Raster on Leaving Red Hat

Raster emailed me to send some clarification about his recent announcement that he is leaving Red Hat. I've attached his email below so you can form your own opinions. But essentially he was unhappy with his manager at RH, and simply got fed up with it. I s'pose most of us have been there. Anyway, his email is attached below. (CT: The following is from an email to me from Raster. He asked me to share this with everyone).

I need to make sure people know the following:

I have nothing against my Red Hat in general - it's all against one person in specific - they abused E's user base and fdinally broke the camels back with a last straw. the mailed to a mailing list I was on and effectively stated that E users are a crowd that "festers around me" (thats a literal quote) - that was the last straw - and seeing they were in management they directed development andthus made red hat policies as they were - I'm keeping the name of this person out of it - but Red Hat needs to know I will NOT stand for their management staff offedning me and the Enlightenment user base like that without repurcussions. I care about users very much and I can't take any more of this kind of stuff. I have mailed Red Hat themselves and higher management and told them to do something about it. I do not want this kind of attitude prevailing - my negative comments about Red Hat are specifically directed at this induvidual and he is a big reason I left.

I think the rest of Red Hat have their heads screwed on right... just one does not.

Anyway - if you can paraphrase this or something that'd be good. anyway .. now to get on wiht driving.. :)

CT : I decided not to paraphrase, so you've got the story (typos and all) right from Raster. And best of luck to ya man. And I guess I hafta forgive you now for the "Meat Pie" thing...

Comments

sucks to be redhat

[unc_onnected]

i feel sorry for redhat. here you are, trying to be an idealistic company selling an unambiguously morally acceptable product, hiring people when you could very well have taken their work for nothing and charged the same price. on one side you have the empire just waiting to crush you and mobilizing their stormtroopers to kill you off before you can get powerful enough to really challenge their authority.

but on the other side, you have the rebel alliance who hates you because youre a corporation, because you actually require money to live (as do all companies) and because you have to pay for all those people you hire that write software that everyone downloads from your ftp site. because you have to support their gospel with your advertising dollars. because you have to pay technical support to help further their Cause.

and you have to listen to them all bitch about how expensive it is when nearly all of them got it for free.

redhat can never win.

if they ever can triumph over microsoft, every GPL freak, 3l337 h4xx0r, and libertarian psycho will ditch them because theyve "sold out".

A corporation's number one job is to make money. But there are a LOT of different ways to make money. Why can't people understand that? The idea that Redhat will "become the next Microsoft" is ridiculous. The instant they piss you off, you download their stuff FOR FREE. And there's NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT. Redhat doesn't know any more about Linux than any of us can, they can't hide any API's, they don't own any standards. Even the things they invent they have to put out for public inspection and usage, even in competing products.

People seem to think that Linux can get there on its own merits. But we all know thats not true. Tucker. Betamax. Amiga. (i hesitate here) Macintosh. Lets face it, money talks. Only big companies and the government have money, and, more importantly, power.

People should stop fearing Redhat because they are trying to get powerful. The judicious exercise of power by someone friendly to us (for once) is why everyone should support Redhat. Who can deny that they have already had a huge influence? Besides, we all know that if they ever do anything to piss us (the linux community) off enough, we'll kick their ass. This whole Raster thing makes my point, I think.

So give them a fscking break will ya?

unc_

Change of Direction

[Andrew Gilmore]

This is looking more like a lesson in "How NOT to manage your Geek." Perhaps his managers missed those last few /. discussions on the subject.

This pretty much invalidates most of the 400+ messages to the previous info.

It still sounds to me like Red Hat is doing right by us. I mean, they are STILL releasing everything as GPL.

Careful folks, or we might give Paranoia a new definition: see /.

Andrew Gilmore

(gotta do something while my home directory gets restored from tape!)

Celebrity Worship

[gavinhall]

Posted by d106ene5:

All this seems much ado about nothing. Some guy out there wanted to quit his job so he did. Who really cares? Let the man make his personal decisions in peace.

This celebrity obsession is really tacky and inconsiderate to "Raster".

Re:Michael Fulbright

[maw]

It's fairly well known that Dr Mike and Raster have disagreed on a number of things. Dr Mike's target audience (in his programming) is for the real newbie and he's very much in favor of keeping things simple. Raster tends to be more interested in making cool stuff. Although I don't use Enlightenment, I have to concede that it is *very* cool.

Neither of them can design an interface worth a damn, though. (There's a difference between something that looks cool and something that drives you nuts when you try to use it for more than 8 seconds.) Examples: Dr Mike is one of the guys behind Gnome Help Browser, which doesn't have a Find function! Raster wrote Electric Eyes and the Gnome Pager applet, both of which are extremely cumbersome to use.

Lots of other Gnome programs are about as bad. One thing that's really lacking is good programmers who are also good at designing interfaces. (Designing a good interface is probably just as hard as designing a good program.) The problem is that when somebody says "Hey, program Foo really needs an extra menu here and a button or two there," he'll too often hear "Ok, code it yourself," as a response.

That's a well-and-good attitude (I guess..) for traditional Unixesque programming projects, but for one that's intended to ultimately be used by the masses, it's a problem.

I bet one of the RHAD (or any other party seriously interested in improving Unix's usability) might do would be to hire some former UI guy from (say) Apple and put him in charge, or at least in a position where he would be taken very seriously.

It's a frustrating situation.

About engineers who can "write their own ticket"

[Bruce Perens]

Some engineers can "write their own ticket". Linus is the best example - he doesn't really have to worry about getting a job. The Rasterman is another example.

Linus and Rasterman, however, are both well-known individuals with their own user communities. They're happy to work for you on their own terms. You can deal with this, and reap the benefits of being associated with them, or you can let them move on. They won't let you push them too far, especially where their user communities are concerned, because if your decisions are poor they will be the ones who lose face. They won't tolerate that for long.

Linus wisely works for a company that doesn't have Linux as its business, yet is willing to give him time to work on Linux, so that he doesn't get involved in this sort of conflict. Raster didn't really have that choice... maybe he'll find a position like that this time. Otherwise, he'll have to keep walking the tightrope, which means being ready to leave when he loses confidence in his management.

If you want to employ "superstars", keep this in mind. They are not a commidity! You can't pay for their labor units and ignore them when it comes to policy decisions, they won't put up with that.

Thanks

Bruce Perens