Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat/Corel Takeover Rumors
zDooder writes "According to Yahoo
Finance, rumors are flying on Wall Street about RedHat buying
out Corel. " Corel's stock has been all over the place as a result (Discloser:I own some Corel stock). It's definitely an interesting match. Corel's distribution is based on Debian, and Word Perfect is a decidedly closed source product. I'm not putting a lot of weight in this one, but I've heard stranger rumors so who knows.
Well, MS could steal it...but at the same time it would be open-sourced and open to all of us, as well. The result would not be surprising:
A) MS would just mess it up and release an inferior product.
B) The Open-Source Movement would provide a better product, assuming there's interest in Corel Draw and WP for non-Linux amongst Open-Source contributors out there. It's also possible it would be ported to other OS's like BeOS and help those OS's gain a foothold (we all know, painfully, that availability of apps make or break an OS).
C) 90% of desktop computer users out there would buy the inferior product because they are chained to MS's OS and believe that they have the best there is to offer. Bill Gates is a genius, after all...right? (don't step in my dripping sarcasm)
D) Us Nerds would continue on our merry way and nothing would be any different...we'd have good software...that, in some cases, is too difficult for the novice to configure...and continue to stick our noses up at the technologically-challenged and the MS-centric.
I would hope that Red Hat (and other Open-Source co's/orgs out there) would see this as an opportunity to provide software that is user-friendly enough to appeal to the novice while maintaining its technological superiority...and seize this opportunity without falling into the same traps as MS.
Although all their products continue to be free (GPL), I don't see why RedHat wouldn't, at some point in the future, declare Sendmail and GCC to be some RHPL (RedHat Public License), which is almost, but not quite, compatible with the GPL and the Open Source spirit... then what will happen to Open Source as we know it today?
:)
Not to worry, my friend... Open Source will live happily ever after just by grabbing the last gpl distro and starting it's own Eyes Wide Open Linux, carrying all the previous benefits from the famous distro. Fewer people would buy Red Hat CD's, and ultimately they either will have been taught a lesson and become good boys again [but with a very low image], or go bankrupt.
I am not afraid of any would-be-Microsfot-linux-distro... that is FUD thrown from the inside into opensource movement. It's not a monopoly which is bad, it's abusive monopolies (personal opinion, I simply agree with what's on the pulpit) we should care about.
If buying Corel would mean its tools GPL'ed. well, as far as I see it, they can damned well be bought, for all I care
hugs
The linux *kernel* has been, and always will be, free software. So will all other GPL'ed software. The inherent nature of GPL'ed software removes users from *any* ties to corporate monstrosities.
No one is obligated to get linux from any one company, or ftp server, or whatever. That is the strength of linux. Successfull companies can package popular distributions of linux, but no one says that you have to use any particular distribution.
It is impossible for a monopoly to form on the basis of free software. There will never be any "free software microsofts".
And business should not have any major effect on linux's evolution. There are many people working on linux that 'believe in the holy Right Way' (myself being one of them). They will balk at any corporate attempts to 'pollute' the 'spirit' of linux.
You are correct - you can't have more than 30% foreign ownership inr a private sector compan, and only 10% in a crown corporation can be owned by any individual, organization or trust unless you are the crown :) This just smells of vaporware.
I don't believe Starwriter or Wordperfect has any level of grammar checking. This feature of Word is not perfect of course, but hopefully it will keep evolving, and it is already somewhat useful. - dara
Um..., you forgot a ; after can_read_source()
/* Linux will do this in 10 seconds*/ /* remember -- 0 means success */
Yes, I can read the source.
#include
int main()
{
int retval;
#ifdef __LINUX__
printf("Yes!! A real operating system!\n");
retval=0;
#else
printf("I puke at thee!!\n");
retval=1;
#endif
do {
;;
} while(1);
return(retval);
}
Then you don't need MS Office. Buy MS-Works which is a lot cheapier. Or simply use Wordpad.
I like Corel, good name, responsible outfit.
RedHat seems like another corporate tool, serving the shareholders and not the customers. I mean really, $80 for a linux distro. And $180 (or something) for the "pro" distro. Bah.
I want MORE competing distros, not less.
Support. Corel already has a massive support base for Wordperfect Suite. RedHat has been struggling with support for awhile. Sure, their promises of fulltime tech support doesn't cut it. If RHAT were to buy Corel, then they would also gain a fully operational support center for all of their needs.
Dyslexic.
This comment is brought to you by the drug caffiene, and the number 5.
spell, dude.
I dunno about all these RH dealings lately.
I guess I'm just paranoid, but RH thinking about buying up all these dists seems like they want to try and gain exclusive control.
It just seems weird to me I guess, but what do I know about RHs corporate strategy?
Swap in filespace?? Yuk! But I guess 386s don't tend to have big hard drives....
But seriously. Red Hat has brought a lot of new people to use Linux that simply wouldn't understand the screwy Debian or Slack install program, let alone know where to get it. Once they know what Linux is and does (learned on Red Hat) they'll likely move to something else like the Debian or Slack or SuSE. And if they don't switch? Who cares. We've another convert.... Isn't that the point?
Smith & Wesson: The original Point-and-Click interface.
Assuming that RedHat actually buys Corel (which I think is extremely unlikely), I doubt they'd ever open-source any of Corel's products such as WPOffice or Draw etc. The only reason I can see RH buying Corel is because they feel Corel is a good investment; open-sourcing the only things Corel is really making money from just wouldn't make good business sense for them.
What I can see, though, is RedHat pushing further development of Corel's apps on the Linux desktop, including their integration into GNOME or possibly KDE. This will probably happen anyways, though, regardless of whether RedHat buys Corel or not. The only thing I am pretty sure of is that this would be the end of the Corel Linux distro.
-cr
It's only software!
If this is true, then it looks as if Redhat's strategy is the archetypal `buy up lots of small companies to boost the CEO's ego'.
