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Rasterman Summarizes his Red Hat Leave
sRparish writes
"Rasterman has made it to California, and has posted a
very interesting article entitled: Post Mortem and Deliverance "
He expands somewhat on things you've already read here, and
compares his experience at RH to jwz's at Netscape.
Corporate applications moving really quickly to web interfaces from green screen or platform-specific VisualBasic (etc.) front ends. That means time is money as far as your web browser is concerned. While Netscape/Linux is certainly usable, it's not as fast or stable as Netscape/Win32 or IE. (Stop to pray to the Mozilla gods.)
Think about a corporate call center moving from 5250s to a web/java interface. Your choices are: (1) A "NC" from IBM, (2) A tighly controlled Windows PC, or (3) A tighly controled Linux PC. Unfortuantely, number (2) is winning in many cases.
I looked at the XFMail screen shots, and you're right, it does need a facelift bad. Same goes for Netscape Messenger, which has all the features, it's just kinda clunky. I've looked at KMail and a few others, and it's too bad that everyone is in the progress of trying to reinvent the wheel here.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Lots of people of course have bad taste in their mouth from the poorly designed Windows registry. (Someone should build another database as a front end to the WinRegistry, just so you can find user adjustable settings!)
I think the problem comes in when you are trying to build a slick configuration front end. There's just too many different file formats in
Apparently Apple/Next's NetInfo database allows manual exporting/importing to and from
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
As a Linux user and lover I'm beginning to see the cracks in the Linux community, but I'm not all that convinced that they are bad.
Why do I say that? It's a psychology thing really. People have taken Linux, and elevated it from what it was really good at (a server), and promoted it into a Microsoft Killer. When they did that, they assumed that Linux has to have a single user interface. Linux still has a long ways to go to beat Microsoft at it's game in that respect.
But, here is the clincher. Linux doesn't have to beat Microsoft at it's game. As I write this, the rules are changing. The world isn't just about PC's anymore. A PC is nothing if it can't connect with something. (we all know that, right?) Microsoft Operating systems have always been developed from a standalone PC view, and when they network, they're not particularly good at it.
However, in the new world order, the network will reign supreme. The strength of your OS is judged by what you can connect with and how stable you are. This is where Linux reigns supreme. It connects to just about everything under the Sun out of the box. Linux has already won that round.
Yet, why should we play by MS's rules with one interface for everyone? Does everyone want to drive the same car? Who says we can't win on the desktop with more then one interface? If you get in a Ferrari F50, it's not going to be the same experience/same interface as a Dodge Neon, but... you know what? I'm pretty damn sure that almost everybody could figure out how to drive that Ferrari.
I applaud Red Hat on it's efforts to bring Linux to the business world, yet.... I want the choice to run *my* Linux, the way I want to run it. It's about the users. The users reign supreme in Linux, and I think that's the vision that Red Hat gave up when it started courting the business world.
Anarchy - Used to describe the tension between moral autonomy and political authority
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
My anonymously cowardly thoughts:
Firstly I would like to comment on the cite:
"Given the type of crowd that festers around Raster, I think it in our best interest to just go on with business as usual. It has been clear for awhile that he and his posse were not GNOME supporters, and nothing we"I surely can understand why Raster get's pissed off by this kind of thing. I think it was unfair by the guy who said it to go behind Raster's back like that. And with posse. Wtf? Is it the people on people on #e he is refering to? I can hardly imagine anobody of those to be anti-GNOME, but rather pro GNOME.
While it was unethical by Raster to go public with this kinda thing, hell, who cares about ethics. Wouldn't you be pissed off by a guy who has been talking shit behind your back for about 1 and a 1/2 years. Talking shit behind someones back is unethical in the first place.
Personally I think that GNOME would be better off with a default light gtk based window manager, but not be totally dependent on that wm, so the user still can choose what wm to use. Basically turning E into GNOMEwm is not in the best interest for both E or GNOME. GNOME is better of with a very simple wm if it is to compete with Windows[TM] and KDE. I really think GNOME is better of with a default wm, so we don't need to make simplified E themes and "degrade" E to fit in with GNOME. Also I think that FVWM and the likes are to messy & butt ugly to be used as a default wm. I think RedHat did something wrong, when they included E as the default GNOMEwm in RH 6.0, they basically raped E. And also because E is still under development, I think that gave the user a wrong impression about both E and GNOME, not only one app under devel but two, that is bound to make a disaster. I think that in the starting phase of the Linux Desktop reveloution, we should not flame each other to death over mistakes like this. Surely RedHat will learn something about this and *hopefully* doing it right the second time. Maybe now we will have a gtk based GNOMEwm instead...
