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It's Official: Red Hat Buys Cygnus
Well, now it's official. Red Hat buys Cygnus for $674 Million. (Short story here.) I'm sure we're going to see lots of attention from the media in the following hours. What do you think?
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Personally, I think it's a good move for Red Hat -- they're protecting their interests by ensuring they don't lose their development toolchain, which is pretty critical to their survival.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with the parts of Cygnus that aren't related to their core Linux business, though. I think there are huge opportunities for Red Hat in the embedded space now, but I wonder if they're too Linux server oriented to see them...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
There's a FAQ up on the Cygnus site regarding the merger.
Most interestingly (perhaps) is that a new CEO will be taking the helm at RedHat.
Why would we want to destroy Cygnus?
The way I see it, Red Hat and Cygnus are a great match - Red Hat builds the OS, Cygnus builds development tools and embedded systems.
With both working together, it's far easier to coordinate, so both sides will profit.
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Actually, it's a good idea to become a one-stop. It means that your customers can come to you for all their needs and be confident that all of your particular configurations will work smoothly together out of the box. That's why OEMs who sell the OS and their hardware seperately never caught on.
This is a case of seeing the best road and taking it. If you have to emulate the way MS does something (so long as its not something like RedHat crushing Debian by threatening OEMs), so be it -- the MS folks are obviously bang-up business guys; they didn't make their money by being good coders.
Additionally: Stop comparing Red Hat to Microsoft. RH is in a position where they could start bullying, but they don't. They deserve some sort of recognition for that, not more flames. Just because you're the biggest kid on the block doesn't automatically make you a bully.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't think mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations are inherently evil. My problems with Microsoft are not (entirely) becuase they are big and successful (of course I do have a certain amount of animosity towards their success, everyone likes an underdog, nobody likes the top dog, but I try not to let that cloud my thinking). Microsoft's evil arises from their abuse of their OS market dominance. Because they "control the desktop," their give-away of IE with the OS that one needs to have (or at least most people think they need to have) was nothing but a blatant attempt to use their market power to crush Netscape, which did pose a real threat to MS's dominance.
RedHat has not (up to this point) behaved like that. While they have become the big boy on the Linux block, they have steadfastly held to their open source roots. Everything they've done has been GPL'd back for anyone to use. Look at all the RPM-based distros, for example.
I happen to use Debian because I'm a bit of a free software purist, so I'm leery of RedHat because it contains some licensed commercial code. Still, so long as RedHat continues to contribute open code, then more power to them.
The measure of RedHat's "evilness" will come with what they do as they buy these other guys (hey, what happened with the "rename cygnus server giveaway," BTW?). If they leave Cygnus' stuff closed and bundle it with RedHat, well, that will be sad, because they will have missed an opportunity to "raise all boats."
If they give away the code, then the buyout was a win for us all.
Also, again, while I spurn RedHat personally for selling some non-free code with their product, you have to give them credit for being a leading light for good. IIRC, Alan Cox is paid handsomely by RedHat. Next to Linus himself, Alan is probably the most important person in Linux kernel development, and, as the principal maintainer of the stable kernel series, he is one of the biggest contibutors to the success of ALL of Linux.
Alan's not the only one on RedHat's payroll either. We all benefit when hackers of all stripes are able to make a living writing free code. As long as RedHat keeps doing these right things, they should be respected and appreciated. Note I don't mean they shouldn't be criticized! RedHat has to expect some of that as the price of openness. But until RedHat starts openly acting against the interest of free software (which is different from bundling non-free code; I guess I see Debian-style DFSG as pure good, RedHat style GPL'ing of their own development while bundling other people's commercial stuff as impure good, and closed development as evil), I think they are doing just fine.
They may become the more conservative, stodgy, "tux in a suit" distro as they grow, but so what? As long as it's still free, you can take it and make as cutting-edge and rebellious a distro as you like.
I don't see a big, even a huge, Redmond-ready RedHat as a threat, unless they start closing the source (some of which they can't thanks to the GPL -- Why do people hate the GPL? -- Never mind, let's not go there today).
RedHat realizes that the battle for the desktop, aka replacing Microsoft, will be a hard-fought battle with Microsoft having a better chance because they have more money.
In the embedded market, if you work is what matters. Consider too, that what has kept Microsoft where they are today is the OS and the supporting software (Office, for example). In the embedded world, the supporting apps don't matter.
(Note how WinCE isn't taking over as others thought it would.)
OpenSource therefore has the best chance in the embedded market. Cygnus is quite a player there, with most of its coders contracted out. (over 50% is what I read...) And, like it or not, the BSD licence better protects the embedded players in court than the GPL. How can *ANYONE* take you to court to force a source code release with the BSD licence? In the embedded world, one of the most important thing is the IP (Intellectual Property) of your product. BSD licence better protects IP as expressed in source. As GCC is a compiler, and a tool, it can be used to make code for any licence type, so Cygnus is a win/win GPL or not.
Oh, think this is good for OpenSource and the GPL? Try this: Motorola uses GCC on its switches. Ask Motorola for its changes to GCC. You won't get them. They say because they licenced them from FSF, they don't have to.
(If you have products using Linux 'embedded', then write the companies and ask for the source code. See what they say, just for yucks.)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
It's more interesting in that we've seen a company specializing primarily in Linux consulting buy out a company which once specialized primarily in Windows software. In 1998 90% of Cygnus's revenue was based on versions of GNU pro and Code fusion which ran on Windows and competed directly with Microsoft Visual C++.
Sales of Cygwin and such represent sales. Since the product is already developed, such sales may even come at virtually no cost.
There's obviously not too likely to be immense changes to GCC (note: it's not called EGCS anymore... ); it might be reasonably argued that RHAT is acting to counter VA Linux Systems, as VA has lately been involved with the IA-64 deployement of GCC.
As for eCos, I suspect that it's not something RHAT will care much about. I also suspect that it hadn't yet become a substantial revenue stream for Cygnus. That bodes somewhat ill for it getting much continued support, although that's no guarantee.
I'm actually rather more interested in hearing what RHAT policy is on Source Navigator and such; it would be a rather positive step if they are released under (L)GPL, and rather distressing if they are not...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
This makes me sick. Red Hat is not evil. Have you ever been to a trade show and accually sat down and talk with an employee of redhat? They're very enthusiastic about Linux, and would only do whats best for the community.
What are you going to say when Red Hat turns up a profit (They haven't so far)? "They're being greedy by charging us $80 for Linux". Whatever. The Book, box, CD, etc may only cost $15, but the rest is all "greed money". Phone tech support is expensive. You have to pay a room full of people $7.50-$10 an hour, plus all the hardware and phone equipment needed to do that (well, it may only be 3-5 people, but still). Plus there is employee healthcare benifits. Oh oh, but thats right, we wouldnt want our redhat employees to be healthy, they're tools of SATAN!!! And food is overrated, they shouldn't buy anything.
You people are all warped and sick.
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>> If there's one thing I don't ever feel
>> towards a commerical organisation, it's
>> indebted.
>
>Not even when that organisation has been paying >people to write cool software, and then >releasing it under the GPL?
Certainly not. Either they pay people to write GPL software in the expectation that somehow they will get a return on their investment. Fine, best of luck to them.
Or they pay people to write GPL software because they just love free software. In that case the people who should be indebted are the programmers, who are being given a job by people who don't expect to get anything back.
I write software because its fun. It is its own reward. I hang out on mailing lists and usenet, because for every 25 answers I give, one person mails me back saying "Great - I understand now and it's all working, thanks!". That reply makes me happy, and it's why I do it. No-one should really feel indebted.
I owe Larry Wall nothing except a smile and a hello if I ever meet him, despite have earned a salary for a year or so on the back of Perl.
This is the basis of Open Source as it interests me. I use software without owing, and I write it without being owed. It is its own reward.
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