Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Perceptions of Red Hat Software
Yet Another Anonymous Coward asks this
worthwhile question which even I don't
have a ready answer to:
"It seems to me that a growing number of
people within the Linux community are
starting to fear and loathe Red Hat Software.
I read that
article about the Red Hat backlash
and I often see comments here on
Slashdot that make disparaging remarks
against them. I'm curious: has Red Hat
actually done anything that warrants
this type of reaction? Or are people just
getting paranoid about what Red Hat has the
potential to do? No, I'm not a Red Hat
lacky, I'd just like to illuminate a
potentially irrational paranoia within the
community." So what do you all think?
Red Hat is a company, which needs to be profitable. Red Hat is entering the brave new world of attempting to make a profit out of
;)
the OSS model. Are they doing the right thing??
A number of 'fears' which are generated when the
word Red Hat comes to mind is:
- Possible Microsoft replacement
A monopoly on package distribution format,
as well as 'Red Hats implementation is the
"right" way!' debate
- Start setting standards which is not in favor
of the Linux community
Again, a monopoly effect.
- Is becoming the 'de facto' in terms as to what
Vendors release their applications to (i.e the
infamous RPM vs. DEB debate...)
- And a minor note...it is getting rid of the 'Why I love Linux' effect.
But, it all boils down to the question which
manu people have given ideas to, debated over,
maybe lost sleep to:
Can you make money out of the OSS model?
Maybe Red Hat is the answer for Linux to go
Commercial, and then again maybe not.
What's really scary is that other distributions
are being 'left out'. Maybe it is part of the
capitalism world which we belong to in
which the 'strongest' survive, and unfortunately
the strongest seem to have money.
We need reassurance from Red Hat which they will
not become another Microsoft. Assurance in their
actions will not contradict the OSS model. Assurance that their influence in the commercial
markets will be beneficial for both the commercial and linux communities.
I hope this thread or responses to this 'Ask Slashdot' question will generate ideas and
promote a better path for the linux community.
Remember our goal...'World Domination!'
-Frank Macha
emacha_frank@yahoo.com
#include
#include
#include "Gotta_Love_Linux.h"
Sure I feel that Redhat often puts commercial deadline before high quality and stability and I feel even more like Redhat is continuing the Windoze tradition of .0 releases being unstable and buggy before they fix them in .1 and .2 releases, but still that is my personal perception and gripe. It doesn't necessarily make Redhat evil per se and Redhat has opened their development efforts more which will help to cure the buggy .0 release syndrome. That's GOOD and I applaud them for this.
And of course I feel Debian is a better distribution. Why else would I spend my time working on it? But just because Debian is IMO better doesn't make the others BAD. I'm greatly saddened by all of the my-software-rules-and-yours-sucks crap I see on irc and in newsgroups and mailing lists. If you think a particular piece of software is crap, don't run it, it's simple. Or even better, tell the people responsible for new releases what you want to see. What's the worst that could happen, they tell you they won't make the changes you want to see? Bickering like I see constantly helps nobody.
You'd be surprised how many times I have told someone "I don't like this about your software, would you consider maybe making it more like this instead?" to receive an answer in a day or two on the order of "Great idea! Why didn't I think of it sooner?"
Posted by LOTHAR, of the Hill People:
Why do so many of us dislike Red Hat? We're snobs, that's why. We pride ourselves on using an "alternative" Operating System. Now that Linux is starting to be used by Joe User, we are losing that special feeling that we get by being part of an exclusive group. You hear the same thing when an underground music group suddenly gets popular. People running for the doors screaming "SELL OUT".
Red Hat is largely responsible for the current popularity and press coverage of Linux. Red Hat has the corporate structure that makes other companies feel safe when handing over million dollar checks. Bottom Line is, Red Hat is working VERY hard at making Linux a mainstream, full service OS. Red Hat is doing a very good job of it too. It's no suprise that there is resentment from people as Linux grows in popularity. Us Linux users prefer to live out on the fringe. Now we are losing that frontier feeling, and some of us aren't happy about it.
We have to blame someone, right?
While there might be some debate about stuff floating around in /etc or other areas, I highly doubt that Red Hat intentionally did it to insure they were the only distribution that would run propriatery software. Quite to the contrarary, Several other distributions are _based_ on Red Hat's distribution. These other distributions coupled with Red Hat's large Linux market share do make Red Hat the de-facto standard (so to speak) when a ISV looks in at Linux from the outside world and considers porting thier application to Linux.
Now, consider the fact that the LSB stands to be the largest, most widely acceptable Linux standard. This is the one oppertunity that Red Hat has had to really do some damage, and they didn't, and won't. Red Hat had an early oppertunity to join the LSB, and declined. Why you ask? Because Red Hat KNEW that if they were one of the orignal members of the LSB there would be resentment and resistance, therefore, in the best interest of the LSB itself, they held back. After the LSB started to gain acceptance, Red Hat signed on, only after criticizm from the Linux community (including massive flame-age here on SlashDot "Why won't Red Hat join the LSB!?!"). Then, once Red Hat did goin the LSB, they did not push for domanance, only volenteered thier services, which included paid manhours, to work on standards that were agreed upon by the community, not Red Hat. Red Hat did the right thing!
