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Interviews: Ask Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst A Question (redhat.com)
Jim Whitehurst joined Red Hat in 2008, as its valuation rose past $10 billion and the company entered the S&P 500. He believes that leaders should engage people, and then provide context for self-organizing, and in 2015 even published The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance (donating all proceeds to the Electronic Frontier Foundation). The book describes a post-bureaucratic world of community-centric companies led with transparency and collaboration, with chapters on igniting passion, building engagement, and choosing meritocracy over democracy.
Jim's argued that Red Hat exemplifies "digital disruption," and recently predicted a world of open source infrastructure running proprietary business software. Fortune has already called Red Hat "one of the geekiest firms in the business," and their open source cloud computing platform OpenStack now competes directly with Amazon Web Services. Red Hat also sponsors the Fedora Project and works with the One Laptop Per Child initiative.
So leave your best questions in the comments. (Ask as many questions as you'd like, but please, one per comment.) We'll pick out the very best questions, and then forward them on for answers from Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst.
Jim's argued that Red Hat exemplifies "digital disruption," and recently predicted a world of open source infrastructure running proprietary business software. Fortune has already called Red Hat "one of the geekiest firms in the business," and their open source cloud computing platform OpenStack now competes directly with Amazon Web Services. Red Hat also sponsors the Fedora Project and works with the One Laptop Per Child initiative.
So leave your best questions in the comments. (Ask as many questions as you'd like, but please, one per comment.) We'll pick out the very best questions, and then forward them on for answers from Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst.
is his choice, who decides what is "merit"?
My question is related: is Red Hat, as an organization, at all concerned about the damage that systemd has done to Linux's usability, its reputation, and its community? Is Red Hat concerned with how systemd has driven so many Linux users to FreeBSD?
And a follow up, why not spend some of RedHat's money on a sane init system?
I'm sure you can put a few dollars and bright minds on a system that works reliably. The last thing I want my embedded system to do is get hung up on an init failure.
I use Linux extensively and have since 1996. I started off on the "boo systemD" bandwagon myself. It was all based on hearsay and my own purity out of zealotry. Eventually, I took plunge. At a point, there was little choice. I am the type of person who pushes systems and clusters of systems to the limit. I have not experienced any of the problems you cite. Perhaps you are holding your computer wrong? And don't even get started about binary log files. You can still use all your favorite utilities: sed, grep, awk, etc... I am not buying your story. You are talking out of your ass hoping to get modded up. Meanwhile, I am calling you out expecting to get modded down.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Red Hat has been involved with Linux for a long time now. We've seen a lot of desktop/workstation-oriented contributions to projects like systemd, GNOME, Wayland, and so forth.
Yet despite all of this effort, why do we see so little uptake of Linux within the desktop/workstation market? One Slashdot submission from July 2016 puts Linux's desktop market share at just over 2%. A similar submission from October 2016 puts it just over 2%, as well.
Why is Linux's share of the desktop market so abysmally low, even with several of the past releases of Windows (Vista, 8, and even 10) being widely disliked, and with Linux distributions typically being free, and after existing for over two decades now?
And should it concern us that the most widely-used Linux-based OS, Android, has actually discarded/replaced so much of the software that Red Hat has rallied behind? It's almost like Linux is most successful when the software that Red Hat is involved with is not used.
Given this lack of success, should the various desktop-oriented initiatives that Red Hat has started or worked on be considered failures?
If they aren't currently considered failures, at what point would they be considered failures? Would Red Hat's support for them be promptly terminated if they were deemed to be failures?
Because for every 1 vocal systemd opponent, there are 100 quiet satisfied systemd users. I was a vocal opponent until i had to actually use and rely on it. I wouldn't go back if you paid me. It has made my job a lot easier.