Slashdot Mirror
Alan Moves from B3 to Red Hat UK
Sarge_97 wrote to us with the latest from Alan Cox [?] 's diary. With Red Hat's movement into Europe, and the creation of Red Hat UK, he'll be
closing Building Number 3 and going to work for Red Hat UK. This is, of course, no change in what was actually going on anyway.
disclaimer:Hemos owns shares in red hat
IFAIK, this is standard journalist ethics. All news organizations are supposed to announce if they have a vested interest in the subject of a news story. Of course, some "journalist" organizations, in their giant conglomerate glory, have probably decided that things like disclosures aren't as important as fitting in another 7.5 second commercial or garage sale ad.
Also, not to rag on Hemos (who I trust), but the "117 bytes in body" link reminded me of something else: I can see some organizations in the future shoving their disclosures into some inconvenient section of their production (half-second message at 5% of TV height at the end of the show, or stuffed into small type in the "copyright & legal" section) and then claim they're meeting ethical standards. I'm one of those pushy types that think that disclosures need to be as prominent as the news report.
Come to think of it, Slashdot is also one of the few organizations I see that still posts corrections with the same priority as the original reports. That's another "minor" thing most billion-dollar precooked news companies don't think are important enough to bother with.
Well, considering that Alan has had that acronym for more than twenty-five years longer than any Anonymous Coward, Cowards shoould consider themselves lucky to be allowed to use it...
BTW, if you meant that last remark as a joke, it ain't very funny.
No, he's right. Question the integrity of RH before even thinking about impugning Alan's reputation.
And what is the f*?k is wrong with him putting extra features into the ac tree? It's his fork - you know, as allowed under the GPL (perhaps you've heard of that?) - so he can do whatever the hell he likes with it.
Plenty of vendors have opted to put extra patches into the kernels they use (e.g., the latest RAID patches); there's nothing at all unusual about it, and it gives them a way to distinguish themselves from other distributions.
Anyway, where the hell do you get off bitching about all the work that Alan's put into the kernel? Prepared to stack your list of kernel contributions up against his?
I didn't think so.
Oh yes, ever since RHAT incorporated, they have started requiring Alan Cox to wear ties, shave beard, wear pinstriped suits, and you don't want to hear the new dietary restrictions...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
That's actually a good and necessary idea. It just struck me a bit humorous, as I was imagining most posters starting to add such a disclaimer in their sig, or at the bottom of all their posts.
Bummer now he has to commute every day.. well commute more than walk up to the computer room. :)
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Don Rude - AKA - RudeDude
RudeDude
Perl/Linux/PHP hacker
Maybe this is a little paranoid, but RedHat employs a large chunk of the Linux kernel developers (as well as apps). This is fine, because there are checks and balances in place (ie, Linus has the last laugh), but Alan controls the stable tree. This is not a good idea in my mind. I like the fact that Linus is employed by a company that has no immediate interest in the success or failure of Linux. It keeps Linus honest. Can we say the same for Alan?
Because that would be a nasty commute.
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Open mind, insert foot.
The real currency of the internet is respect & reputation. Alan has those in spades, which is why he's trusted. Should he ever violate that trust, then he won't be as influential as he is now.
If he becomes sufficiently untrustworthy, then someone else that most developers trust could start managing a fork of the Linux tree. But, Red Hat's continued success depends on the general public's favorable impression of Linux. Even if a particular fork turns out to be a "good thing", the public opinion would start to turn, and Red Hat would suffer. Methinks Red Hat won't use any hidden agenda to shoot themselves in the foot deliberately.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Well, Microsoft tried to recruit him once...
I'm staying put - right here.
Admittedly it isn't entirely faultless, but I can think of far worse places to live. Like Liverpool. Or Bradford.
Disclaimer: I grew up near Guildford
Chris Wareham
The government (bless 'em) have decided that that's quite unfair and have introduced this new IR35 thing that basically makes the whole system unaffordable.
(Naturally, computer contractors have very portable skills, and can easily work in Europe or the States for a few months at a time and pay very little tax anywhere. And now lots more will have an incentive to do so - so overall, the UK government could lose tax income because of this. But who ever accused politicans of thinking things out?)
Anyway, there are no longer any advantages to having your own company, and lots of disadvantages (paperwork, hassle, tax inspections), so lots of contractors are "going permie" - especially those on long-term contracts.
I wonder if that's one of the factors behind Alan making this move? He wouldn't be alone.
One of RedHats major selling points is that they are well regarded by the linux developers, and employ several of them. If the devolopers had cause to leave, Redhat would go rapidly downhill because of the two, Redhat would lose the most if ac and RHAT parted company.
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Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Two things that this brings to mind:
1) Linux is inextricable from the GPL. Red Hat can succeed (and seems to be doing great, good luck to the stockholders!), but they're limited by the GPL. Yes, there are some software pieces that they can make proprietary, but they can't pre-empt Linus' approval for kernel changes. However, RH seems to put the vast majority (all?) of their software under the GPL anyhow, so it seems very appropriate that Alan Cox should be working there. In fact, it seems like the fastest way for changes to make themselves into the kernel, since RH sells / downloads so many copies
2) I'm not convinced that Transmeta has no immediate interest in the success of failure of Linux. The strong impression I get is that Crusoe will run Linux as a base, whatever its transmogrifiability. I mean, isn't that why they hired Dr. Torvalds?
Maybe I'm silly, and await corrections
:)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
"Ex-Segfault poster"
-Stephen
If the Onion had a news section covering Linux, this could easily be the top headline.