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.

Comments

Re:... competing?

[Isaac-Lew]

RH is doing EVERYTHING they can to become the Microsoft of Linux (granted its not a perfect parallel, but be imaginative).

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).

Coop and Compete (was [Re:... competing?])

[Proteus]

While I do understand your frustration with RedHat's apparent lack of concern for the interests of the community in decisions like this, I must point out a few things:

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