So, why is Red Hat so despised? Well, because they have a legitimate right to be respected, and they GPL thier work, and they have done great service to the Linux community. That adds up to becoming a power in the Linux community, and people (Including me) BUY thier CD's on occasion to support a company that supports paying people to write GPL code.
Does Red Hat suck? Well, Yes. For some people, in some cases, it sucks. RPM's can be a headache, and I believe that the RPM technology is probably superior to how Red Hat even uses it (which is why other distributions use RPM's, but it's "Red Hat RPM's" that are most complained about). What else? Well, can you say "120M+ minimal install" even after you go through all the menus and unselelect everything (Which is why I use Debian on some of my smaller specific purpose systems). And, then there is the the whole init battle, and if your not use to it, it can be a pain in the rear to work with. So, yes, if your use to something else, or you have a specific need, or ..... then Red Hat Linux may not be the right Linux for you. In many cases, to many people, Red Hat Sux. ;-)
But, overall, for the majority of people, Red Hat is just fine, no problems, actually better than most. Is there any reason to Hate of Fear Red Hat? Heck no!
As for "They don't stick to standards for file layouts or much else, so you can run an alternate distribution -- but not if you want to use something without source.", I have to ask, WHO IN THIER RIGHT MIND WOULD RELEASE SHRINK WRAP SOFTWARE TO THE _SMALLEST_ MARKET SEGMENT?!?!? Yea, it's not exactly the same as every other linux, but they aren't exactly the same as each other either. Given enought time, for every 1 thing you can find "non-standard" and actually referance a standard that _should_ be, and it's source, I can probably find you at least 2 non standard things in Slackware, Debian, or anything else. So, I say, "Please Site Your Source Of Linux Standards. :-)" AFAIK, the LSB will be the standard, and Red Hat will _comply_ to the LSB, not the other way around.
Note for the Humor Impaired, this is SATIRE!
This PROVES that RedHat is evil, beyond redemption, and it must die!!!
Oh. Can I have access to their bank account though? I've been jealous of how much money they make!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
- Red Hat is getting popular, so they must be getting like Micros~1.
- Red Hat is the distro for Windows haters, not "serious" unix folks.
Facts:- Red Hat offers a LOT of value for the money. Cutting edge software, a nice powerful installer, good package management, great response to security issues, etc.
- Red Hat returns stuff to the community (all their management utils are open source. They use linuxconf by default instead of something like YAST
Bottom line: Red Hat keeps up with the times, they play by the rules, and their distro is very good. What else do you want?They haven't done anything wrong yet.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Based on the comments I've actually seen, the vast majority of Linux users aren't particularly worried about Redhat achieving monopoly (or near-monopoly) power within the Linux market. There are two reasons:
/usr/bin/perl instead of /usr/local/bin/perl can easily be fixed (or a symlink made.) And so it seems like it would (and thus far, has proved to be in several instances) fairly easy to construct wrapper scripts. Of course, that's not as good as a native package (rpm, deb, or whatever) but it's not so bad either.
1. Redhat releases almost all of their products under the GPL, and releases all their "core" products under the GPL (ie libraries, rpm software, etc. as opposed to BRU2000, applixware, etc.)
2. If the above changes, many Linux users and developers would switch distributions. Of course, then people writing free software wouldn't be able to improve key components of the Redhat distro, which (presumably) would cause it to be left behind.
There are some real issues, however:
1. It is possible that commercial software vendors will only support Redhat. However, since detection of libraries works so easily, libraries wouldn't be a problem. The occassional shell script referring to, say,
2. Redhat is actively targetting newbies. This means that it's likely to get a prettier and prettier face by default, and hence one which is simpler. Hopefully, they will keep an "advanced options" button in an easy to find location. But if not, it's Linux -- we can find the text files to edit and configure by hand if need be. Of course, there's something to be said for being forced to read all the info. I learned a lot more from my first slackware install than I do from install Redhat by reading the package descriptions and being forced to figure out how to configure things. Nonetheless, these days, I'll take simplicity and sloth anyday.
-Muffie
A friend and I were talking over dinner last night, and his opinion (which I'm shamelessly co-opting) is that if you're trying to convince your boss to switch from NT to Linux, it just won't sink in when you tell him it's free.
It's like a bad Dilbert cartoon: you say to the pointy-haired boss, "We can install Linux. It will save us several thousand dollars, because it's free."
"What's free?"
"Linux."
"For how long?"
"Forever."
"But how much do we have to pay to install it?"
"Nothing."
"But if it's free, we can't get tech support, can we?"
