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Red Hat Portal Picking up Steam
NoWhere Man
noted a story on CNet that that talks about
Red Hat
and their plans to
Create a full blown Linux Portal.
They note the fact that RH has job openings in San Fran, as well as
the trivia that they recently hired 20 (!) people from Atomic
Vision. They note that RH will be competing more directly
with VAs Linux.com, and of
course, yours truly.
This is great news for the shareware operating system Linux. What I want to know is, when is Linus Torvalds going to send me a registered copy? I sent in my $7 three months ago, and I have yet to receive anything, even an email from him.
Keep in mind, there are so many distros of Linux that there is more Linux news to be reported than other OS news.
Also, all stories are posted from user-submitted stories -- you want to see a story on a non-Linux OS? If it's relevant news, submit it, and if it is indeed relevant, it will probably be posted!
Posted by the Proteus
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
I hope you're right and Linux is the next Java -- Java has now lost 98.6% of it's hype (yes, I pulled that % out of my butt), however, it is an increasingly relevant technology. I have seen many, many of our customers in the past few months move to thin-client solutions for managing entire manufacturing lines: and all are Java-based.
If, two years from now, there is no hype and Linux is just accepted as a viable business solution, I will be ecstatic!
Posted by the Proteus
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Its not like Redhat is going around buying up companies that have patented the door hinge and buying property rights for everything including the basic logic. I do not see Redhat as a company that has better than half their payroll of marketing, lawyers, and contracting firms out to do more of the same. Not only do they develop and release GPL'd code, they pay and even hire others to do it.
People who claim Redhat is the next Microsoft are trolling. Redhat does not have any strongarm leverage to kill free code.
/sarcsam on
I mean, what was wrong with fvwm? That bastard Rasterman, why couldn't he just submit some patches, instead of going out and making his own window manager. What's he trying to do, take over the whole window manager world? It's people like him that are going to ruin Linux.
Same goes for Python. And while we're at it, perl... what was wrong with a simple shell script?
/sarcasm off
Sorry, but I just don't buy your arguments. They're making a new "portal" site - great. It'll be another place for new linux folks to go and get information. I don't think that constitutes "going against the community" in any way.
It's really amazing how well you can read other people's ideas and regurgitate them. How many hundreds of times have I heard RH being compared to M$? The plain fact it they are trying to be successful. It doesn't matter whether or not they are here to help linux or become linux because the very nature of linux and the GPL prevents that from happening. Any software they write still gets GPL'd. Do you see M$ GPLing their software? no. Why? because they are money hungry bastards. RH believes in the Open Source Movement and they also believe that they can still get rich by supporting it. I wish them all the luck because every piece of software that they write and GPL does indeed help the Linux community! I may decide to switch over to debian because I don't want GNOME or KDE but not because they are now "evil" because they want to turn a profit.
And Suppose for just a minute that RH succeeds in becoming as succesful as M$. Let's ask ourselves what that would mean. It would mean that RH has created a distribution that my mom could install and use. She won't ever have to learn to compile a kernel or use vi. She will never have to learn about any of the unix command line utilities that I love so much. But she will be able to have an environment that is as easy to use as windows but can run indefinately. Granted this is not the distribution for me but it is ideal for the average computer user. The user that M$ targets. Debian will still be around for us "power users" and RH will never be able to do anything about that. How can any of this be bad for linux?
Redhat is the only distribution I know of that is trying to compete with Microsoft. Do you have any idea how hard that must be? This tiny little company (big for linux small for the PC industry) has the balls to walk up the the industry leader and try to beat them by distributing (get this...) quality software. It very reminiscent of david and goliath. Luckily for RH they are not actually competing with M$. (Do you think david would have won if he'd tried to fight goliath with a sword?) Instead RH has something under their hat (no pun intended) that M$ can't compete with: Free Software. That's our slingshot! Die M$ Die!!!!
My sig has a broken link in it.
Hello, Red Hat, portals suck. They're the hottest thing now though. They're the "push technology" of 1999.
See, as Red Hat pushes it's IPO the want to look all spiffy for all those investors who are really just PHBs but with more money.
The sad thing is, rather than say helping an established Linux info sites along, or simply being a clearing house for some of the more established Linux sites (pretty much like they are now) it looks as though they want to duplicate all that effort and with their massive financial backing try to take over the Linux web arena.
Gosh, how Microsoft of them.
On top of that, it's going to be at the cost of just the basic Red Het support info that their site offers now.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find real technical info about Microsoft's products on mocrosoft.com or info on Netscape at netscape.com?
JW
I dunno though, going on the number of times that the Enterprise has been taken over by people locking everyone else out of the computer system, I say that they *gotta* be running NT.
Don't send them hate e-mail! Just e-mail them the entire contents of your favorite Linux distro.
Glad to help!
-buffy
What source have they closed? What competitors have they bought out or crushed? What FUD have they spread about other distributions?
They are distancing themselves from the community and breaking the original spirit by becoming money-hungry competitors instead of contributors.
Nothing wrong with competition (as long as it remains friendly). Red Hat is a business -- one that directly and indirectly supports kernel development and device driver writing. Also, they release their software under the GPL, so that all distros can benefit if they choose (RPM is a major example).
They don't want to HELP Linux, they want to BECOME Linux. Suits.
See above. They're building mindshare, but to say that they want to become Linux is a stretch. They have plenty of competition in the commercial distribution area (and plenty more on the way)...some of them based on Red Hat itself.
Next we'll see proprietary "RH ONLY!" extensions and file formats.
Ever heard of a little thing called the GPL? If the programs are Open Source, how long would it take for them to be reverse-engineered? Also, that would only be to Red Hat's detriment, as then people would simply switch to another distro, find other sources of support, etc.
Goodbye RH, hello Debian.
You do realize that a claim could be made for Debian having lost its soul (by publicly linking itself with Corel, whose FAQ states that despite using Debian as the base for their (Corel's) distro, they're not open-sourcing their products).
First of all, RedHat has donated resources to projects that help the community. At some level, they do have concern for the progression of the community.
Secondly, the Open Source or Free Software or whatever movement you happen to support is based as much on competition as on cooperation. How many Web servers are there for linux? I can think of at least three. Why? They each offer something different. Yet they compete. Lack of competition can cause lower quality products -- why add new features or fix bugs when you're the only choice?
Also, consider this -- why is Microsoft so universally disliked among the Linux/*BSD community? Precicely because there is no competition! That has lead to buggy, unstable, bloated code. Competition, and the freedom to compete, is the very basis of the Free Software and Open Source movements. (and other orgs like them)
RedHat is a business. Sometimes they will do things that benefit themselves more than the community as a whole. But the publicity and corporate acceptance of Linux that RedHat is responsible for has been, and continues to be, of immeasurable benefit to the cause.
Just because RedHat makes smart business decisions that don't always jive with the idyllic objectives of the community does not make them evil or 'The Microsoft of Linux'. Last time I checked, RedHat was far from monopoly status.
(Personally, I use Debian because I find RedHat overly bloated for my taste -- I mention it so that no one thinks I am some kind of religious RedHat supporter. But neither am I a RedHat hater.)
Posted by the Proteus
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower