Red Hat CEO Decries Open Source Pretenders

OSTalent writes "The Register has an article about Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik's recent remarks...'For all his enthusiasm about the community and sever-side Linux, Szulik provided something of a reality check on the much debated theme of a Linux desktop. According to Szulik, the huge presence of legacy infrastructure like Microsoft's Exchange and PowerPoint has prevented a lot of people making the move.'" From the article: "It's very difficult to shape the development agenda of the community... every day people comment to us on the quality of our products through Kerrnel.org. What's important is staying true to the premise of the GPL model ... It starts with the APIs now, then it moves into content. Try to put [Microsoft's] Windows Media Player into Firefox and see what it looks like. In a world where application-to-application interaction becomes the norm, where does that innovation come from and who owns it?"

Comments

Powerpoint??

[TheBrutalTruth]

Powerpoint is holding me back from having Linux on my desktop? Damn - I knew powerpoint sucked, but that's just shocking.

I don't know what I'd do without all those time wasting presentations.

Re:Powerpoint??

[dnoyeb]

Its always great fun making a PP presentation for management. They always come back again and again asking how much more information can be taken out. Until finally there is only 4-5 pages, and it does not say anything except basically adjectives.

My last boss is funny though as he is an engineer and smart guy, but also a manager. So he would cause us to shrink the presentation down to a few slides, but we would have to keep making the font smaller because he wanted to be sure not to leave anything out, lol.

Yes, PP causes some strange things :P

Quite the reverse, Matthew!

[DonJoe]

"The desktop has become a lot like teenage sex: a lot of people are talking about it but not many people are doing it," Szulik said.

Well, it's the reverse here on /.!

Re:Quite the reverse, Matthew!

[Anonymous Coward]

The R-E-V-E-R-S-E:

Said Szulik, "IT doing, are people. Many, not but IT. About talking, are people of lot a. Sex, teenage, like. Lot a. Become has desktop the."

obligatory spelling gripe

[Anonymous Coward]

Kerrnel.org

Talk Like A Pirate Day was last month.

Kerrnel.org.

[RDosage]

We've already /.'ed Kerrnel.org?
I think a mirror is at http://kernel.org./

Many teenagers are doing a lot more than talking

[NZheretic]

If the results are anything to go by, many teenagers are doing a lot more than just talking.

Anyhow, Szulik tends to hang around many of the more larger conservative kids, I mean companies, and even then in the backrooms a lot of it is going on that the CEOs and CIOs would like to admit ( I'm talking about messing around with Linux desktops, geez you guys have dirty minds ).

If Szulik were to hang around with more of the leaner mid sized less well off young companies he would find a lot more physical experimenting going on, especially with thin client Linux ( what else would they be doing ).

And as for local, state and federal governmental bodies around the world, they are begging for it, which at least is better than them always doing it to the tax payers.

that's easy...

[kavau]

where does that innovation come from and who owns it?

That's easy:

Where does it come from? Apple.

Who owns it? Microsoft.

Re:Likewise for Visio

[Anonymous Coward]

In a word: BULLSHIT.

What is it about Slashdot that prevents people from disagreeing without being a dick?

Enthusiasm for sever-side Linux.

[RoverDaddy]

Sorry, but I have no enthusiasm for sever-side anything. Cuts too close to home.

Re:Likewise for Visio

[cortana]

This simple equation should explain.

Re:Powerpoint?

[AME]

Apparently, however, non-Microsoft alternatives have no decent spelling or grammar checkers.