I disagree. Cygnus made sense since they're the gcc maintainers and the kernel is definitely written in GNU C, not ANSI C! They also may help RedHat support embedded Linux. Given their (IMO) massively inflated stock price, any stock based aquisition of slightly more tangiable assets makes sense, really! The allure of Corel could be the applications and distribution network, with the shareholder bonus of eliminating a potential Linux stock market distraction.
I hope it isn't true. Any ideas as to what started the rumour?
Even if it might make some sense, I tend to think this is probably just an unfounded rumour. Rather than causing the Corel stock price run-up, it might well be a based in people looking for a reason for the run-up, which is more likely that they got caught up in RHAT's slipstream!
"What if they declare Sendmail and GCC to be some RHPL"?
Then those projects will fork from the last GPL version, likely with funding from SuSE/TurboLinux/VA Linux/other distros. This has already happened with SSH, and there's no reason it couldn't for other stuff too.
Redhat still has the best record of any non-Debian distro on open source. *Every* component of a Redhat distro that Redhat develops themselves is GPL. Not any funny weird licence, real live RMS-tested-mother-approved GPL. I'll take a record like that over "but they COULD become evil" nonsense any day.
"Why don't they just stick to providing services"
Because big companies (and I work at one so I know how they think) will feel better about paying Redhat for service contracts if they know RH is associated with at least some key developer(s) of those programs. Let's face it, if you experience a kernel problem and you have a service contract with Redhat, they can have top kernel gurus like Alan Cox and Ingo Molnar take a look at it for you. That's powerful.
Compare this with the Linux service contracts being offered by companies like SCO. Not only do they not have any Linux developers, their main business is a competing product! Given the choice between them and Redhat I know which company's service contract wouldn't make me fear losing my job.
I thought someone already addressed this, that redhat offered and corel flat out refused.
Stupid is as stupid dies.
I doubt they will buy Corel but it makes me think of a good thing coming from all of the Red Hoopla lately. Perhaps one of the bast ways to get lots of GPL code is simply to buy it. I know that perhaps WP isn't the best code in the world but i am sure that someone could benefit from at least seeing it. If you view code writing to be largely like a tree growing (code branching and such), then a GPL lisence takes over that whole branch. A purchase of code and a release under the GPL effectively makes the whole branch GPL. I tend to view the coding world as more linear than your average tree (rope-like perhaps) with new strands of code being woven in and out of the application. But, GPL code can't be woven in without a GPL lisence.
/. thinks too.
;)
Now I wonder, what if a large linux driven company could purchase/write a lot of code and GPL it. What would the computer industry look like/how would it work in an all/mostly GPL world. would there be more computer jobs available? less?
I have my ideas but I would like to know what the rest of
perhaps it would start another "red" scare in the traditional business world
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
Okay.. hopefully we have some programmers here who can deal with this many nested if statements, but here goes..
:)
If Redhat buys Corel
and If Redhat releases a 18+ distribution
and If it is the first blue moon of February
which lands on a Tuesday (okay forget the
last if)
Then don't you agree that any Microsoft Windows product should be for ages infinity+. Since infinity is a theoretical mathematical statement and does not exist as a real number, we can infer that Windows is suited for no one. Quite right. Seriously, how frustrating is it to try and get work done when all you get is an invalid page fault here and a blue screen there? Hardly an environment for children, let alone anyone else in the free world.
Robert J. Casey Jr.
I doubt if too many /. posters have PhD's...
Using your site to spread rumors about a company you own stock in? Have you no shame? :P
well, somehow i don't think this is very likely. corel has way too many "other" interests that would turn off red hat.
a) windows software
b) macintosh software
c) old support contracts
that said, there are some interesting aspects of a corel buy (namely the hardware connections, the expertise, and the two distribution questions). more important, though, is that corel doesn't even make as much sense as other companies for a possible office suite for linux. a company with more focus seems to be a much better option. what about abisource? what about applix? seems that if red hat bought applix, gpl'd it, gtk'd it, and gnome-ified it that would make much more sense.
as for red hat buying everyone and everything rumors, red hat is starting to have enough money to screw up. it was fine when they could only afford blunders. it seems now, though, that they can afford disasters as well. tread lightly mr. young (and don't even think about cray)!
Earlier today, this article on Slashdot talks about their financial involvment with Sendmail and the Mozilla Project, and the previous rumors about the acquisition of Cygnus turned out to be true.
Red Hat should save themselves a little bit of cash and make an investment into TrollTech and/or KDE instead. If Qt were GPL'd, there would no longer be any justification for using the less sophisticated GNOME over KDE for "philosophical reasons". KOffice would reign, and the savings could be applied toward the bottom line. "Red Hat in the black" (like SuSE) is a headline that has great appeal to serious stockholders.
Steam wears off quickly -- Netscape^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAOL is now taking handouts from Red Hat to keep Mozilla going, just a few short years after that promising IPO. WordPerfect (on its own) has already proven to be an unwise move, and their Windows and Mac software is just excess baggage. Those users won't switch to Linux, they'll switch to Macromedia/Adobe/Microsoft/et al. Novell sure couldn't leverage the WordPerfect name, I don't think the fedora is gonna sell many more copies...
--
E2 IN2 IE?
This is just plain FUD. If the GPL were invalid, nobody but the original copyright holders of code released under the GPL would have the right to copy it. Most of GPL'd code in RedHat's distribution is (a) the Linux kernel, copyright by Linus and countless other individuals, and (b) the various GNU stuff, copyright by the FSF.
So...how would RedHat come out as the "owners of the buildings after the neutron bomb"? Buy the FSF? I think not.
People seem to associate RedHat and Microsoft because both have name recognition and money. However, they miss the crucial difference. RedHat owns well under 10% of the stuff in their distribution!
ADA Core Technologies and CYGNUS would make RedHat very stong in the embedded arena where costumers likes to pay big money for first grade service.
In my opinion buying a GNAT company looks like the next logical step for RedHat. Together with Cygnus a Gnat company could develop and support ADA for the military and aviation business more efficiently.
This would make real money and also make Linux the platform for developing all kind of embedded systems from TV sets to FLIGHT CONTROL systems in commercial airliners.
In such a scenario RedHat would get virtually no competition at all. This niche are allready filled with Linux friendly techies that have zero buying resistance.
