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RHAD Hires Havoc Pennington
pate writes "It
looks like Red Hat has scooped up another free software
name. According to
this article, Havoc Pennington started work there
yesterday. " He's the guy who does the weekly GNOME summaries,
and is responsible for countless other Good Things(TM) in
GNOME.
Except for Miguel, which would be too obvious, RH owns all the primary Gnome developers it seems. Does anyone else feel odd about this?
Is Havoc his real name? I wish my parents would have given me such a cool name. Maybe I will change my name to mayhem.
Well as a gnome developer who HATES red hat I am saddened by HPs decision to goto work for them....But It was his decisions.
Cool news and congrats HP. I hope he stays (I'm thinking of Raster; maybe someone might say ``festering GNOME users?''). Wonder if they will let him use Debian there.
Why is Redhat so hated??? What have they done that is so bad? In my opinion they have done nothing but help Linux.
Plus, he'll release his free book on GTK+/GNOME Programming in August!
I'd better rush and pre-order it. :)
Oh Noe! It Must Be A Conspiracy!
Please. It's been said before, it'll be said again. RedHat has NEVER done ANYTHING proprietary, nor do they show any signs of doing so. They pay quality guys like Alan Cox and Stephen Tweedie to sit at home and hack the kernel, hacks which benefit competing distros. If you don't like their file layout, or RPMs, or whatever that's great. But don't add credibility to the "RMS and his followers are all commies" meme by trying to destroy any Linux company that attempts to make money.
Then don't f*sking use it.
Damn it, you redhat bashers are so ignorant. Even if you use redhat, you can still download all the source you like and install everything that way.
Redhat has done nothing bad to linux. They have tried to contribute what they think is good for it, but nothing has been shoved down your throat. If you don't like it, DON'T USE IT.
If your only problem is that rh is to windows-like, then I guess that means that you only use linux because it is non-windows.
Grow up.
I interviewed with Red Hat this week and let me tell you it is Geek Heaven. To hold on to so many great geeks they have to be doing something right. I don't know what it is, but I want to be part of it.
For those of you who aren't on the gtk+ and related devel lists, which I assume is quite a bunch, you ought to know that Havoc is just about the most knowledgeable and consistently helpful person I (and I likely speak for many of us) have encountered on the internet. Period.
I'm slightly amused that he's gone to work for Red Hat, since he's a Debian developer if I'm not mistaken. But I'm sure he'll be happier with a paycheck than without. And maybe the "man who never sleeps" will finally get some sleep...
Good luck, Havoc.
Offtopic...
/ASDFASDF was not found on this server.
- --------------------------------
Isn't this interesting? But why not IIS 4.0? It's so good at serving up web pages at high speed, after all
Try an invalid link:
http://homepages.msn.com/ASDFASDF
Not Found
The requested URL
-----------------------------------------------
Apache/1.3.6 Server at homepages.msn.com Port 4890
To work on gnome-apt. :-)
Cheers,
- Jim
And how much support did you get with it?
:) Traditional support can only broaden the user base. That's my $0.02
I figure that your $80 goes for the 30 days phone support and 90 days of email support that comes with the package. Which, if you ask me, is a very good thing because most Linux newbies I goad into trying it are confused as hell right from the start.
It looks like RedHat has finally worked out how to stop being embarassed by Debian's packaging system -- hire the lead developer on gnome-apt! Development stopped for long enough when Havoc was writing the book, I have a feeling someone else may have to pick up the project now..can't imagine they'll let him continue developing for Debian. :(
:) )
(I really oughta learn the internals of Apt one of these days and start playing with gnome-apt. Tomorrow sounds good
Daniel
Okay... maybe a bit of an extreme reaction on my part... but I'd like to see attention steered towards technical issues rather than stardom.
IMHO
Gee, (insert prominent developer name here) lost five pounds and has a new shirt!
I agree with the previous post about the debain package management being quite a bit more sophisticated(sp?). RPM seemed to cause me quite a bit of grief with failed dependedcies and stuff.. But with Debain i simply select the package i want and it will let me know what i am missing give me the choice to install it and then will configure it for me (to the best it can).
NOTE: I am using an ftp install for debian and am not sure if this was available for rpms so that it would preform the same.. either way
RH seems to be doing a wonderful job and the fact they keep hiring key guys is fine by me.. At least these guys get to work for a place that lets them do what they are good at so the rest of can benifit.