"Yes. Tech support by the geek community at-large. For free."
"Okay, but then we obviously have to pay a fee for upgrades."
You can continue to say "no" at this point, and the boss will be convinced that it's some sort of underhanded budget trick--or worse yet, a joke on him--or you can say:
"Well, yeah... if we buy RedHat."
"What's RedHat?"
"It's the most expensive version of Linux."
"How much?"
...at this point, you basically name a number that doesn't sound too absurd. You want a hundred boxes for the office? tell him $5K. You want to show him amazing savings? Get ten, and tell him $500. You want to see if he'll bite? Get one (so you can have that nifty manual) and say $150, for the whole office. And buy your office some beers with the change.
As my friend said, "Management likes to buy things. If you tell them they can have things (especially expensive things like operating system upgrades) without buying them, they won't ever believe you."
So RedHat is not only not evil, but the fact that somebody is actually selling Linux is making The Suits pay attention, and even though Suits in our little world may be a Bad Thing(tm), there will never come a day when any one company can "own" Linux. Linus saw to that back in the day.
-jurph
You know, I can't really think of anything really bad that RedHat has done. They're really one of the driving forces that's gotten Linux into the corporate marketplace, IMHO. They've really become part of the "corporate identity" of Linux (if Linux can have such an identity besides the infamous penguin).
/'ing their RedHat installs in favor of something else really fast. No one likes a sell-out.
You can't ignore the contributions RedHat has made to the community - they gave us the first of the easier-to-install distributions (back when they came out, I wouldn't call Slackware "easy"). They gave us RPM to make system maintenance and upgrading easy...I know I'd have a lot more headaches if it weren't for RPMs. I think it's tough to argue that any other distribution to this point has had such a significant impact in the general computing community. And now, they're putting capital into the RedHat Labs, helping to make GNOME into a stable and viable desktop system that works, and looks good doing it. (I don't like the look/feel of KDE, personally, and KDE won't get along with WindowMaker as well as I'd like.)
The original question does raise a valid point - could RedHat turn to the "dark side"? I'd argue that the fact that all of RedHat's software is GPL'd makes it difficult at best. Some people might argue that RedHat's now dependent on the investments from various big names in the computing industry, but, once again, I think the Linux community in itself is a strong enough influence to keep RedHat in line. If RedHat were to try and push things "too far" away from OpenSource software, they'll have people rm -rf
The reasons cited fall into two categories. The first look like:
But what worried me were some of the other reasons given for choosing Red Hat:
Those last few reasons are arguments for Red Hat regardless of technical or economic superiority.
Now, what may have happened here was that, in some organizations' cases, the people in charge of making the decision were already RH partisans. The justifications were easy-to-articulate surface statements, and their hard-to-articulate judgements that led them to that position didn't come out.
In some way, I'm glad that there are several distros out there that are close enough technically that this level of discussion is enough. But that won't always be the case if the sentiment in those last few statements overtakes enough of us.
Well, it obviously won't, at least not entirely. There will still be people out there who wipe their new Dell's RH installation to install SuSE, even if that blows away their phone support. But the attitude I worry about is, to steal a phrase from IBM's FUD glory days,
Jay
I've survived the following "My system is better than your system" elitist wars:
- TRS-80 vs Apple vs Commodore Pet
- Vic-20 vs Atari 400
- CBM-64 vs Atari 800 vs Radio Shack Color Computer
- Amiga vs Mac vs IBM PC
- IBM OS/2 vs Windows 3.1 vs Windows NT 3.51
- IBM OS/2 vs Windows 95 vs Windows NT 3.51
- Windows 9x vs Windows NT
- ETC, ad nauseum
I even remember bitter battles over which was the better CP/M platform! I've been working with personal computers longer than some of you have been alive, giving me must a little bit of experience in this. The one thing that has never changed in the 21 years is the fact that everyone wants to feel that their choice is the right one.- NT users sneer at Windows 9x users.
- Windows 9x users sneer at Windows 3.x users
- Linux users sneer at Windows users
- FreeBSD users sneer at Linux users.
- Mac users sneer at us
- We sneer at Mac users
In Linux we have a very good operating system. Since you're all reading this, you know WHY you're running Linux. Choice is good. Multiple distros are good. Elitism is not good.The first version of Linux I ever saw and used was Yggdrasil. I've also run Slackware, Debian and of course Red Hat. They were all good. I have my favorite. Even Linux Mandrake is good, without it, I probably wouldn't have tried KDE. Yes, I've even run FreeBSD.
The point is, enjoy what you use. Don't try to fragment the Linux or even the *nix community by all this bickering over distributions. To do so is playing exactly as hoped for in the recent Microsoft white paper on how to deal with the Linux threat. Microsoft FUD doesn't work very well against Linux, their best hope is for balkanization of the Linux community thereby causing us to lose focus.
So, let's try to calm the elitist urges within us and work for the common goals: