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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.
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.
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.
Dude. Look at the cvs checkins. It's great that some people that bust their asses extra hard are getting paid for their day gig, the product of which we may take for granted freely every day. As you pointed out, Miguel isn't employed by Red Hat, and Pennington is kicking ass for gnome with a book, weekly status updates and coding.
I'm not a gnome developer, but, no, I don't feel odd about this at all- in fact it reinforces my support of gnome development.
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.
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.
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.
Why saddened? Do you think that it will affect the quality of his work in some way? Or make him less happy? Personally, it seems that getting paid to do what he's been doing for free all along would make him a happy man - which can only lead to better code. :)
Also, I have no idea why your post was moderated down. I don't think that voicing dislike (err.. strong dislike) for Red Hat qualifies for flamebait. Ah well.
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
Saddened because he is working for red hat....I myself prefer Debian and Suse....I have for a long time disliked Red Hat....but...as any good guy would...I gave them a chance and bought 6.0 at LE from linux mall for $3....I was not happy...I wanted my $3 back...I then installed SUSE 6.1 and was VERY impressed...the install system is great and very easy to use...
I never thought I would say this but...
GOT AC!!!
The above was a typo....what I meant to say was
GO AC!
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)
I think its rather nice to pay developers to do what they do.. its got to be nice to be able to develop your projects, get paid for it, and release it open source..
seems to be the perfect way to do what you want, get paid for it, and make it available for everyone to use.
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).
Seems like maybe there are some people working there who have not been completely assimilated yet....
Thats why they force all the developers they hire to only release their software under the RHWDPL (RedHat World Domination Public License). Now that you're on to them, we can foil their evil plans!
I have air conditioning at my apt too. it's great in the warm summer months.
I don't have HP. What is this? Some slang term for heating?
--
I didn't say I'd be taking over gnome-apt!
I meant to say it would be cool if Red Hat would pay Havoc to continue to develop gnome-apt (unlikely). It didn't come out right though...
Cheers,
- Jim
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
I feel inadequate - my paranoia glands just aren't functioning to your level (need more peguin mints)
I recently diverged into debian after being introduced to linux from rh 4.2->5.2. rh is like an entry level drug.
they are trying to control free software in the sence of making it easy to use.
oh nevermind (i'm going to bed)
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.
So? If you don't like it, and there is enough people who agree then fork it and start your own GUI project (GnomeAc?)the way you want it. You'll have a good working base to start from. If you're right all the non-RH developers will drift off Gnome to GnomeAc and you'll get the GUI you want. RH will have lost control.
If you can't be bothered then it obviously doesn't matter that much and we can all get on with something else.
BigTom
I don't know for sure what you mean by "support", but RedHat 6.0 did ship with KDE as well, if you choose to install it.
-- KS
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."
Well, I'm a Duke student and I belong to DULUG (betcha can figure that one out). Every once in a while a lady at Red Hat (don't know what her position is; she seems to have to deal with LUGs) sends out an email to our mailing list saying "Come to the Cary B&N to meet the GNOME developers". I've always had play rehearsal or something, so I've never gone. I'd like to, though.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/07/13/18502 26&cid=80
They did it because that's how they interpreted the FHS.
Debian did the same.
It is supposed to work when using that configuration, it is just a lot less tested.