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?

Comments

Redhat isn't evil (this from the competition)

[knghtbrd]

I'm a Debian developer, so naturally I'm supposed to think all other dists suck and that Redhat is the next Micro$oft. But you know what? I don't. They aren't. They're another distribution and they are pumping money into Free Software. Not quasi-free or semi-free, but genuine honest to the gods Free Software. There are truly evil distributions out there, but Redhat isn't one of them. Even if you don't use it you should be supportive of their efforts. Supportive doesn't mean you don't work on a similar product that isn't going to compete with them, naturally. =>

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?"

What Standard?!!!

[BadlandZ]

I believe that Red Hat intentionaly _did the right thing_ when it came to standards.

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.

All of this is nonsense

[cthonious]

Er .. innocent until proven guilty? Red Hat has done nothing to suggest all of this, except that they are hustling their butts off trying to make linux popular (and what do they get for it?). There are some minor technical issues with Red Hat that get brought up frequently - the weird placement of installed packages in the biggest one. Other thant that Red Hat is a very solid distro. Let's look at the main myths:

• Red Hat is getting popular, so they must be getting like Micros~1.

  Nick Petreley does a good job of refuting this, look here Most of this is cooked up by students with nothing better to do. Look at the hubub surrounding Caldera's latest release - are they the next Micros~1?

• Red Hat is the distro for Windows haters, not "serious" unix folks.

  This is ridiculous, I don't know where this came from, perhaps mainly inspired by the FVWM95 default Window Manager that shipped with Red Hat 5.x. Whatever.

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.

Good question...what have they done?

[bdjohns1]

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).

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 /'ing their RedHat installs in favor of something else really fast. No one likes a sell-out.

Nobody ever got fired for choosing Red Hat

[Jay Carlson]

I've seen several organizations with deep Unix backgrounds choose Red Hat as their Linux distro, sometimes over protests of user base. I'm usually a Debian advocate, but I'm not religious. There can be real business reasons to choose other distros.

The reasons cited fall into two categories. The first look like:

• "Red Hat is easier to install."--often true, but it's a toss-up once you start getting into large collections of machines, where you'll be spending a lot of effort anyway in tailoring and cfengine config. But I kinda buy it.
• Minor technical arguments. You've heard them all before. Some of them are compelling for some groups.

But what worried me were some of the other reasons given for choosing Red Hat:

• "Red Hat is the most popular so we should use it."--Explicit appeals to network effects this early in a life cycle give me the creeps.
• "Red Hat is getting all the good hype. It will be easier to explain to management."--Note that this is not the same as "we want to buy something".
• "Get over it. Red Hat won."

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,

Nobody ever got fired for choosing Red Hat.

Jay

Linux Elitism: Et tu Brutae?

[LVWolfman]

Personally I find this entire thread entirely too amusing, pointless and destructive to the Linux community at large.
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:

• A better Linux
• More Linux Support
• More open software
• Standards adherence
• More choices. We now return you to our regular scheduled flaming