(if rpms do have the same features let me know. that would be swell)
Anyways, some people feel that subverting a project to make it their own, then using it against other free software projects is a bad thing...
They are almost all RH people doing Gnome coding.
There's a good reason why this was moderated down. Voicing dislike for red hat isn't bad. Hitting the caps lock key and then voicing dislike for red hat without giving any reason for said dislike is (IMHO) bad. Go moderators.
Does this mean Havoc will come to the Cary B&N meetings with the GNOME developers? I may actually come to one now. Just have to find the time . . .
I don't use Redhat, but thats just as irrelevant as people who whinge that they don't like Redhat.
How could you possibly complain about a company that gives OSS coders incentives to continue work? Redhat is doing an awful lot for the Linux community, and putting their money where their mouth is.. they support the OSS movement, Linux, and at the same time, are building a strong company to back it (and not control it, as some say - their source is still as free as everyone else's).
They are doing it to control free software.
Do we really need a news article every time somebody joins or leaves Red Hat? I personally don't care about Rasterman leaving, Havoc Pennington joining, or any of their other personnel decisions.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If you don't like the smell...
/. you aren't interested in, so skip them and shut up.
Honestly: We all choose, what we read and don't read on the internet. There's bound to be some articles on
-- Andreas
This has been a difficult issue for me.
:)
I've recently switched to debian after only running linux on redhat since 4.2. It's taken me a bit of time to get up to speed. I'd hoped the biggest difference would be that I'd type dpkg instead of rpm but...
This isn't a testament for or against redhat but one does begin to see that things that begin to seem intuitive adfasdf (- my cat says hi) on redhat are learned.
I set up are rh 6.0 box at the office with all of my personal tricks in an hour. While my debian box at home took me substantially longer (felt like a newbie again).
It would certainly be nice if learning linux didn't mean learning redhat linux or debian linux or suse linux or etc....
What if RH recruit most of the Gnome developers and SUSE recruit most of the KDE developers and Netscape recruit most of the Mozilla developers (okay, they've already get-em ;-)) and Caldera ..., and Corel ... and ...? So what? So they push their favoured bit over the others by throwing developer effort at it in an effort to make it the defacto standard? So What?
Its open source. The competition and different design philosophies mean that the community is unlikely to be locked into a blind alley.
Personally, as long as the license is right, the more full time focused developers the better. The process still has all of its benefits and the work is never wasted. If RH decided to recruit 100 developers to try and bury KDE what would happen? They would probably put themselves out of business, KDE would still be there, *and so would all the code*. We win again.
The danger is when they start withholding the source.
If you are looking for warning signs - watch the licence policy, not the recruiting policy.
BigTom
Havoc was one of the driving forces behind KDE-Gnome cooperation, against Miguel ("KDE will die anyway", 'Everything that's not by me sucks'-attitude) and Elliot (little interest).
Hopefully he won't be assimilated by the RedHat product policy, but I seriously doubt it.
A big part of the Linux spirit is that you make good products instead of vapourware, and you NEVER fool users with FUD and propaganda like the 'commercial guys' do it.
Linux is NOT ONLY about free software, but also about fairness and fun.
RedHat is by far the worst Linux-related company when it comes to spreading FUD and misinformation. Just take the premature GNOME release, where they also called Gnome a RedHat product (which it may well have become now). The whole anti-KDE FUD and insulting - mostly by Miguel, but backed by RedHat. (They don't have to love KDE, but they have no right to insult those developers conctantly)
Then their agressive "Linux is RedHat" marketing, their rejection of the LSB (whatever they say, they aren't supporting it).
SuSE may have non-GPL software, but they are MUCH nicer in all the abovementioned points, although they're as big as RedHat...
The problem is, those who pay dictate the direction where a software project is going.
That was basically what Raster was worried about.
Gnome used to be a cool project with a focus on a geeky interface, advanced technological gadgets and individualism.
KDE was more serious, businesslike, with focus on functionality and Win/Mac/OS2 resemblance.
Now RedHat has 'officially' changed the direction to develop a "Windows clone", obviously to read a larger user base.
But then again, I'll better go with KDE, because that's one thing they're definitely better at.
In the meantime, KDE NG is technologically more advanced and (upcoming KDE 1.2) better looking.
With Gnome becoming more and more boring and less independent, it definitely loses a lot of its coolness.
...thus they are quite independent when it comes to software. At best, they want to lure people to their Linux portal(s):-)
RedHat may not release proprietary software, but they're very fond of 'distribution-dependent' software, which is not so much different in the real world. Ever wondered why Gnome runs so much better on RedHat than elsewhere (Debian may work too with a little more effort).
You don't find that with KDE.
The problem is INDEPENDENCE. This is IMHO the second most important point just after freedom. And while KDE is equally influenced by Caldera, Corel, SuSE and TrollTech, RedHat is practically in charge of Gnome.
People are concerned that redHat may change the direction of Gnome development in an unwanted way, and in fact they've done so recently:
"Gnome intends to be a Windows clone"
How many from the pro-Gnome, Anti-KDE camp are happy with that? Surely not the majority.
Most initiatives for KDE-Gnome cooperation have also come from KDE, not Gnome/RedHat. Havoc was a notable exception until now. Hopefully that won't change.
You didn't HONESTLY believe that Gnome was an independant project anymore, did you? Raster's "sign off" message was pretty clear that RedHat has a distinct plan for Gnome. Gnome is part of RedHat's political agenda, which is why Redhat refuses to support any 'other' desktop.
Heh..they can keep hiring the Gnome core people, but it certainly hasn't improved the quality of Gnome -at all-. It is still inconsistant, extremely buggy, memory leaky and slow. Yet, instead of focusing on making the core Gnome modules stable, Miguel flys off on endless tangents, spreading his developers out even further (the latest being his mail API).
Havoc and KDE developers were getting along great until Miguel jumped onto the mailing list, told everyone how things must be done with no code to back it up, then couldn't justify his position adequately while KDE developers already coded the Corba stuff in question. Cooperation with Gnome has pretty much been dead since then. Miguel is like a MS PR person, says how things should be done and how cool it will be, then never implements anything. Or is there a KOM/OP interface for Orbit? He tries to discourage others with vaporware promises and tells others how to design things after they already got a working solution.
Hah, I seem to recall when KDE 1.0 was released and everyone here at Slashdot were wailing and gnashing teeth about it, I made a post to the effect that "TrollTech has never done ANYTHING untoward, nor have they shown any signs of trying to 'take over' Linux, the desktop, or anything". The slashdot peanut gallery was up in arms about this, big surprise. Not being able to answer my message, I was hit with a barrage of "Qt is not free! Qt is not free!" mantras.
So now the shoe is on the other foot. Gnome is NOT an 'independant' project anymore. It's a RedHat project. And yet, you hypocritical Slashdotters are running to defend Redhat as never having done anything wrong.
Well, maybe they haven't made gnome proprietary, but Redhat has pulled enough political shit to make me never buy their distro again. The smoke-and-mirrors bullshit about KDE being 'non-free' (while they continued to package stuff with worse licenses), the pre-release vapourware announcements about Gnome (followed by a pathetic "1.0" release that was so buggy and unstable it would have made Bill Gates proud), and the general behaviour of certain @redhat.com people have all given Redhat a black eye they well deserve.
This is what doesn't make sense to me. According to what Raster hinted, Redhat (or at least, certain individuals within redhat) want a Windows-clone. Why are they supporting Gnome then? KDE is much closer in look and feel to what Windows users expect...yet, Redhat is supporting Gnome and trying to steer Gnome into being a Windows-clone (I always wondered why Redhat shipped enlightenment configured with a theme to make it look like FVWM-95...now I know why!). Gnome had LOTS of potential to be something above and beyond a Windows-alike, and yet Redhat ships it 'dumbed down' to the point of looking like FVWM-95!
Why is Redhat doing this? To me it seems like since they CAN'T control KDE (and ironically, the TrollTech license actually protects KDE from being manipulated by the likes of Redhat), they are going to control and steer Gnome. They want it -their- way, not to answer to an 'independant' group like the KDE folks. They are making a big show about being GPL'd, but the GPL doesn't affect who is steering the project, nor does the GPL dictate basic ethics.
Miguel? Have you sold Gnome out?
Once upon a time, Redhat was a very quality distro. In fact, I view Redhat 4.2 as being damn near perfect...because 1) redhat actually tested their distro back then and 2) redhat was just producing a distro, not aspiring to be a windows-cloner.
Why do I dislike Redhat?
1) FUD. They made a very public anti-KDE statement, based around the Qt license. Yet, at the same time they continued to ship stuff with WORSE licenses (and proprietary stuff at that). This move was extremely hypocritical, and was just a prelude to their very public support of the Gnome project.
2) Lack of focus. Since Redhat 5.0, it was painfully obvious that Redhat was no longer interested in making a decent distro. They didn't test it, and it was MISERABLE. The rest of the 5.x series was similar (with 5.1 being the rock-bottom WORST). Instead, Redhat began focusing on politics (see item #1).
3) Vapour. Remember all the hooplah and hype about the so-called Gnome "1.0" release? Yet, the "1.0" release was so bug-ridden it was OBVIOUS that it was released just for the hype factor, and was NOT ready at all. Redhat (in my opinion) spearheaded the whole 'release' of Gnome 1.0, pushing it out way before its time. Even Raster hinted at this in his 'sign off' message. Miguel should be ashamed of selling his project short like this, yet he is the loudest defender of Redhat.
4) Continued underhandedness. Redhat 6.0 shipped both KDE and Gnome, so where's the problem, right? No problem except for the fact that KDE was very badly integrated into Redhat, and the fact that Redhat shipped a pre-release of 1.1.1 (even though the full 1.1.1 was available). Heck, even Linux-Mandrake managed to get it right, and they are BASED on Redhat. Many of us feel Redhat did this on purpose as a continuation of their 'hate-on' for KDE.
Redhat (and sadly, Gnome) are the FIRST groups in the Linux community to use Microsoft-esque smoke-and-mirrors techniques. The anti-KDE FUD, the Gnome "1.0" announcement and Miguel's continued badmouthing of the KDE project is a prime example of this. When in the Linux community has this happened before? To my knowledge, it hasn't.
We don't need this. Redhat is doing us ALL a disservice.
I work in RTP for Big Blue. Tell me more about these meetings.
As I said, I'm reasonably happy with the upcoming KDE architecture.
But your forking theory doesn't work in real life.
It's not like doing your own version of vi. There are so many interdependencies in a desktop environment that you'll break many apps if you change just the libraries.
And, with practically all main developers employed at RedHat (and thus forced to work on the RedHat version), who would be left to join my GnomeAC fork?
No, it can only be hoped that RedHat listens to the 'geek community', but as the money lies with the 'dummies', I doubt this...
This is a rumour that has been around for a while, and it totally unfounded.
At the time RH 6.0 went to press, KDE 1.1 was *not* released. The latest version was 1.1pre1, and that had been released weeks ago, and a number of bugs fixed.
RH asked if we were releasing 1.1 for their deadline, and we weren't.
So, they had a few options:
1) Ship 1.0
2) Ship 1.1pre1
3) Delay RH 6.0 (costly, and practically unfeasible)
4) Get what was in CVS at the time and test it the best they could.
1) Was out of the question. The CVS tuff was a lot more stable.
2) Asked by RH representatives, several KDE developers, (including me) said that the current CVS code was better than 1.1pre1 (it was, IMHO)
3) Not really possible.
4) What they did, *after* asking for advice.
RH acted in what at the time seemed the best possible way given the situation.
And before someone asks: I am no RH fan. I dislike their distribution quite a bit, and have my own grudges with the company's politics, but this is not one of them.
Check out his homepage. His (full) real name is "Robert Sanford Havoc Pennington."
As one anonymous coward to another, I'd like to ask that you follow your own advice and be more supportive of the original poster, who was giving a pat on the back to someone who deserved it.
KDE with RH supplied RPMs for 6.0 is buggier than on any other distribution and KDE supplied RPM's (same KDE version) for earlier RH versions. What does that tell you?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/07/13/18502 26&cid=80
RH had a extensive beta. Remember RawHide? Isn't that where they were supposed to test? They could of tested the KDE CVS there.
You know the reason KDE on RH6.0 sucks is not because of 1.1 prerelease code but because of the way they split directories. Now that being the case can you tell me why they didn't do this in the RawHide betas but waited till the last minute to break KDE?