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
Are there any rumors about who Red Hat isn't buying?
--
E2 IN2 IE?
Hello all,
Don't know if this would be good or bad news.
Red Hat seems to go a way like Microsoft, and I don't like the idea of "buy" instead of "innovate" himself. As an example Red Hat could spent money/resources in the KOffice-project, if they wish to get a good GPL-Office soon.
I just thought some time about which OS would make me happy if it would be the most used:
- If Mac would be the most used. Would this make us happy?
- If Solaris would be the most used OS, would this make us happy?
...
It seems to me it doesn't matter which OS we take: There is a company behind every OS with a CEO which has a very aggresive way to keep their OS on the market. It wouldn't matter if it is Windows or anything else.
I think this is a reason why Linux has this fashion. There is no one out there who really "owns" it. But I can imagine that we could get a similar situation with Linux and Red Hat, if this continues...
Cheers
Boessu
Why doesn't RedHat just buy out Debian, Walnut Creek, SuSE, and everyone else? Then there would be the ONE TRUE distribution.
And then RedHat could just buy out Microsoft!
And Bill Gates could run RedHat!
This is great stuff.
could a linux hardware company be next? Penguin Computing? TheLinuxStore, VA Linux?(I doubt this last one)
So much for UNIX fragmenting, eh?
Maybe we now get a redhat-kids edition and a redhat 18+ edition..
I read slashdot for the articles.
archetypal `buy up lots of small companies to boost the CEO's ego'.
I hope it isn't true. Any ideas as to what started the rumour?
Most of Cygnus's business was in embedded operating systems, and compilers.
Red Hat's business was in packaging, and support, of 3rd party software.
Most of Corel's business is in proprietary software sales.
However, given proper management, this kind of acquisition mania is good for the RHAT shareholders, as it protects them from a slowdown in any one field, because the other fields will help keep Red Hat in the black (or from further losses).
Whether this is good for consumers, or a good strategy given Red Hat's management, I personally can't say.
Since when have linux advocates been in to "satisfying 90% of the people is good enough"? Do you guys consider yourselves part of that 90%, or are you the 10% that always wants more more more out of your kernel, USB, SMP, WINE, more features more functionality more stability?
Wow, and I thought Pac Man was Dead! Wonder how many distros are in Redhat's path...
Not to rain on your diatribe parade BUT Corel has the best of the word processor on the market - WP. And the LAST thing they should be criticized for is making a valiant effort to develop a Java version of their suite. I tried it and they (Corel) obviously invested considerable effort BUT they hit a wall with the limitations of Java. Next time get your facts straight before commenting!
maybe if redhat bought corel then they could finally get corel's licensing straight for once...
"The importance of using technology in the right way has never been more clear."
If RedHat buys Corel we should get Open Source WordPerfect Suite. This could really kill MS Office. A good well known office suite that's free! Why would anyone buy MS Office for some $500 or so.
I have one question then. Which distribution do you keep or do you distribute both? Two distrubutions from one company sounds dumb to me.
Another good thing... RH and Corel and have been two of the biggest helps to get linux to the masses, putting there heads together couldn't be a bad thing.
-Al-
could be interesting if wordperfect is open-sourced... it used to be one of the *major* word processors in the age of dos. I think that the linux version of it now sucks, but with a little bit of work and perhaps a cute, talking stapler that pops up at all the right moments to aid you in all of your word processing needs, and you have a spifftacular word processor to kill MS Office with!
--
David
supreme commander of the anti-authority club
Seriously -
Is there anything that individual developers could do 2 years ago with Linux that they can't do now?
Yes, money will flow, and suits will get what they want, but how does that change the fundamental development environment for Linux? I'd argue that it's a superset of what it once was. Everything that used to be there still is, and there's a bunch of extra business stuff getting tacked on - take it or leave it.
----
CNBC ran the rumor earlier today. They later said both corl and rhat denied there are any talks. Put this one under urban legend.
-taj-
--
Ok, slashdot posts news that's relevant to what we discuss here (Linux, Star Wars, whatever). I seriously don't think that there are enough investors reading slashdot to raise Rob's shares more than a few cents. Don't forget that this story was a Reuters news article first, which is a far larger venue than slashdot. Do you question whether anyone who is affiliated with Reuters and/or any site that carries Reuters news owns Corel stock?
-mike kania
he was joking...
Looks like a good match to me.
sounds like the irish phenomenon called
"begrudgery"
(like jealously but different)
there seems to be quite a few irish on slashdot
(ESR talk in Dublin, got posted on Slashdot, and last week it was Dell ireland, i am pleasantly surprised)
Guiness just doesnt travel
...-[sigh]-...
It is still a Windows desktop world, so why shouldn't they capitalize on it to the benefit
Linux developemnt? And if the sales of Windows software will help fund development and/or make RH profitable, I think its a good move. And there are several Linux developed packages that will now run on Windows NT. No matter your views on NT, it is a virtually untapped market. RH would make a good single point of contact to represent this to the corporate world simply because they DO have their foot in the door as few others do at this time.
If RH doesn't move sharp, they'll fall on their face. They should use their market capitalization to full advantage while they can. Wall Street honeymoons are starting to sync on Internet time....
We must also consider the PR fallout that Linux and the Linux community would get if Red Hat does fail. It would not leave a good impression on Wall Street or on the Corporations that are considering Linux solutions.
If Linux is going to make a go of enticing the corporate world, someone has to think like the corporate world. Something I'm not sure the community is ready for, and something that will make or break Linux's success in the arena.
I think RH is doing the best they can in uncharted waters. We should give them the benefit of the doubt.
Smith & Wesson: The original Point-and-Click interface.
By spreading these lies and absurd paranoid ramblings, you're hurting the free software movement. Think about those people who came to slashdot to learn more about Linux and free software; they will read articles like yours and think:
--
--
Linux development over the last two years has increasingly been driven by what end users want, not what nerds want. That's why there was (finally) an all inclusive desktop environment project (KDE) swiftly followed by GNOME. If Linux was left to the nerds, it would still be going in 1000 different directions. Business gets involved when it can either create a product or customise an existing product to make it attractive to consumers (end users) and somehow generate revenues from it. Corel have made a major contribution to Linux which can only be good for everyone. My personal feeling is that Redhat and Corel are better as seperate entities. Redhat has a history of trying to stifle KDE in favour of GNOME. Corels major aim is usability - and that effort is based on KDE. One company selling two distributions doesn't make business sense. I hope this rumour is untrue. I don't trust Redhat.
Castles used to be largely effective at keeping out barbarians. Let's call that the "castle effect". Then gunpowder was invented. Wow! Look at all that rubble! That's the "gunpowder effect"
My take on it is that, while Microsoft still has a mighty fine castle, we've got a lot more gunpowder - freeness, reliably, flexibility, constant improvements - and unlike Microsoft, our powder isn't wet.
As somebody else said, we have to play and win the game of file format tag. We also have to take the high ground: do all our own native formats in zipped XML. I think Abiword already does this. Make sure it's good, intelligent XML, and Corel will adopt it too. Work towards the goal of complete file format interoperability across all "open" word processors. Pretty soon, Joe Average will be pressuring Microsoft to support our format. Then we've won, please pass the grog.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Or is that too obvious?
well corel used debian with their approval so i guess there are exceptions to every rule
---
Sorry to spoil your party, but GNOME's feel isn't at all themable. The way menus are handled is far too rigid (so you can't for example, have them displayed NeXT, MacOS or Win98 style without modifying apps). (not that KDE can either -- both have a long way to go...)
From a stock board: "KDE isn't a ticker symbol. What company makes it? Is it public yet?"
Is this for real? If so where did you hear/read that?
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Moderate this down!
Just buying Sendmail & Cygnus does not give Redhat the copyright to the work, becuase it has contributions from other (non-employee) people. If the don't own the work, they can't change the copyright.
It's as simple as that.
--Donate food by clicking: www.thehungersite.com
on the topic of Corel's 18+ distro..I thought I'd throw this link out for you all (if you haven't seen it already)..
last sunday's user friendly
According to the Red-Hat Wealth Monitor, there are few companies RedHat can't afford to buy these days.
STFU about slashdot bias.
heh, that WordPerfect feather was a LOT more expensive when Novell bought them.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Redhat can't eat all the fish and Redhat is a fish that can be eaten according to this page!
Hi,
There was that ambitious hardware project of a Linux-only computer by Corel. I recall that it was later made an independent company from Corel.
Anyway, what happened to the device? Is it successful?
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Me neither.
Yeah.
Until then, all that is needed is for Red Hat to start acting remotely like Microsoft. As it is, they've been 100% positive to the open-source community (barring buggy software, but even that is subjective).
Without Red Hat, open-source software wouldn't have ever grown past the dippy hippy free sex and code image it has had in the past. Because of Red Hat (and others who make Linux viable for the average person), Linux can and will thrive.
If you have a problem with it, well, let us know what exactly Red Hat has done other than be successful.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
No, there are no exceptions to no rule here: Corel doesn't even need an approval by Debian, you could do as well. That's the nice thing about free software: Even if Debian doesn't like Corel, they can do nothing to stop them taking Debian GNU/Linux and releasing their own distribution of it, as long as they keep the free software free. The only benifit Debian gets from CorelLinux is that things Corel wrote for their distribution (e.g. the device detection code) are released under a free license and can be folded back into Debian. Gregor
We need Corel because we need diversity in the market. On their own, Corel will provide us with a useful and different product. If Red hat buy them out, why would they bother to fund two competing but essentially similar development efforts?
I'd much rather see Corel and Red Hat competing against each other. This looks like a monopoly in the making.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
What will happen with Corel Linux? Easy they will chuck it in the garbage cause right now it isn't that good. Needs a LOT more work
Anyone wonders if it is sensible to value a company, namely the second largest Linux distributor (SuSE has more turnover) at 1000times its annual turover?
Even considering the rosy future of Linux, this can't be justified in any way, as RedHat doesn't have a monopoy on this market.
Once the VCs and brokers get that, RH stocks will return to a decent level and the whole takeover story will end.
I give them 4 months to return to reality.
"Office is more than just a suite of business tools now days, it's also a development tool, there's a hell of a lot of office developers out there now, whether it's writing Access databases or word/outlook plugins."
r os.htm (.)
The same has been true of WordPerfect since version 3.0 or thereabouts. It's had its own programming and scripting languages nearly since the beginning. WP lost marketshare for a bit when Microsoft dominated the OEM bundling market for a few years. But WP still remains the favored platform for complex automated document applications and large documents, and it has an enormous stable of third party developers. See e.g., my web pages at http://www.wpwin.com/links.html and http://www.qwkscreen.com/WPLinuxLinks.html or the Corel macro links pages at http://www.officecommunity.com/links/bizlinks/mac
I'm concerned with this attitude that "Microsoft is bad" when it comes to operating systems but "Microsoft is the only way" when it comes to office applications. In fact, both its operating systems and office applications are designed to advance its monopoly goals. You'll hear crap about how its office applications are better integrated, when the truth is that they often can't even handle their own last version's file formats, and Microsoft's own file conversion filters are so horrid that Microsoft still recommends converting WP files to WP version 5.1 format rather than the more recent WP file format that has been unchanged since version 6.0.
Microsoft Office is no better than Microsoft Windows. And it has a long way to go to catch up with WordPerfect.
Now wouldn't that be funny. If you thought AOL and Netscape were bad, can you imagine the culture clash if Microsoft and Red Hat were to merge?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
First off, I doubt very much that RedHat+Corel would open source all of Corel's software which brings in about $70Mil in profit a year. I do not think they would even open source Corel Office to hurt Microsoft with a free office suite, because StarOffice is already doing that, and IMHO is a better product. RedHat would want Corel to improve its distribution channel, have a better product for the average users desktop, and "buy" some enterprise experience.
