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Red Hat Europe
Chuck Milam writes "Red Hat has announced Red Hat Europe. Interesting--I wonder if they're going to give SuSE a run for the money? " Looks like they are opening a German and UK office, and
have announced that Colin Tenwick (of Sybase) will be in charge.
After seeing too many Red Hat, Microsoft comparisons, I thought I'd clarify. Red Hat does not, and cannot, use Microsoft-like tactics. If they did, half of their developers would quit. Most of the key guys are Red Hat are folks like Alan Cox. Ethically, they won't work for the bad guy. Much of Red Hat's userbase would leave as well. Red Hat releases all of their code under the GPL. They won't include non-free software in their distrib. Even if they got a monopoly, they could not leverage it, since if people no longer liked them, they could use free-of-charge copies, or make fork distributions. They have a history of doing good stuff for the Linux community, and cooperating and even helping other members of the Linux community (including other Linux distributions) whenever possible. They're just a really good company. Other than Debian, no other distribution even begins to compare to Red Hat's solid ethical stance.
They're also not that near to a monopoly. SuSE had more sales, revenues and profits in 1999. Together, the other distributions have more marketshare than Red Hat.
Personally, I'm scared as heck of a proprietary distrib like SuSE gaining a monopoly, or even of the playing field being dominated by proprietary products (which may add more and more proprietary stuff to gain an advantage). Until other distribs change their stances, I will continue to run Debian, and support Debian and Red Hat.
Posted by Synsthe:
/ index.html
> I would like to support Linux comunity but Im
> not ready to support another Linux "BillGates".
I see this statement all too often, and as far as I'm concerned it's got no basis to it, other than jealousy. People are jealous that RedHat is succesful. People are jealous that they're not the ones who could be part of it.
Read this, for a very good story on why RedHat is not the MS of Linux:
http://salon.com/tech/feature/1999/07/14/redhat
..and once you're done reading that, get over it. =) RedHat is not trying to proprietarize Linux, and RedHat is doing nothing to keep the source from the people - if you want somebody to target, target Caldera; last I heard, you had to buy their cd to get the latest distro as it wasn't available from their FTP. RedHat provides theirs for download, and the source is there right alongside it. Yup. Sure looks like they're pulling anti-trust conspiracy moves to me.
This petty name calling and the distribution wars have got to stop. Having a favourite is one thing, blatanly calling down and refusing to acknowledge a distribution that doesn't agree with you is another thing entirely -- it's dangerous, both for your reputation in the eyes of others, and for Linux itself.
(Disclaimer: The author of this post does have a few bones to pick w/ RedHat, such as their refusal to support the LSB. RedHat is not completely innocent of all accusations leveled at them; they are _not_ however the Microsoft of Linux, not even close.)
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
All the news of expansion is certainly going to fuel more anger and fear of Red Hat taking over the world. People have already pointed out the number one argument against this: Red Hat is pouring tons of money into code development, and releasing it ALL under the GPL. You may also be interested in some things Bob Young said in a recent interview with Linux Journal (I hope this qualifies as "fair use...")
"We don't do any exclusive contracts. For example, the guys at Metroworks - on their box, they say it was built for Red Hat Linux. That wasn't our idea - that was their idea for marketing purposes."
"...our goal at Red Hat has always been to expand the number of Linux users, not to dominate the Linux space."
"We have no interest (in squashing our competition). Slackware and Caldera and Debian are very much our allies in this effort to make Open Source the definition, to make Open Source a required feature of any operating system the user might consider."
"We understand our competition isn't with Caldera or SuSE - out competition is with Microsoft." (He was speaking about the new higher price on RH6.0, basically saying that it pays not for the software, but for a certain level of support that their users expect from them.)
"... we are not trying to compete in the Linux space, we are trying to compete with the very big proprietary OS vendors..."
Now, of course, the nature of this competition could change if Open Source becomes the standard - the competition would probably move to the other Linux vendors. But for now, according to Mr. Young (whom you can believe or disbelieve as you see fit), Red Hat's plan is to do the "right thing" for Linux.
Red Hat announced the acquisition of the popular slashdot site from Andover.net.
A spokesperson could not say whether the new site would be called "RedDot", "SlashHat", or even "RedSlashHatDot".
One regular slashdot reader named Anonymous Coward reportedly said, "Oh. So that's why I was seeing two or more Red Hat stories in the same afternoon."
The reader was immediately subdued, gagged, and called a troll.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.