This is becuase E is something of it's own. It's so much more. It shouldn't be unseperately tied to GNOME, but that doesn't mean it is *anti* GNOME. For me E represents a kind of graphical user interface that I would very much like to see finished. Yes I like the Eyecandy, yes I like it's configurability and innovation. And while people may say it is bloatware, then don't use it, use something else. And I wouldn't want E to change into GNOMEwm I want E. I like both E, the GTK widget set and GNOME, and i will happily use both GNOME with this simple GTK based GNOMEwm. And When I am in the mood for E, I will just switch to E. Who said you gotta just use one environment.
And while the latest events are sad. In the end RedHat will also benefit by this, Now RedHat will probably use something else for a default GNOMEwm and the Windows[Tm] users migrating to Linux will be happy. But RedHat will also benefit from the development of E, This revelutionary user interface (yes i say revelutionary, please tell me about something else with the coolness factor E currently has, without mentioning Window Maker off course) will also draw new users to Linux. I know this, It was screenshots of E that made me try Linux for the first time! And through the beatiful exterior of E, I also found out (after poking a lot around) that hey I like the interior as well, I like the kernel, I like the GPL & GNU philosophy, I like the stabiliy, I like the command line interface (and this coming from an old Amiga user, MCSE who don't like MS products and therefore have no job :P ) Now I find myself using, GNOME, E, Window Maker, hell I can't decide. I Like them all, and I am even if i don't use it, I am still impressed with KDE.
I Support Raster & Mandrake... And I also support RedHat I don't like all the negative press they are getting lately, I think people are getting paranoid, but only time will show.
Sorry about the english, I am *.no
Anonymous CowardJWZ was one thing -- his complaints at least were about the project. He was expecting to "ship product" in a year, and was entitled to gripe about how slow things were going when it didn't (although personally I can't imagine how Mozilla could have turned around that fast given how broken the original code was).
JWZ's gripes were over the lack of progress in a public effort. Raster's bitching about how he couldn't get along with someone else at the office is something else entirely.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
We need a way to moderate the stories themselves. That way we can downplay stories like this (which aren't truly all that relevant to the general populace..)
/. giving it "column-inches") is highly inappropriate.
/. ?
Reality Check -- EVERYONE here has probably quit their job at one point in time or another because they didn't like someone they worked with. I know I have. Sure I may have had a web page up about it at one point in time, but I certainly didn't go telling the world about it, putting it in Slashdot, because frankly its not that important. If someone knew me, came to my web page, they saw it and understood why I moved from one city to another.
Yes, I can understand Raster's complaint.
No, I don't want to hear any more about it.
Even if I do dislike Red Hat as a company, which I do, this type of ranting (and
Which leads back to moderation.... how about stories themselves start out with points that moderators can reduce if the story just completely shouldn't be on
Now enlightenment has undergone a rewrite, supposedly to remove a lot of cruft and make it more extensible. When I first used E, it was more of a desktop than simply a window manager; making it a window manager again, albeit a very advanced and complex one, seemed like a good idea to me.
E's pagers, the minisnapshots, are neat. The fact that it is completely configurable is neat. But, it's not a window manager any longer. I first got concerned when Raster talked of implementing his own widgets in E for configuration; after all, there's a perfectly good GTK+ app that could be extended or rewritten to do the same thing! When Raster went on to say he might want a file dialogue or something along those lines, I knew that E was getting a bit too big.
E is now, or will soon be, a desktop environment unto itself. It's running up in the 60k lines of code area, with 0.15 at least, which if it's done well isn't a problem. Regardless of this, small machines will have a lot of trouble running E if it continues to expand. The only hope of keeping it as a window manager is that Mandrake is able to make modules of one form or another work, so that if I want to use the GTK+ app instead of the built-in E widget configuration dialogues, I can, and if I don't want the up-and-coming desktop environment bits of it, I can leave them and use GNOME and gmc instead.
There's nothing inherently wrong in making E a desktop environment on its own. But, with it being GNOME's default window manager, the GNOME developers now have a choice: Use the old versions of E, which aren't duplicating code and effort, use the new versions and hope that the user doesn't get confused with the two file selectors and various other things, develop their own window manager, or make sure that E follows its true roots: complete configurability, modularity, and choice.
articles that have appeared over the last few
days here and elsewhere, both positive and
and negative, seem to point that RedHat is
pushing the limits of what it can do under it's
current model, and must make major changes to
the way it does things if they wish to continue,
either as a packager of a quality distribution,
or as a supplier of Linux to businesses. (IMO,
with the convoluted process of Linux install,
you can't provide both in the same package).
In this case, RH is definitely heading down the
road of business attraction (IPO, anyone) and
moving away from general Linux support, even
though they are continuing to push their RHAD
stuff. This is making the distribution less
interesting to those that prefer to hack
someone on the system or do more non-standard
setups.
Mind you, RH aiming to provide a strong linux
distrubtion to businesses is a *GOOD* thing
to break the NT juggernaut, but they need to
decide to truly go down this road, rather than
trying to supply a tool that inadequetely does
both the business and the hacker support.
Myself, I'm strongly considering going to
debian when I next need to upgrade, only because
it has more of a hackers-to-hackers feel to
it.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
That place is BO RING.
That's why those freaks are driving the rent up in San Francisco (where the 101 commute is now worse outbound than inbound.)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Look at it from the company's point of view. Foremost, it's bad press right before their IPO. Second, it hurts their recruiting efforts by saying that living in NC sucks...
I dunno, maybe even a vague loyalty isn't something that HR people look for anymore, but it's something I still value in people who work for me.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
In our attempts to find a "moral to the story," we can basically try to answer two questions: What does this say about Rasterman? and What does this say about Red Hat? If you don't like my longwindedness, I'll answer both for you right here: nothing.
The only change to Rasterman that arises from this is a different locale and different employer. That's it. He always has cared about his users; he's not leaving because he's been magically enlightened to the needs of them. Same ol' lovable Rasterman.
Likewise, there's nothing new about Red Hat here. They aren't out to hurt Rasterman's users or work, with the exception of one person. I doubt one person should categorize Red Hat's official stance. Especially one which has thus far gone unnamed, and is more than likely not anyone high on the food chain. Rasterman himself even says that most of the folks and RH and RHAD are good people: there's just that one person who has offended him.
So why am I chatting so much about something that I consider a nothing-new event? Simply because I don't want to hear any weirdness emerge from it. Rasterman is not suddenly a saint (unless he already was ;) ); Red Hat is not suddenly a non-believer in the Free way.
Flames burn. Hurt. Don't touch; don't start.
I've never kept working at a place that thinks it can treat me like trash. I deserve more respect than that, and so did Raster. :), and he did not want to work there anymore. Plain and simple. Why should he be RH's slave when others will pay him to work in a supportive environment?
Loyalty is earned. If that loyalty is betrayed, it deserves to be taken away.
If you get paid to write software, you want a productive environment to work in, to do good work, to deliver your product, and the management should support those who are working for them. The better you treat your workers, espicially with this type of product development, the better work they do. Plain logic. Red Hat's management gave raster trouble, made the environment bad (besides, NC SUCKS!
Human beings are incredible assets. Human resources fit under operating expenses.
Raster wants to do Stunt Programming, death-defying, convention-breaking, high-bandwidth stuff. Redhat has always been about cleaning up Linux for institutional, mainstream consumption. It wasn't a great fit. It's good that he's moved on, though he's been mighty childish and unprofessional about it.
JWZ is also a Stunt Programmer. On the Mozilla project, he was given marching orders to be a project leader, not a Stunt Programmer. The Mozilla project faltered. He left, frustrated. Since then, the Mozilla project has become much more goal-focused, its frequent milestone releases coming with clear goals. The difference is like night and day, reflected in everything from the crisp, punctual status reports and the daily inventories of showstoppers.
The successor to NS Communicator is still a long way from release, but the new discipline evident across the board on the Mozilla project shows how much dithering there was in the absence of strong project leadership.
This Raster guy and that Zawinski fella have done damn fine stuff, and have plenty of damn fine stuff ahead of them. But both were ill-suited to the jobs they were in, and should stop bellyaching.