- No one ever got fired for choosing Linux
It's now owned by rebel.com, which is now one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the Ottawa area... which is actually saying quite a lot. It really hasn't been widely marketed yet though, I don't think they have the manufacturing capacity. It's pretty much going to be stagnant until the company issues an IPO, which is highly anticipated. The NetWinder LC, though, which was a desktop verion, hasn't been released, which is disappointing for me... they've all been servers.
I am starting to wonder if there aren't some heavy RedHat investors out there banking on the GPL crumbling under the scrutiny of the courts.
If that were to happen, the whole tower of GPL'd cards would tumble. If RedHat continues with what they've been doing lately, they might end up being the "owners of the buildings after the neutron bomb" so to speak.
I'm sure at this point that a majority of the investors in Red Hat could care two hoots about Open Source.
I am starting to wonder if there aren't some heavy RedHat investors out there banking on the GPL crumbling under the scrutiny of the courts.
You're forgetting something. If that did happen, Redhat (and Linux in general) would suddenly be playing squarely under Microsoft's rules. We all know what happens to companies that do that. It's not an exaggeration to say that RH's entire business plan depends on the legal viability of the GPL, and indeed their S-1 filing prior to their IPO says as much. I greatly doubt that typical investors, if cognizent of licensing issues at all, have any such thoughts.
um.. that's DISCLOSURE!!!! come one taco! Spell !!
Another interpretation of this could be:
When the GPL fails in court, all the other Linux companies are encumbered by other licenses and agreements. Red Hat has a lot more freedom in the Post-GNU Linux scene.
Everyone here seems to forget the old Adobe takeover rumor of Corel - their solution to it was to use a "poison pill" strategy (rearranging stock stuff, etc. to make it very expensive to buy them out). Undoubtedly RedHat is aware of this. Here's an article which discusses it in greater detail.
Every time a Red Hat corporate takeover rumor comes along, it stirs up this big discussion about Red Hat, Linux, commercialism, etc., etc. Why?
I can see why people might debate the pros and cons of this or that company as a prospective choice, but I don't see why the fact that Red Hat is looking at potential purchaces is such a hot discussion.
This is what companies do. They aim to make money, generally by providing quality products and services. One excellent way to do that is to buy companies which mesh well with your own. The resulting whole is often greater then the sum of its parts.
Red Hat is a company. Way back from the start, one of their slogans has been "Red Hat -- The Commercial Linux People". Since their IPO, they've had wads of cash, so now is the time to do it. It makes perfect sense.
I cannot see why this is so often debated. Cause for discussion would be if Red Hat just sat there pumping out CDs without doing anything new.
/SOAPBOX
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Some other rumors floating around is that Sun and SCO are also looking to buy their own Linux distribution. Rumors are that they might be going after Turbo Linux and Caldera. SCO already has some business deals with Turbo Linux so that may be a match. Turbo Linux could definitely use this as an entry into the North American market. The Redhat buying Corel rumor is interesting. It would give Redhat an entry into the desktop market. They could certainly use the Word Perfect name as a way to market to the home and business user.
How far away can this be? Redhat opened themselves up to the public now. It is only a matter of time before Microsoft either buys them outright or merges with them. Then of course all the Linux products they produce will mysteriously be cancelled. Oh well. Always Debian I suppose.
IMHO, KDE sucks compared to Gnome. Sure, KDE is more stable and probably even has more apps, but the widget set is just UGLY out of the box. I'm sure with enough work you might be able to get it looking ok but who has the time? Gnome is pretty easy to configure any way you want with different GTK themes. I honestly hope KDE makes up on some of the style issues that I have with it when it goes to 2.0. I have nothing against it on a philosophical level. As far as I'm concerned, Qt is opensource "enough" for me. But yes, you're right, Redhat should just buy out Trolltech and transfer all their girth over to adding some of those really really nice stylish features over to KDE and the Qt libraries.
They'll cancel everything except for the Windows port of Linux. :)
Maybe the mad hatters were upset about Corel choosing debian as a foundation rather than theirs. Maybe they wish to due very unkind things to Corel :-)
Blender And Linux Fan
But this one has me concerned. Not because it's RH, but because Corel is doing a very good job with their product in reaching a market (newcomers and the mainstream desktop in general) that RH hasn't done as well with. If RH buys Corel I think a big part of the rationale would be elimination of competition, not expansion of RH's capabilities. And reducing competition is almost always a Bad Thing.
I woke up this morning to turn on City TV (Toronto) to hear one of their news reporters's mentioned the rumors.
:P
"Its rumored that Red Hat may attempt a hostile take over of Corel. Corel made the first Linux operating system for laptop Computers"
Ignorance is funny some mornings
Fr05t
This won't happen.
Many people at Red Hat (especially developers) hate Microsoft, and wouldn't work with them.
If Microsoft managed to buy all Red Hat stock (which is purely theoretical, since only a small part of Red Hat was IPO'd) and take control of Red Hat, we'd see a number of (all?) developers leaving and founding their own company, building a new distribution based on the latest Red Hat Linux.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Somewhere down the road these companies need to make some coin. WP is a product that can do that. RH could still give out the stripped down version for free but continue to charge for the full blown kit. Enough people are sick of windowsX crashing while they are in the middle of their work that they will try anything.
Thanksgiving dinner: Cousin Linda sits across the table from me. I tell her about Linux. She complains about Windows 98 crashing on her while trying to edit some graphics. I offer her a Free copy of Linux-Mandrake and assistance installing it. She gets excited and starts to beg for help - pulling out her business card faster than I can wipe the dressing off my lip. I mailed the disk yesterday with a note pointing to the web page and suggesting some books (McMillan et al). When she calls me I will help her get it installed and connected to the web. And she will be just as happy the rest of my New Linux Converts (NLCs) (tm).
Cheers to the new millenium and the new technology order!
Dan
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Can someone pls tell me what the hell RH is doing? I'm not saying it is a bad move or not (if the rumours turn out true), but does anyone know what road RH is following? Don't they earn enough? Do they wanna compete with MS on their own front? Do they plan to take over the world? Or could it be that they just want to let us all guessing what RH is up to (that seems to work allright!).
