Slashdot Mirror
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.
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 CowardWe 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
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.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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.