ending for the Debian commnunity fortunately, as Bruce Perens went on to have a highly successful career at HP, working as a LInux advocate.

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are still my hero.

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[ratpack91]

I have to applaud you for getting +4 out of the mods. Well done. Half of all mods have below average IQ. It shows.

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[Anonymous Coward]

Score:5, Informative

Hahahahahah. Come on mods, at least read past the first paragraph. ;-)

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[lobsterGun]

Bravo Sir!

This post is pure genius.

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[MerlinTheGreen]

Google says:

Your search - "superior ability of apt-get to deal with flamebait" - did not match any documents.

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously the parent post is trolling. Why are the mods allowing this with +5?

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[Mr. Underbridge]

Obviously the parent post is trolling. Why are the mods allowing this with +5?

Two possible reasons:

1) They choose to reward a fantastic troll with positive karma.

2) They're morons

Re:Bob Young a corporate Linux pioneer

[Anonymous Coward]

Courtesy of your reply, it does now!

RedHat == Linux

[ReformedExCon]

I don't think there is another "pure" Linux vendor that has done more for making Linux a household name than RedHat. Their smart partnerships with OEMs and computer manufacturers has been invaluable to the Linux movement. In a very real sense, without RedHat, there wouldn't be a strong Linux movement now.

Bob has been behind much of this, though it is hardly something that one man can lay full claim to. Going forward, hopefully RedHat keeps it together and continues to generate Linux buzz.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[strider44]

RedHat == Linux as much as Dell == Microsoft. In other words they're totally different even if they share good relations.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Lisandro]

I always had this love/hate relationship with RedHat... on one hand, their Linux distributions (besides tech support, which is excellent) always gave me problems; specially when compared to other more "modern" distros. RPM is a big culprit of this, i might add - you don't fully get how ugly that packaging system is until you try something better, IMHO (apt-get and Portage comes to mind). I haven't tried a RedHat distro since the RedHat/Fedora "split" though, i heard they got a lot better.

    But, like you said, Linux wouldn't be what it is today without RedHat. Not only they made Linux a viable alternative for buisnesses (and homes), but they actively contributed to a number of OSS proyects, all the way back to when Linux wasn't the buzzword it is today. We Linux users (and OSS users aswell) owe a lot to RedHat, and yes, Bob Young has been behind much of it. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours... and hope RedHat does well.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[leonmergen]

Don't forget that if Redhat wasn't there, someone else would've done it... sure, Redhat is the one who has done it, but in my opinion, there's no doubt that if Redhat wasn't there, someone else would've stepped up and pioneered with it...

Re:RedHat == Linux

[BladeMelbourne]

RPM is a package format (equivalent to DEB).

apt-get is a package download/install tool that resolves dependencies. apt-get is not better than RPM... they can't really be compared because they serve very different purposes.

As a Fedora user, I use apt-get, yum, yumex, up2date and synaptic (mainly the last two). I haven't had "RPM hell" since about RedHat 7-8.

If you get the opportunity - give a modern RH based distro a go. Good steps have been made.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

(...)

RPM is a big culprit of this, i might add - you don't fully get how ugly that packaging system is until you try something better, IMHO (apt-get and Portage comes to mind). This is such a load of crap !

RPM is a package standard, just as DEB is.

apt-get is a package manager that resolves dependencies automatically when you install a given package. Yes, it is good. And yes, it came before any RPM equivalent. But there have been equivalents FOR YEARS in the RPM world. Never tried urpmi from Mandrake/Mandriva ? SUSE and Connectiva also have similar programs.

And Portage is also a package manager to resolve dependencies. And it now uses RPMs instead of their previous custom package, IIRC.

So Pleease, stop talking about thinks you have no idea about.

Stephane

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Lisandro]

I was talking about the package system as a whole, not the tool nor the package format, excuse me if i wasn't clear. RPM (and RedHat, by extension) used to be notorious for circular dependencies issues. I suffered them myself, back in the RH7 days (7.2, to be precise), and even came across packages that simply wouldn't work at all, even if the dependencies were correctly installed.

    I moved to Debian for a while, and when Gentoo came out, settled for it. Never had a package installing issue ever since. But yes, i've heard RedHat got a lot better in that aspect... i'll surely try it when i get the chance!

Re:RedHat == Linux

[poptix_work]

People who complain about "circular dependencies" issues are only showing what fools they are.

Of course some packages are going to rely on each other to be installed, this is why rpm lets you install *more than one package at a time*.

What would *your* solution be? Tossing a bunch of different software packages together into one package, just because they require each other?

Linux distributions have enough problems without persons like yourself spreading FUD just because *you* failed to RTFM.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Lisandro]

No, my solution is a modern package manager - which calculates the complete dependencies tree of a package and installs them in one sweep, even downloading if necessary. I did read the manual, and suffered the trial & error process of installing RPM packages back then. RPM package tools have improved since, thank God.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Codename_V]

Both up2date and Red Carpet have been around quite a while. Certainly since the Red Hat 7.x days. What you're doing is roughly equivalent to complaining about dependencies on debian, yet using dpkg to install things. Or since you mention Gentoo, on which it would be sort of like installing tarballs by hand. Oh well, another Red Hat story and the rpm dependency hell pops up. Who would have guessed?

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I like being a man and not having some "dependancy manager" decide what I can and cannot install. I have way fewer problems because of it. I just install what I need. Done.

Slackware: It's Desktop Linux, Bitch!

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Pecisk]

Yes, this is something I can easily agree with. RedHat was my very first distro, when I didn't know absolutely nothing about Linux, or GNU, or whatever. And I abadoned it just because of rpm "suckness" and total unstability of RedHat 7. But RPM was quite a troble. My next distro was Mandrake, however, so I can't claim that I just left rpm for good :) Last years I have used Debian and Gentoo all the way.

However, after years when I hadn't touched RedHat for ages, I installed RedHat 9, I was quite surprised. Yes, rpm depency hell still was there, but in overall, RedHat had very polished and profesional look. And when I have drop eye glances to Fedora, it seems follow the same way, and many friends of mine uses it. So it should be good.

And yes, I hail RedHat for it's truely profesional support, countless contributions to free software, and be an excelent example of how Linux company can be very successful. I think RedHat success also did good push for Mandrakesoft (now Mandriva) to come out from bankruptcy, because as far as I remember, it was the same time when RedHat first announced that they ended quater without loss, and that they started to earn money. After that, Mandrake woke up from ashes, estabilished theirselves and now again rocking Eiropean market.

So...what's up for Novell? How this market will change? It will be very interesting, and I hope we won't see any heavy bankruptcy - t.i., that Linux market will grow.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[indifferent children]

This should be a warning to companies (and OSS software teams): if you make a bad product, it's reputation can be a millstone around your neck long after your problems have been fixed. Do not give in to the temptation to rush a piece of crap out the door, hoping to fix it later.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[sydb]

That seems a bit stupid. If two packages are mutually dependent, why they hell are they not just *one* package?

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Tellalian]

Does Dell maintain a customized Windows distribution or contribute code to Microsoft? No? Well, Redhat *does* maintain its own Linux distribution and contribute code. Perhaps the association is more relavant than you think.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[stoborrobots]

Does Dell maintain a customized Windows distribution...

Isn't that what they ship me on the CD which comes with my shiny new Dell machine?

They change the theme, and the screensaver, and the backdrop... and maybe include some custom apps... oh, and they choose some drivers to include. And they package it all with their custom installer... And then they change all the support links to point to Dell.com instead of Microsoft.com... Sounds like a custom distro to me...

Re:RedHat == Linux

[gmack]

If you do that you end up with larger packages where smaller ones would have been better.

Suddenly you can't upgrade one without downloading both.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Strog]

What Windows OEMs consider "branding" doesn't really amount to a "new" distro. Even if they use a custom installer, it's still the same binaries, file layout, libraries, Windows Updates, etc. with some wallpapers/screensavers/etc. thrown in.

With a Linux distro you could have totally different kernel revisions with any number of custom patches/tweaks/etc., different file system layouts, compiled on different compilers, different libraries, package management, etc.

I realize that some people have just added wallpapers, screensavers, etc. and called it a new distro but I don't give that much credence if they don't do any more than that.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Shakes268]

I'm sure I'm just stating the obvious here but Dell is a PC and PC Server manufacturer. They use an OEM version of Microsoft's Windows which includes some hardware specific things as well as some of their own software installed. However, they do not have a truly custom version of Windows as Microsoft's codebase is, as we all know, locked down. Redhat is in contrast a software company. It maintains a specific flavor of Linux that it uses for monetary gain through sales and software support. Linux/Redhat may be free but Redhat has to make money somehow. Their software is their revenue stream. Dell's is hardware. The two are VERY different and to believe they are the same, as much as you'd like to, is incorrect.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, that's the biggest bestest blog in the whole wide world !!

Re:RedHat == Linux

[alcmaeon]

"making Linux a household name"

LOL! Generally the phrase "houshold name" is used to mean something everyone knows, not to mean something known by residents of the geek household subset of the set of all households.

I would venture to guess that far more people know Linus (the thumb-sucking kid with the blanket from the Peanuts strip) than know Linux (the kludgy, open source operating system with the penguin mascot).

Re:RedHat == Linux

[sydb]

Why would smaller ones have been better? Wouldn't it be better to remove the mutual dependency by restructuring the packages?

I would love to know a real-world example backing up your position. My position is amply supported by the normal "one-way" dependency of packages containing executables to packages containing shared libraries. It makes sense because many executable packages depend on the one shared library package, thus there is a high probability that you already have a required chunk of code installed for any particular executable package you might choose. This is a reasonable level of complexity, achieving a widely beneficial objective.

Suddenly splitting one piece of software into two chunks (which are useless on their own), to form mutually dependent packages, in order to save bandwidth in the case that one chunk changes but does not require a change in the other, is an unreasonable level of complexity, achieving a corner-case objective.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[gmack]

It's more complex for the package manager but that doesn't matter anymore since more modern package managers handle those cases without problem. It's also more maintainable that way since now you can have two maintainers for it instead of just one.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[KenSeymour]

So should each application package include all the files of the version of the runtime library it was tested with?

Should you have 200 versions of the runtime library, one for each application?

How about the same thing for GTK, GNOME, Qt and KDE libraries?

If every binary package was statically linked, we would not have all these package dependencies.
You might run out of memory with 200 copies of these libraries all taking up space.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[joeslugg]

This isn't meant as a flame, since I agree with your general idea of taking a new look to see what's improved. But if the parent meant what I think he meant, then I think "rpm" and "apt-get" can be compared. Back when I used a .rpm based distro, I was routinely typing "rpm -Uvh," this and "rpm -e," that. This was before "yum" and some of the others were mainstream. A .rpm format can be compared to a .deb format - that I'll agree with.