I guess it's not the point. I've never seen less "community" than in the Linux community. I don't see Win98 users saying "NT sucks!" or NT people saying "98 sucks!". Sheesh...use what you want and leave everyone else alone and I won't make fun of you for not driving a Porsche.
Office is more than just a suite of business tools now days, it's also a development tool, there's a hell of a lot of office developers out there now, whether it's writing Access databases or word/outlook plugins.
Is there going to be any money left after Redhat buys up the rights of Mozilla from AOL?
...it's disclosure not discloser! But I hope you make a ton of money :-)
Debian is only as true to its virtues as are the humans that make it up... which is to say not very and always vulnerable to the right temptation. What person could resist a big cash offer? Enough money to live a good life for yourself; and for your children to live a good life and; for the grandchildren to live a good life? Aren't all those lives worth sacrificing your own soul? I'd sell.
I didn't mean to and as you can see from the way I state it I had no information at all.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
It's kinda funny, at least to me anyway. When I got my first computer in 1992, I picked up a copy of WordPerfect 5.x for Windows 3.1, which was put out by the Wordperfect Corporation (as I recall).
I later upgraded to version 6.0, which had Novell written all over disks - Wordperfect Corp. had been bought out.
Later, when I upgraded to to Windows 95, I picked up Wordperfect 7, which had "Corel" printed all over the CD-ROM.
Next, I switched over to Linux and now have Wordperfect 8 installed on it.
And now maybe when I get Wordperfect 2000 (or whatever) it may be from RedHat's download site?
How times change...
--Cycon
"The Human Genome Project: Open Sourcing the Human Race since 1990" --Steve Castellotti
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
If they open source wordperfect, how can they make money from it? Corel will go broke. You people don't realize that money makes the world go round. I bet 90% of you here can't even read the source of make actual use of it.
From m-w.com, disclose's first definition is "to open up", an apt way to describe someone of the open source persuasion.
Ha! The voice of reason finally shines through.
My broker calls this the old "Pump and dump." People start rumors to inflate the stock then unload after it peaks. The internet has been a great tool for that. Remember the big run on Iomega a few years ago. The whole motley fool crowd had fun with that and a bunch of people lost money; while a bunch of the early adopters made a ton. Be very very carefull when you hear rumors like this with no foudation.
I think that's highly unlikely since RedHat will focus on Open Source Software mainly [LINUX] and if they takeover Corel, what will they do with Corel Draw and WP for non-LINUX. Will they open-source it? then MS could steal it. mmm, bad.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
Debian is a non-profit organization and cannot be bought. Furthermore, Debian is an international group of volunteers who are quite committed to the principle of independence -- not only their own independence as developers, evidenced by the free-wheeling discussions on Debian's mailing lists, but in Debian's refusal to be beholden to any commercial interest, large or small.
It's the only way for Red Hat to survive. They have a ridiculously high market capitalization and no prospect of ever generating enough revenue from their ditribution business to justify that value. So they can only use their market value to buy out companies that make real products until their business volume is somewhat closer to justifying their market value. And remember, they're not paying for those takeovers in cash, they're paying with their own stock, of course.
I don't like what I'm seeing... they're already
starting to use their sheer power (read: Money)
to buy everybody else. Although all their
products continue to be free (GPL), I don't see
why RedHat wouldn't, at some point in the future,
declare Sendmail and GCC to be some RHPL (RedHat Public License), which is almost, but not quite,
compatible with the GPL and the Open Source spirit... then what will happen to Open Source as we know it today?
You would start seeing "RedHat only" enhancements,
not quite compatible with the standards, AND declaring them RHPL... uh oh, starts sounding like Some Huge Software Company...
It's kind of scary... why don't they just stick to providing services, instead of buying out open source companies?
Just my $0.02...
Red Hat has brought a lot of new people to use Linux that simply wouldn't understand the screwy Debian or Slack install program, let alone know where to get it.
umm... Debian, I can see your case. But calling the Slackware install "screwy" demonstrates your ignorance. Take a look at it...you might be surprised how much of its interface has been "borrowed" by the likes of Red Hat. If we're talking about GUI installs, which Slackware very intelligently lacks, you might note the "similarities" between Red Hat's GUI and Caldera's Lizard. Like it's pretty much the same thing with a different toolkit. Cute.
It sure did suck.
It looks to me that Rob is using Slashdot raise his stock's value. Corel has been stuck with such rumors since the day Microsoft has monopolised the Office software space. It used to be rumors about Adobe buying Corel and now Red Hat. I personnaly think it would be foolish for Corel to sell out to Red Hat. They own a LOT of the kind of applications that Linux users (especially the new generation) have been drooling over.
Without music, life would be an error.
But it's not gonna happen. Still, makes me wish I'd had a few thousand extra to buy Red Hat stock two weeks ago.
I think this is highly unlikely. Corel's business in about 2% Linux and 98% software for Windows. There is no fit here at all.
I think this is highly unlikely. Corel's business is about 0.2% Linux and 99.8% software for Windows. There is no fit here at all.
It looks to me that Rob is using Slashdot raise his stock's value. Corel has been stuck with such rumors since the day Microsoft has monopolised the Office software space. It used to be rumors about Adobe buying Corel and now Red Hat. I personnaly think it would be foolish for Corel to sell out to Red Hat. They own a LOT of the kind of applications that Linux users (especially the new generation) have been drooling over.
Without music, life would be an error.
as if redhat doesnt anoy hell out of me every time I go to a site that has only rpm binarys and that leaves me trying to compile stuff that allways needs potato's librarys that I dont have on slink, waaaahhhhhhhhh :~(. It's all redhats fault, I dont like you, never did, never will, go away please. : ) I was quite looking forward to .deb becoming at least equal in popularity as .rpm I thought corel would/could make it so
OK, we all know that IPO money is free money (free as in I just won the lottery), but the cap on Corel would necessitate keeping things like Draw and probably WP as for-profit software products. RH shouldn't forget that they need the profits from the software side of things as well as their support contracts.
Also, while I'm talking about word processors, don't expect to see the source code to Star Office anytime soon. See, they licensed code from a number of companies (including the big, bad bully you love to hate) and some/most will not allow that code to be introduced to the great unwashed. They are working on re-writing some of it, but part needs lawyeriffic oversight due to the legal implications of removing some key code that allows coversation with certain file formats.
Gateway aren't selling Amiga to RedHat. No, RH are too afraid of the curse...
Witb all the ipo money they have, Red Hat is going to buy up a couple more companies before they're done; normally, companies use ipo money to invest in fab plants or advertising, and neither is particularly relevant to linux at the moment, so they have to pour the money somewhere, and there's only so much money that can be burned internally. Corel, however, isn't the best choice, for reasons stated elsewhere.
As for buying out Troll Tech and QT, Red Hat had better want to maintain QT under its current liscense or under a more open liscense, because of that certain clause that allows the KDE Free QT Foundation to release QT under a BSD liscense given the correct conditions.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
The GPL is not likely to fail in court. Several very large companies have settled out of court after having their (very expensive) lawyers try to take it apart. And even if the GPL was declared invalid, copyright law states that all the licensed code would become non-redistributable by anyone except the copyright holders, not placed into the public domain, like your FUD^H^H^Hpost suggests.
And all it would take then would be a GPLv3 license to be released, which fixes whatever (hypothetical) technicality the GPLv2 fell victim to, and for the copyright holder to rerelease the code under the new GPLv3. That's why (at the the copyright holder's option) the GPLv2 can contain a clause which automatically relicenses the code under the next version of the GPL, should one be released by the Free Software Foundation - so that, if the GPLv2 is compromised, you avoid any lag time in which you have to explicitly rerelease the code.
Lets think about this for a minute. M$ rode to the top on what? (insert flame here) Well besides beating the living hell out of competitors with its bank account, M$ introduced products that Joe Blow could use and that just seemed to go together. Windows was a great relief to my parents when I was growing up. I was the only one in the house that could remember all that command line stuff, and then came complementary products that fit right in with it, like Office. Enter Corel, Desktop Linux and WordPerfect, AKA Red Hat 2000 Consumer Edition. It makes perfect sense for the company that releases the OS to make the most used desktop application. Ahh ha, hence Red Hat's recent investment in the other most used desktop aplication, the browser. With the OS, WordPerfect, and the Mozilla browser engine (soon to run the Red Hat browser) we can put together the ultimate M$ killer (or clone), and another disgustingly huge company that we will all learn to dispise. Next week, BSD rocks! Down with Red Hat and the bloated Linux!
Even when you consider the millions raised in the RedHat IPO, buying Corel just doesn't make that much sense. Red Hat can't make money by Open Sourcing Corel's products, and if RHAT didn't open source, then their reputation flies out the window. RHAT has a responsibility to the open source community as well as to its shareholders. Corel might fall to RHAT sometime in the future, but a buyout now would either be a huge financial mistake or a sellout for RHAT.
And those who mentioned that RHAT may want Corel's install wizard... I have confidence that the boys down at Red Hat could conjure up something similar themselves, without shelling out millions to buy it.
One final thought... buying out competitors sure doesn't leave much room for "Freedom to Innovate," pardon the phrase. If Red Hat buys Corel, I'm running Slackware.
Socra.Meth.
I thought canadian law didn't allow american companies to buy out canadian companies?
A lot of companies are set to get their fingers burnt with Access. I mean, I'm sure it's a good product for some things, but MS seem to be pushing it for niches which are completely unsuitable, leaving a mess if the database needs to grow. "Upgrade to SQL server", I'm sure they'll be saying then.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
(plus you could keep some really cool chips).
Look at the crappy moderation going on here. This guy obviously hit the submit button twice, and had a reasonable comment. So far he has had three modeerations down and one up. Do people really have so little clue???
so if i have the pre-eminent open source online mag and i own corel stock, what's the easiest way to drive up the price?
rumors of red hat buying corel!
*grin*
RedHat has an insanely high market-cap for a company that is really in support/service. In order to grow and justify that cap, they must widen their market and product range. So they start buying up companies...
Try "Stone".
However, if you aren't a Black or Red Mage or Wizard, then there's no chance of you ever learning it. Then there's the problem of finding the proper Black Magic shop...
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
All this whining is just player hating. Every time some little company makes it big, all the people with PHD's come out and start bagging on them. Instead of trying to tear everyone down, why don't you try to build yourself up?
-- Without fear or favor --
I don't think that Corel would sell, (I lived in Ottawa for a decade and the owner's mansion is familiar on sight, it REALLY stick out in the neighborhood, thank God for spruce trees. They keep their foliage in the snow :-) There's too much ego involved with Corel, but if, IF this can be engineered, how long do you think WordPerfect Suite 8+ would stay closed source?
I LOVE WP's file format. I was able to write stuff in Smalltalk/V (deceased now...) to parse WP files to extract information a long time ago, as opposed to the mess from Redmond which isn't compatible with itself. I'd love to write stuff like that again.
-Charles-A.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Red Hat is gonna buy SCO!
Red Hat is gonna buy Novell!
Red Hat is gonna buy Santa Claus!
It's the super evil, super acquisitive, insatiable monster of the distros. Almost as evil as that other software company!
Deal with the facts, screw the rumours.
-M
No, no they couldn't steal it!
That's the whole point of free s/w. It can't be stolen.
If RH controlled WP and GPL'd it. Wow... there maybe some ugly code there but wow it wouldn't be hard to get word users to switch to WP. I don't know your situation but half the endusers I've dealt with still call Word Wordperfect all the time.
"I'm replaci... er upgrading your word processor"
"You're taking away Wordperfect!! Oh no! Stop"
"No, I'm putting Wordperfect on. It's uh.. the latest version"
"Oh, whew, sounds great...."
[We don't come from a planet. We come from a grid sector.]
Pretty soon we could all be bitching about:
redhattus of borg
and
Damn £edHat linu% being embedded in onboard car chips and:
lin-ce pda's, with their crippled X interfaces.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
Believe it or not, there are distributions that already use stuff that isn't GPL. Red Hat seems to be the most open of them all. Do your research...