But my other annoyance with rpm (whether it was the tool or the format or both at fault - I'm not sure) was handling major upgrades. And this has been written about plenty online, so I won't start a war. But for me, it was enough of an annoyance to have me try a .deb based distro and I have yet to look back. Today I'm using Ubuntu, and just last week I did a full upgrade from Hoary to Breezy in one swift stroke. I was never able to do that with RedHat or with Mandrake or any other .rpm based distro I was using. I always had to backup all my important pieces of data laying about, do a clean re-install, and then rebuild my world.

Has rpm et. al. improved to the point of eliminating these annoyances? Last I checked (and admittedly it's been a couple of years or so) they hadn't. Let me know if I'm mistaken, and if so I very well might take a new look at Fedora or Mandriva or Suse/Novell.

In a vain attempt to stay somewhat on topic here, let me just say that I was a big RedHat user for years, going back to release 4 or so. I remember reading articles about Bob and the other RedHat starters and having a lot of respect for what they were building. I remember watching as they IPO'd. And for some people indeed RedHat == Linux. It's the brand they've built that's so strong. It's the same reason that for some, Cuisinart == Food Processor, or Frigidaire == Refrigerator, or Coke == soda pop.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Matt Perry]

RPM (and RedHat, by extension) used to be notorious for circular dependencies issues.

You mean that the myth was notorious. In reality there wasn't any issue as long as you used RedHat's RPMs for your distro. The problem that you speak of is not because of the format but because of who packaged the RPM. The article that you linked to even talks about that (downloading some random RPM off of someone's site). It's caused by a lack of experience on the part of the package creator. You can create a circular dependency in any packaging system, including DEBs. There was some discussion on the debian mailing lists recently about circular dependecies.

The solution is simple: Don't install any RPMs that aren't from your vendor. Compile everything else from source or create your own package. The advantage that Debian has was that there were just so many packages already pre-compiled and packaged. Gentoo seems to get around the problem by compiling at installation therefore being able to customize for what is on the system.

I'm not using RedHat anymore, but I still consider RPM to be the best packaging format because it keeps a lot of useful metadata about the files. For example, I can run rpm -V perl to test the perl package for problems. It'll verify the size, MD5 checksum, permissions, type, owner and group of each file in the package and let me know if anything is out of place. Having this function has saved my ass once. I haven't found anything like that in Debian yet. According to Gentoo's docs, "Portage will not check if the package you want to remove is required by another package." I wouldn't even call that package management.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[digitect]

This is exactly what Fedora's yum does. Has for a few years now.

RPM dependency resolution issues only came about because users would --force install packages that screwed up library version numbers. From then on further packages would get confused about what versions were installed on the system and you get what you deserve for trying to bypass the built-in check: instability.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[sydb]

No, that's not what I'm saying.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[sydb]

Go on, give me a real world example and I might be convinced. As it stands I'm not.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Tellalian]

If you consider minor tweaks to the screensaver and browser bookmarks as constituting a "distro", then I suppose you're right. However, when someone says Redhat==Linux, they're most likely referring to Redhat's substantial code contributions to Linux and open source software. Based on that, Redhat is hardly analogous to Dell.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Suicyco]

That is a stupid comparison. Redhat is hugely responsible for linux, paying many of the core people on many of the projects associated with linux. Dell does not pay MS employees to hack the kernel.

Can you name any other distro's which are on approved vendor lists in most major corporations?

To corporate America at least, Redhat == Linux. Redhat is what you purchase when you go buy "Linux". Redhat provides support for Linux. It is the reason Linux is so well funded and able to grow. Not Mandrake, Gentoo, Suse, Debian, etc. etc.

How can you say they "are totally different even if they share good relations" when they are one and the same for most intents and purposes in big business. You obviously don't use linux in a corporate environment.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"Can you name any other distro's which are on approved vendor lists in most major corporations?"

Can you please tell me how this does any good to open source developers or open source users?

All I know about Red Hat is that it is more and more difficult to edit a single config file with each version of their distribution, and that it is more and more difficult to insure their "supported hardware" it is not through privative binary only drivers which, of course, will be abandoned in too few years (and me abandoned at the same time, also).

Red Hat is a good example on modern succesfull IT-related companies, but I can't manage to see it as a relevent open source player anymore no matter how many open source developers wages' it pays.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Suicyco]

Huh? Having an officially blessed version of Linux that is buyable buy corporate users advances OSS by leaps and bounds. It means there are COMPANIES and want to USE open source products.

Just because you have religious squibbles with a distro means nothing. Try getting a good paying job as a linux admin without knowing Redhat. Good luck.

Redhat is the defacto standard of mainstream (hence profitable and accepted) linux distro's. Like it or not.

What do you think makes a relevant open source player? Someone who DOESN'T get open source products in widespread use in corporate data centers?

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think "rpm" and "apt-get" can be compared"

No they can't. As you say, you *think* it, well... you are wrong.

You can compare rpm and dpkg; they both are package managers. You can compare up2date with yum or apt-get, they all are dependency managers, but you can't compare rpm and apt-get, so different beasts they are.

"it was enough of an annoyance to have me try a .deb based distro and I have yet to look back"

I feel you just don't fully understand what you are talking about. You remember me those who say Windows is *so* superior, since it recognizes all my hardware, without knowing the difference about what's due to the OS and what comes from the manufacturer's commitment to this or that OS.

All problems your are talking about regarding "rpm based distros" don't came from the fact they used the rpm package format, just the same all advantages you apreciate on deb based distros haven't not too much to do with the fact they use the deb package format.

"Has rpm et. al. improved to the point of eliminating these annoyances?"

Again, it has NOTHING to do with the package format at use. rpm and deb packages are so similar feature-wise all you say comes just from the careness and relative goals each distribution has in mind.

It is not at all Deb vs RPM; all your different experiencies come from the quite different Red Hat-like WayOfDoingThings vs the DebianWayOfDoingThings.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Tellalian]

If you consider minor tweaks to the screensaver and browser bookmarks as
constituting a "distro", then I suppose you're right. However, when
someone says Redhat==Linux, they're most likely referring to more than simple cosmetic changes. Redhat's given back to the community, made substantial code contributions to Linux and funded many open source projects. Obviously, both companies deal with operating systems, but any deeper comparison would be likening apples to oranges.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[stoborrobots]

To be honest, I totally agree that Dell-branded Windows installations do not constitute "distros"...

However, things like CentOS, which is a re-compilation of upstream Redhat sources with changed logos, and Knoppix, which is a custom-install of debian, with changed logos and a different configuration-script, get counted as "distros"...

In the context of the parent discussion, though, the point was that people think Dell and Microsoft are the same thing is because Dell ships Dell-branded Windows installations, just the same as people think Redhat and Linux are the same think because Redhat ships Redhat-branded Linux installations.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[stoborrobots]

Their software is their revenue stream. Dell's is hardware. The two are VERY different and to believe they are the same, as much as you'd like to, is incorrect.

The point I was making is not that Dell sells software, or even that Dell re-writes Windows...

It's that Dell ships what looks like a customised version of Windows to the end-user (which is really just Microsoft Windows + custom drivers + branded screensaver/logos + custom software). To the end user, Dell makes "Dell's version of Windows".

The point was to assert the Redhat : Linux :: Dell : Microsoft comparison...

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Lord Kestrel]

Portage uses what is known as ebuilds. You can think of them as much evolved .spec files. One of the things the ebuild does is point at the source_uri, which is where to get the files involved in building whatever package you're trying to install. For the most part, those are tarballs of the source, in order to extract, compile and install said package. Sometimes though, there are binary-only packages which are distributed in RPM format, so the source_uri points at an RPM. However, rpm2targz is used upon these, so saying that Portage relies upon RPM files is like saying Windows relies upon Zip files. Software may be distributed in that format, but it's just a wrapper to get to the juicy insides.

Re:RedHat == Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

"It means there are COMPANIES and want to USE open source products."

Good for them, no doubt! Am I owner of a company? No, I am not, so that's not of my interest.

"Just because you have religious squibbles with a distro means nothing"

Surely, you didn't read my post did you? I told about two VERY precise and contrastable things, nothing about "religious squibbling": it is not first time I've been cought by Red Hat using "closed source" kernel modules in order to support some hardware (like SATA RAID cards, for instance), and it is not the first time I've been cought by Red Hat and its policy about "outsmart" systems administrators (quite ala Microsoft) with ofuscated "templatable" and/or "autogenerated at boot-time" config files.

"Redhat is the defacto standard of mainstream (hence profitable and accepted) linux distro's. Like it or not."

Who said I didn't know Redhat is quite a profitable company, me? No: "me" was the one that said "Red Hat is a good example on modern succesfull IT-related companies".

"What do you think makes a relevant open source player?"

One that makes life easier and palatable to open source developers and system administrators, of course. And Red Hat goes every day more and more far away from that goal.

"Someone who DOESN'T get open source products in widespread use in corporate data centers?"

Good for corporate data centers. Am I a "corporate data center"? No I'm not, so that's, again, not my problem.

You seem to be kind of "ombudsman" for companies and corporations, do you? Good news, then: they are quite able to protect themselves without your help, so you can now rest a bit.

Unpopular department

[Xiroth]

lvl-50-ceo-lfg Who'd want to quest with someone who's going to take all the loot?

Re:Unpopular department

[patio11]

When you've just aggroed Microsoft, who is level 500 and has an Area of Effect: Death spell that it can cast on an entire industry every couple of seconds, perhaps someone clad in an all-purple Penguin Suit doesn't look so bad.

To anyone who says this comment is nerdy: consider where you are. Glass houses, stones, etc.

Re:Unpopular department

[FidelCatsro]

So does this make Ballmer a lvl 500 ,Chaotic Evil ,Ork ,Barbarian .(I wish there was a Gorilla race) .
His feats include
1:Barrel throw ,
2:Developer dance (Dance around like a prat and call a wave of Developers to stampede the enemy) ,
3:War cry '(Intimidate the enemy with a war cry of ""I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it
again,"")
4:Immature Prat (Act like a total tit and say ""I'm going to fucking kill Google."")

His armour and weaponry
Helmet , MS-helm of +4 Developers
Armour , +5 plate mail of Anti-trust avoidance
Left hand weapon , +5 Axe of Google fucking kill
Right hand Weapon , +8 club of fucking bury

Re:Unpopular department

[TrappedByMyself]

Wow, do I sense a nerd generation gap?

+5? +5 to what? ;)

Re:Unpopular department

[FidelCatsro]

GFK (Google fucking kill) Is a spell that lowers the intelligence of the wielder and gives you a +5 bonus to your bullshit skill .
Anti trust avoidance is an ability gained that allows you to use money to pay off officials whilst avoiding Charges for bribery

For the first bit I had to go with the new fangled 3.5 rule-set .. which i browsed over , I don't think I have actually played DnD for 15 years or so . My memory could be rusty.

Re:Unpopular department

[roach2002]

Did you mean

"Helmet , MS-helm of +4 Developers, Developers, Developers!" ?

Man that guy makes me laugh.

Re:Unpopular department

[Spy der Mann]

Armour , +5 plate mail of Anti-trust avoidance

Except in Nebraska!

Re:Unpopular department

[TrappedByMyself]

The original posters were strictly speaking in World of Warcraft terms, you chimed back with D&D type stats. The generation gap comment was to note a possible misinterpretation of the comments based on generation. An older person (35+) may see the WoW stats and think D&D. Vice-versa for the younger crowd.

My '+5' comment was a 'joke' meaning that while a +5 modifier to D&D equipment usually has an obvious meaning, to WoW equipment it does not. Must be +5 strength, defense, or whatever.

I'm old enough to have played D&D heavily (when it was more popular), but young enough to have played WoW heavily too (no family yet)

I think the extended explanation is just to justify to myself that what I said made sense ;)

Re:Unpopular department

[FidelCatsro]

It was one of those jokes that works on many many levels ... 1-50 only with a wide breadth of experience would you have got it on all .

Re:Unpopular department

[magpi3]

Sounds like this is a good time to link to this class from the Onion.

Re:Unpopular department

[ToasterofDOOM]

Dude he is loaded!

Tux gets the call of the wild (simply yells 'LINUX, HO!') and immediately all self respecting nerds in the surrounding territory rally behind him, whilst bickering about petty thing amongst themselves enough to drive anyone mad. (and absorb mana too once you reach level III!)

Re:Unpopular department

[oneg1n]

that dep. name is class! was a big laugh over here.
thumbs up!

Saw it coming a mile off.

[stevo3232]

One of my local LUGgers works for Bob Young on the side at the football team he owns (he runs the tech stuff like the website and broadcasting), the Hamilton Tiger Cats, and he said he could definitly see Bob resigning. He's been jumbling about too much stuff lately and he really isn't paying attention to redhat or linux at all very much recently. I think possibly running the Tiger Cats and just wanting to relax for a bit are greater reasons for Bob's resignment than going off to work on this other .com thing. He's really been quite busy as of late though and he hasn't made it out to the local linux user's group meeting in over a year now so I'm pretty sure he's done with linux for a while now. Ah well, maybe he can come out to more of my local lug meetings now! :)

--stevo32 (Stephen Clement)

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[i_should_be_working]

Ah well, maybe he can come out to more of my local lug meetings now! :)

Maybe he can do something about those 3-12 Tigercats now!

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[Anonymous Coward]

there's a LUG in hamilton?

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[PMoonlite]

he came out to the TriLug meeting in Raleigh in september. he made it sound like he was pretty much an honorary member of the board filled with brighter business people, which is no doubt just him being humble, but nevertheless this isn't a surprise.

btw, i think what he's doing with lulu is fairly interesting stuff.

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[willisbueller]

We got Jesse Lumsden now. All will be good. Plus, Bob Young has brought the people back to the game. I love heading downtown to watch the cats play now... even if they aren't so hot this season (or 2 seasons ago). I believe it'll only get better. I have nothing but respect for Bob Young, he has done a great service for Hamilton.

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ti-cats suck! go bombers!

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[Anonymous Coward]

. I think possibly running the Tiger Cats and just wanting to relax for a bit -

Yes, from Red Hat to the Tiger Cats. That's the reason.

Owning a CFL team isnt that hard. Hell most of them dont even live in the same country.
THe most stable team the past decaded have been the Als and their owner comes just for a few games.
You have a team president, governor, GM and a slew of vice-this and that in between. The owner has very little to do. And please dont talk about the business side as a great sacrifice. Its a 2 million dollar salary cap. You take out the pizza joint owner and the used car lot owner to lunch and thats it.

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which LUG is this in Hamilton? I've had a hard time tracking them down. Do they have a web site? (I also live in Hamilton)

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[Ron Harwood]

I said that? Hmm... I don't recall... :/

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[Ron Harwood]

Yes, we have a site..

Re:Saw it coming a mile off.

[rider_prider]

There are only two kinds of people, those who are already 'rider fans, and those who are soon to be 'rider fans!! Real Men Eat Wheat!!! GO RIDERS http://www.riderville.com/

Show of faith.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have complete confidence in the future of the company'""

So when's Ballmer resigning?

Re:Show of faith.

[Neo-Rio-101]

This is something I could never understand about Bill Gates.

He's the richest man in the world, and then he has to go and get married and live in a house which the Thunderbirds would be proud of! Sheer madness!
Man, if I were him, I'd take all that loot and go find myself a nice island to buy.

Re:Show of faith.

[dwater]

> and live in a house which the Thunderbirds would be proud of! Sheer madness!
> Man, if I were him, I'd take all that loot and go find myself a nice island to buy.

Eh? The Thunderbirds did live on an island - Tracey Island, IIRC.

Re:Show of faith.

[Anonymous Coward]

<sarcasm>The only thing people with money want is more money</sarcasm>

Re:Show of faith.

[Valafar]

I thought about this myself. Near as I can tell, with Gates (Balmer, et. al) It's not about money. It's like a competitive sport. They enjoy the rush of killing the competition. If it were about the money, they could have walked years ago.

It's unforutnate that more people don't do this; The question is: When is enough, enough? As a business man, you should make your 20 or 50 million and then step aside and let someone else have a go. Unfortunately, the same mentality that motivates these people to make 20 or 50 million is the same mentality that keeps them from letting it go. It's really like a sick game of "King of the hill" (minus the propane).

Re:Show of faith.

[dave at hostwerks]

And of course, propane accessories.

Re:Show of faith.

[joshuaobrien]

Ballmer's not resigning, that's why Red Hat's future is assured.

I have complete confidence in the future of the..

[zegebbers]

company, and the value of my shares.

Re:Old old old

[strider44]

It is interesting though that people are complaining that a web site has news a full day late. Shows the effects that the internet has had on communication (as well as expectations of levels of communication).

Re:Part of the plan...

[Bastian]

Red Hat has always charged for the core of their business, which was providing fully-supported Linux systems to business-class customers. I'm not sure dropping the free-as-in-beer version of their OS really counts as the beginning of their charging customers for service.

Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Thank you all for everything. Now if you'll excuse me, I have just realized I am now very rich, so I'm going to go drink for 32 years."

no one cracked this joke yet?

[dithi]

rpm -e BobYoung.rpm

Re:no one cracked this joke yet?

[MoneyMan]

Damnit, you made Dew shoot out my nose!

Re:no one cracked this joke yet?

[quadrocerebra]

"rpm -e BobYoung.rpm" cannot remove BobYoung.rpm --BobYoung.rpm is required by redhat.rpm --BobYoung.rpm is required by fedora.rpm

Re:no one cracked this joke yet?

[hdparm]

Your take on it is not technically correct - just the package name uninstalls it.

Re:no one cracked this joke yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

bling% rpm -e BobYoung
(hangs)
^C

bling% rpm -qa | grep BobYoung
BobYoung-1.0

bling% rpm --rebuilddb
DB ERROR: glorp multiplexer has been frozzled, check frap matrix

bling% rm /var/lib/rpm/__db*
bling%

bling% rpm --rebuilddb
DB ERROR: really important files totally fucked
(hangs)
^C

bling% rpm --eat-flaming-death
DB ERROR: bring it on baby, bring it on

bling% rm -rf `rpm -ql BobYoung`
bling%

bling% wget http://gentoo.org/latest.iso
.................

Re:no one cracked this joke yet?

[Neo-Rio-101]

# rpm -e BobYoung.rpm error: package BobYoung.rpm is not installed

Re:no one cracked this joke yet?

[Phoe6]

that should give:
error:package BobYoung.rpm not installed.
Correct one should be,
rpm -e BobYoung.
btw, that was filthy poor joke. Whoever modded you up, deserves to be killed.

Re:no one cracked this joke yet?

[TheSpoom]

I like how it ends.

Here is the Press Release on RHAT's Website

[linumax]

Bob Young to Resign From Red Hat Board

Re:Here is the Press Release on RHAT's Website

[hdparm]

What's your point - karma? The article is exact cut and paste of that press release.

Re:Here is the Press Release on RHAT's Website

[LiquidCoooled]

If every article from every news site was confirmed true and there was never any lies or half truths published then I would have no problem with your comment.

However, in todays society its always better to have complete 100% confirmed sources for news articles. News from the horses mouth is a hell of a lot better than crappy cut and paste from god knows where.

If somebody comes up with the original source then its to the benefit of everyone - let the lad have his karma.

Game of chicken, anyone?

[Rahga]

I imagine there's a great big hottub somewhere out there...

[sun] Schwartz: Weez be so much betta than youse, man.

[rhat] Young: First they mock you, then they tease you, then they flirt with you, then I win. Or something.

[msft] Balmer: Dude, has anyone seen my shaving cream?

Young: Tell you what... I bet you ain't got the cahones to walk away and let your company do its thing. Sun would fall apart at the seams.

Schwartz: Booyshaykaya. Youse first.

Young: Okie Dokie.

Balmer: Google must die.


It all went downhill from there.

Re:Game of chicken, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope the new meds stabilize soon.

Re:Game of chicken, anyone?

[itchy92]

Why does Schwartz talk like Ali G? Although, admittedly, it does make for a funny transcription...

He saw the signs

[pchan-]

The math is simple and the handwriting is on the wall. No, Netcraft does not confirm this, but Bob figured out that hard drives double in size about every two years. A base Redhat install doubles in size every 9 months. It will be less than 6 years before a Redhat desktop install requires 512 gigs, and shortly after that, the requirements will surpass the largest drives available on the market. He's escaped, and will slowly sell off his stock, take the money and walk way.

Also, I hear he runs Slackware now.

The scary thing

[poofyhairguy82]

The scary thing is that for many people Dell=Microsoft. I mean, it says Microsoft when you boot your Dell, they must be the same thing right? Just like computer=monitor.

This thread screams this out to me:

[Anonymous Coward]

Start up your own linux venture. The slashdot community certainly knows the OS well, why not use slashdot to ride the incoming future wave. You could be like an anti-dell and sell cheaper PC's with linux pre-installed.

Re:This thread screams this out to me:

[Linker3000]

Yeah - Slashux (Sux for short): You install it on a single drive and a day later a duplicate drive mysteriously appears and - hey presto - RAID 1.

For people who want free legal RHEL

[Anonymous Coward]

For people who want free, legal Red Hat Enterprise Linux, there are a few options available:

• CentOS
  
• White Box Linux
  

There are others, but these are the two that come off of the top of my head.

It's ok, It's time or New Blood to Join Management

[TarrySingh]

I think Bob has done his part. Redhat is a global leader and needs some sharp edges and should consider hiring new fire-breathing sharp-edged staff. How about Terpstra? I'm available as well :-)

this is true

[Anonymous Coward]

<z1on>  RedHat Co-Founder Bob Young Resigns
<bedpan> OLD
<timecop> lol
<timecop> nice
<timecop> reason?
<sam> he had an epiphany
<sam> with opensource, you lose

Re:Part of the plan...

[gowen]

...dropping the free-as-in-beer version of their OS....

It's deeply ironic to read that while my Fedora box is silently installing security updates in the background.

Translation:

[LooseChanj]

I could give two squats what happens, as long as my shares don't tank.

Re:It's ok, It's time or New Blood to Join Managem

[Lumpy]

If redhat ends up with a fat CEO walking around on the stage all sweaty screaming Dependancies...Dependancies...Dependancies...
Dependancies...Dependancies...!

I'm gonna puke.

thoughts from an employee

[Anonymous Coward]

In a funny way, my resignation is perhaps the finest compliment I can pay to everyone associated with Red Hat today, I have complete confidence in the future of the company

Yeah right. I'm a red-hatter, when we heard of his sudden resignation yesterday, most of us were more than a little bit troubled. Not because we'll miss his leadership ... In the 6 years I've worked here, I've only seen him once, and he reminded me of a used car salesman. But when he suddenly sells of all of his RHAT stock and jumps ship... it really gives teeth to those rumors of an SEC investigation...

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

Re:thoughts from an employee

[LnxAddct]

I'm commenting again, just to clarify. There is no SEC investigation, he is not selling his stock (he couldn't even if wanted to do to contractual obligations), Bob Young is a good leader who only recently has become too busy to fulfill his duties but has a history of being very interactive with the company. Anyone who knows Bob Young knows that he is nothing like a used car salesman, he's a very nice and intelligent man, he gave Linus 12 million dollars in stock to show appreciation (yes, Linus is a millionaire). He really believes in open values. He wants software to be free and he wants people to be able to publish their books without having to deal with publishers which tend to take most of the profit. He is the founder of Lulu which allows anyone to sell their own books. Here is a book that he wrote and gives away for free, it is about how open source businesses are viable and locking people into things is not the only way to make profit. It is a shame that some troll is spreading misinformation about a guy who has done so much good. One other thing that gives huge credibility to Red Hat's potential is that Dell invested 100 million in them, and Michael Dell doesn't screw around with his money.
Regards,
Steve

Re:thoughts from an employee

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I had never heard of Lulu before. This sounds like something I've been looking for (easy way to publish my book), and it's even free. Thanks for the link, and thanks to Bob Young for starting this.

Re:thoughts from an employee

[aristofanes]

You might look at the shipping charges at Lulu before praising them.

Re:thoughts from an employee

[LnxAddct]

Care to elaborate? They use standard rate tables and give free shipping to orders of $25-$100.
Regards,
Steve

Sounds familiar...

[node 3]

"I have such enthusiasm and confidence in the mission." -Hal 9000

:-)

Re:Sounds familiar...

[Hosiah]

"Hal, you're going crazy. RPM -i new-psychological-profile-1.2.05.rpm"

"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid that package has dependencies which are unsupported."

"Damn!"

Good PR for lulu.com

[ReadParse]

I hadn't even heard of lulu.com, I'm ashamed to say. This is probably good exposure for that company, citing it as a main reason for his resignation. lulu.com is cool, by the way.

And no, I don't think he did it for PR. I believe that he's genuinely too busy for Red Hat.

RP

Re:Good PR for lulu.com

[Dolda2000]

lulu.com is cool, by the way.

Yes, it actually seems so. It took me a couple of minutes to realize it however -- the site's design immediately triggered my evil-domain-name-buyer-and-adware-mongler filter, probably because of the marketing-like image on top and the long columnized list of links. It took me quite a while to get past that, so that I could what the site was actually for.

I, for one, would seriously recommend a redesign of the site.

Re:Part of the plan...

[stor]

I'm not sure dropping the free-as-in-beer version of their OS really counts as the beginning of their charging customers for service.

I'm not sure that actively developing Fedora Core (100% GPL distribution, unlike some) really counts as "dropping the free-as-in-beer version of their OS". Fedora Core 1 was what RedHat 10 would have been and so on.

Also, if you want Red Hat Enterpise Linux for free, just download the thing (source code is freely available). If you want it in a pre-packaged distribution, use CentOS or Whitebox.

Cheers
Stor

How does this effect their 'defensive' patents?

[Rogerborg]

I'll lay money that in two years, we'll look back and with hindsight say this was the point where RedHat started to become another SCO. Young is a man of principle. What do we know about the remaining board?

Re:How does this effect their 'defensive' patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, the amount of folks who have trouble with the difference between affect/effect is staggering.

Re:How does this effect their 'defensive' patents?

[Wornstrom]

I certainly hope they don't try and go the route SCO went. Wouldn't exactly be learning from the fatal mistakes of your enemies, eh? As long as they use open source code in their OS, they will have to release their source. Which gives life to projects like CentOS.

Re:How does this effect their 'defensive' patents?

[LnxAddct]

What do we know? It is a good board, hell one of the guys on the board wrote the original gnu c++ compiler. Red Hat is a pretty solid company through and through and is more devoted to OSS than any company I know, and by a pretty wide margin.
Regard,
Steve

Oh god I hate trolls

[LnxAddct]

The subject says it all. To anyone who may thinks the parent is creditable, it is not, its just a troll.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Oh god I hate trolls

[Hosiah]

I like trolls. Slice them thin and fry them in butter with some collard greens. Elves, now, way too tough and leathery, and orcs don't smell fresh even when they're not dead yet.

Yummy...

[ebuck]

Packaged spam. Why didn't they think of this before?

Re:Part of the plan...

[sydb]

Are you sure it's 100% GPL and not just 100% Free? Let me put it this way, it's not 100% GPL.

Where are the Tigercats?

[olddotter]

Where is this team located?

Re:Where are the Tigercats?

[mojotunes]

Hamilton, Ontario. Canada. http://www.ticats.ca/

Used to Argue with Bob at LUG meetings

[olddotter]

I still remember arguing with Bob Young at RTP area LUG meetings back in 1995 about why RedHat should release sales numbers. I still think it would have given Linux more credibility to have the numbers out there. But all's well that ends well.

Re:RedHat == Linux NOT FOR THIS GENTOO METOO

[znmeb]

Yeah Yeah Yeah ... I'm a Gentoo MeToo :) Portage rulez :)

Seriously, though, when Red Hat changed Red Hat 10 to Fedora Core 1, I switched to Debian. I'd probably still be running Debian if the free as is freedom crowd at Debian central hadn't spent so much time cursing Java.

A lot of the software I run uses Java and only really works with the free as in beer Sun JDK. So ... I tried Gentoo for other reasons, and was so overwhelmed by its excellent collection of Java tools, on top of its easy system administration, that I bit the bullet and converted. I'll never go back to Debian or Red Hat, and I don't see any reason to even try Mandriva or Suse or Slackware.

Ed Borasky
http://linuxcapacityplanning.com/

Ruminations...

[Hosiah]

Now, if he follows in Gentoo's footsteps and runs away to a new job at Redmond, that'll really be weird...

My, while we're all making our little speeches about El Sombrero de Rojo, it's occured to me that I've done way lots of harping on my favorite distros, but forgot the background one. Red Hat has been the distro that I leave on the family box. I know, as a Slackware man I'm supposed to look down on Red Hat, but: I see Red Hat as the convenience distro, the generic choice when you can't decide what kind of Linux you need. I know that I can load Red Hat on the machine, configure a few files, RPM a few key programs, and walk away from it knowing it won't trouble mom and the kids too much. It still comes with some programming support - what we used to call "bad", before some other distros became "appalling" at it - and has quite a bit of GNU software (nearly eradicated from half the distros out there). It has had - and will always have - some flaws, but these are the relatively minor kind that can be fixed, as opposed to the big, stupid kind that break the whole distro. Long live Red Hat - because without it, all distros would have to be based on Debian, and we'd never see anything done right again!

sad news indeed...

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought Bob would be at redhat forever, his attitude is why redhat succeeded in so many ways. I can remember reading some older linux journal articles and he said alot about microsoft and how they won't beat linux. Bob wasn't just for redhat, he was for Linux as a whole. He wanted Linux to be the best thing since electricity. Thats one reason why I really liked Bob's style and attitude. He looked pretty cool in that redhat too ;)

This is truly a sad day, one of the great linux giants are leaving.

Now, if you want to read something very weird and ironic, back in 1998 ON THIS VERY DATE that Bob Young Leaves, I received my very first Linux OS, which was RedHat 5.2 which I had ordered it just days before and it arrived very quickly. I was excited that day, yet scared too because I was running windows 95 and I didn't know how things would work out. I thought for sure I would be able to keep both operating systems on the same drive, but I ended up with RedHat. I called all of my friends to tell them how cool it was, but they didn't care lol. Oh well, redhat will always be my favorite linux distro and I will always be a loyal fan.

See ya around Bob!

p.s. Bob, if for some reason you fail on your current ventures, go talk to google, I'm sure they would love you there. :)

This was his plan all along...

[OneFix at Work]

When he moved from his position as CEO in 1999 to a member of the board, he had always anticipated this happening...and he has taken a back seat as of late (ever since starting Lulu Tech Circus).

This is the way a good founder/CEO steps down from his company...it's just that lately, we haven't had many good CEOs in the public eye.

This is certainly not bad for Red Hat...and I wonder now who will take his place on the board...

MOD PARENT UP

[Curate]

FFS, somebody mod the parent up! You have no idea how funny this post is unless you've been there yourself.

Cojones.

[jotaeleemeese]

Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.
Cojones.
Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.
Cojones. Cojones.
Cojones.
Cojones.
Cojones. Cojones.
Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.
Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.

Cojones.

Or...

[vwjeff]

Two possible reasons:

1) They choose to reward a fantastic troll with positive karma.

2) They're morons

Or,

3. #1 and #2

This is /.