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
I'm sorry, I haven't used Wordperfect for Linux that much, and obviously I missed this feature. I've spent more time with Staroffice since the free download for Windows and Linux appealed to me. If I missed it in Staroffice also, I'll really feel stupid - thanks for pointing it out, I'll have to try it again sometime. - dara
Fine, but with Debian, there is NOTHING to sell. Debian hardly owns anything, and if some developers work for a company, who minds? Even if some evil guy gets hold of the Debian trademark and kills debian, we can simply go elsewhre and continue under a different name. It's the same as with any Free Software project. You can't buy Gimp, gcc or emacs either. Marcus
Come on. Like there is anything left at SGI worth buying. They've sold off Cray for the second time. They are going to start turning out clone systems. What a waste.
As a long time user of WordPerfect since 1985, I sincerely hope Red Hat (which I use) buys Corel (which has been as clueless as WordPerfect's last two owners with a great word processor). Open sourcing WordPerfect would improve or expedite development of other word processors and lead to a better WordPerfect, as Linux has improved UNIX. The GIMP would also improve as the Corel Draw software gets open sourced. Doesn't anyone see the benefits if this were true?
MicroSoft(TM):It's not just a bad idea, it's against the law!
Just a rumor I heard. And, oh yeah, by the way, I own some SGI.
Since when do stock valuations have any relation to book value? This is the "new" stock market, wherein valuation is inversely proportional to earnings. NS produces something, and occasionally earns a profit. Thus their valuation will remain low. Red Hat (and Yahoo and Excite and every other hot company) has never made a profit, has little hope of doing so soon, and thus will remain in the stock stratosphere. The Man's stock tip: buy what's hot, especially if the company is losing a lot of money. The bigger the company's losses, the bigger your profits will be!
Two options: either RedHat releases both RedHat Linux and Corel Linux
side by side, or they kill Corel Linux completely.
That would be a shame; I haven't had a chance to play with it yet
but I hear the installer is great. No, RedHat won't just absorb Corel Linux into RedHat Linux;
if they'd wanted to do that they would have done it with Debian already - hey, it's all GPL.
What I'd like to see is RedHat apply Mandrake patches to fix bugs & improve stability (disclaimer: I've never actually used Mandrake, only heard about it).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Regardless of what happens, Corel stock owners win. I just bought it at 21 ( I was going to put in the order Sunday night, before I heard of these rumors, and buy at around 14, but I got drunk and forgot. ) Anyhow, if Red Hat does buy Corel ( probably all stock, since Red Hat doesn't have any money ), it'll be at a good profit. Or, if on the other hand, Red Hat doesn't buy Corel, Corel's in a good position to be a dominant player in the exploding Linux Market. Once they get a little more R&D capital they'll probably put out a more original distribution and gain control of most of the Linux office market. So it's a great long term stock. I just wish I bought earlier this year when it was trading at 2 - 6.
-- I don't really have anything useful to say. ~Tuts
Office Apps are dead, Microsoft won this and the browser wars. Opensource needs a better tree and SQL server so why not buy them.
How much would Novell and Oracle cost? Redhat with NDS and Oracle would kick the shit out of BackOffice.
hehehehehe
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
hmmm... i wonder what will happen with Redhat purchasing Corel, with Corel Linux being a "subset" of Debian...
- clowns are evil
As preposterous as this sounds, but wouldn't this be the kind of revenge that only a Bruce Perens would love: Now we own them!
Just a quick note on the side:
Did you know that Red Hat's market capitalization is twice that of National Semiconductor?
I hope with their newfound power they don't destroy/damage too much on their way to greatness.
Hopefully if they do buy Corel, they'll allow the Debian based version to proceed for it's run, then replace it with RedHat, instead of derailing the whole (deal/mess/fiasco). And then maybe our office suite won't cost so much anymore.
Although Red Hat and Corel have been two major powers pushing the distribution of Linux to the masses, is it really good to begin turning Linux into a major business?
I mean, up to a few years ago, Linux has been created, developed, added to, changed, modified, and molded into what it is today through the works of private individuals rather than corporate projects. Especially with Red Hat going public, Linux is no longer a "customized development" formed by what the nerds of the world want, but it's slowly becomming what the businessmen of the world want.
It may not be here now, but I think people (or at least Linux users) have to be watchful of where business takes Linux. If RH was going to buy Corel, they're not "putting their heads together," but rather, letting money control development.
Corel Takeover rumours are a dime a dozen.
I've owned Corel stock from time to time, and if I've learned one thing, it is that Corel has a talent for using rumours, false promises, shady accounting, and insider trading to manipulate the value of their stock.
But it is hard to cover up what Corel really is. -Namely, a lackluster under-performing Software Development Company who is trying to go head to head with Microsoft, and is both financially and technologically on the ropes.
If it isn't rumours that Novell, IBM, or Sun is going to buy Corel, then it is vaporware promises of WordPerfect Office for Java. Bottom line: Read the financial statements, not the press releases.
Linux is good for Corel, but is Corel good for Linux?
Selling WordPerfect and Office Suites for Linux is a good market direction for Corel to be going. It'll make them some good money. -Especially since their products aren't doing to well in the WinTel market, better to reposition for a less competive one (Linux). But how long will it last?
Why a Corel Linux Distribution?
Does Corel really have what it takes to become a major player in Linux Distributions? Is it technically superior? Maybe on a couple points. Is it more user-friendly? Maybe, maybe not. Is it likely to stay ahead of the curve for long? No. Linux distributions require staying power. The ability to consistently deliver a more value-added distribution than the competitors.
We all benefit for Corel's effort to improve Linux... I hope that they do become a major player, but I just don't think they've got it in them. I hope I get to eat my words.
What value would Corel add to RedHat?
Little to none. Unless Redhat is looking to put the rather expensive WordPerfect(TM) feather in their hat, they little to gain from an aquisition of Corel. Gnome and KDE are already churning out Office Suites of their own. And I'll bet given a year or two, those Office Suites will be technically superior and more user friendly than anything Corel will have to offer.
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari