An idiot you may not be, but you're acting like one. All Red Hat ever had against KDE was the use of the closed source QT packages. Troll Tech has revised their license. It's free as long as your product is open source, and otherwise compliant with the goals of the GPL.
Red Hat seems to support any quality product, and a high level of diversity as long as it meets the open source standard.
Red Hat has chosen, knowingly and specifically, to remove all non-open source software from their distribution. If you review the contents of 5.2 you will note that the BRU backup software, Metro-X, and all other commercial software has been removed from the package.
Even most of the books related to the distribution are copylefted, and available for download. Want the installation guide? Download it. Want to learn more about the RPM packaging system? Download a copy of "Maximum RPM" by Ed Bailey. Follow the links for more documentation.
They've funded open software. They've started paying creative people so they can spend full time hacking Linux, like Alan Cox. The work done by these people goes directly to the communit, not to Red Hat first.
You make a big deal out of the desktop wars and Red Hats actions related to that issue. What Red Hat did was not to denegrate KDE, but to take a simple, consistent position that no Red Hat distribution would include non-open source software in the core distribution. Period. Then they contributed money, personnel, time, and web space to Gnome, the open source alternative. You also choose to ignore the fact that a lot of people, myself included, have tried KDE - and don't like the approach. I applaud the effort of Mattias Ettrich and the KDE group. I regretted the choice of Qt until they started opening up the license for the libraries. But even if KDE had chosen to use GTK+ as a library, I still don't like the look and feel.
What's so evil about having choices? What's wrong with having Gnome and KDE?
Like the Grinch, I suspect your shoes are too tight, or your heart is two sizes to small. Take off your shoes, open a good beer, remove the necktie, join those who let their karma trample selfish dogmas. 8^)
Jeremy, an interesting article, and an interesting attempt to raise some concerns. Unfortunately, you seem to fall victim to a few traps along the way, and they detract from your basic points.
The "traps" I'm referring to include the demonification of capitalism as an enemy in some way to open source software, the assumption that, in your words, "There Can Be Only One" commercial vendor for Linux, and (despite your comment in the addendum/update at the end) specifically selecting Red Hat as an example. I'd like to briefly comment on each of these points. (Like you could stop me, right! Ignore, possibly.)
Demonification of capitalism: You include a number of references to capitalism & corporate actions that both label them as evil, unthinking, and uncaring about areas beyond their own pockets, and imply that they're one and the same thing. Your little Adam Smith quote & derogatory remark is a good example here.
Capitalism & Corporate economics aren't the same thing! They get confused, and politicians mix the labels freely, but that doesn't change anything: calling a skunk a rose won't change the smell, and labeling corporatism as capitalism doesn't either. Most corporations are fully avowed enemies of any approach to Laissez Faire economics and capitalism. Look at the amount of money they spend to encourage special laws which only act to increase their power and income. Fair competition is the last thing they want.
Adam Smith pointed it out, and no real refutation of his basic points have been made. Every economic decision, at all levels, has consequences in the rest of the market. We don't really understand what those consequences will be, can't plan 'em, can't really do more than recognize them and attempt to deal with them realistically. Look up Ludwig von Mises and Praxeology sometime. Markets aren't just about money; you can be paid in pride, dignity, self-respect, external respect, admiration, any number of other "currencies" which are important to you. Corporate structures and values arn't really about markets; they don't believe in markets, and damn sure don't believe in unintended consequences - they think they can predict consequences and control them. This is one of the reasons companies go bankrupt all the time.
Bottom line here is that the attack is polarizing and detracts from your basic points.
"There Can Be Only One." Pardon me for saying so, but bull. This is based out of the old fashioned corporate economics you denigrate in your article, and fail to recognize the paradigm shift involved in the whole open software concept. It's a marketplace of ideas, and the ground rules as laid out in the GPL and other "open copyrights" (or copylefts) are changing the way the game is played. You're applying the old rules and expectations to a new game.
Now, part of the reason I liked your article, and appreciate your concerns is that when you change the rules there will, again, be consequences. Along the way to a new outcome, things can get rough and some of the things you express concern about might be attempted.
In an open market of ideas, such as Linux and the GNU, BSD, Berkeley, and other copylefted material you cannot "corner" the market. You can try to capitalize on the situation, but there are no guarantees. Note that Caldera, backed by Ray Nordla who has buckets of cash on hand, isn't doing quite as well or growing as fast as Red Hat, which started on a shoestring by a guy who was spending all his time hacking Linux & not getting paid for it. From a corporate viewpoint you'd tend to suspect that Caldera would be the fastest growing distribution. It's good, but it's not the fastest growing or even best recognized, is it?
"Red Hat the Company""Because sooner or later, Red Hat the Compay will be owned and run by an economic rationalist with a legal obligation to increase shareholder value (as all publicly traded companies are required to do, or they get sued) using any and every means at their disposal."
Bad shot, from many viewpoints. One, you tend to turn people who like, support, and defend Red Hat & it's distribution off so they ignore value in your ideas, and Two it was, again, an unnecessary attack. You could have used a fictionalized company name to make your points.
In any case, there is a fundamental difference in businesses, such as Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, LST, and others; and traditional, product-oriented companies. The product is basically free. The GPL was drafted by attorneys, directed towards a specific goal, and is, I suspect, not quite as fragile as your concerns imply. Additionally, what these companies are doing is making a pittance on the direct product (the distribution), and attempting to make the real money for themselves on the services.
MicroSoft, as one example of a traditional company, sees it's product as the software. Hence, closed source, high prices, rapacious acquisition of competing products, etc. (If they saw the product as service, then quality would be more of an issue there, instead of the creaping "featurism" that they display.)
Service is the ultimate market product in many ways. It is directly, and only, based on customer satisfaction. It depends on reputation, and failure on the part of the seller to provide satisfaction would eliminate the reputation (and destroy the value of the product) in very short order. The certification programs that Caldera and Red Hat (amoungst others) are starting now are a part of that product, and also help to act as a control on those companies, also. How so? If I want to start up my own company, selling service and support for Red Hat, Caldera, (whatever) Linux, and I have their certification, it would be hard for them to apply FUD to reduce my marketability and to abrogate it to themselves. They would have a hard time claiming I was unqualifed, if they, themselves, have certified me as being so. In any case, the model they seem to be assembling for support is one where they supply training, testing, and certification, and then a loose alliance with service companies in local areas. They will take the request for service and hand it off to the nearest local agency which is a member of the alliance. Such a model would give Red Hat and it's associates an advantage, but not dominance, since vendors selling hardware locally can also be certified, and can sell maintenance contracts with the hardware package.
The primary reason that Red Hat is slower now on releases has little to do with "corporate anything", and a hell of a lot to do with a goal of improving the releases in terms of how well the parts work, and the whole works together.
If all you want to do is throw a lot of software together in a package & call it a distribution, great - you can roll out a new release with every new kernel version. But you'll take a lot of flack for the failure to check that everything works.
Red Hat has _greatly_ expanded the beta program, and taken other steps to ensure that all the parts work together as well as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
An idiot you may not be, but you're acting like one. All Red Hat ever had against KDE was the use of the closed source QT packages. Troll Tech has revised their license. It's free as long as your product is open source, and otherwise compliant with the goals of the GPL.
Red Hat seems to support any quality product, and a high level of diversity as long as it meets the open source standard.
Red Hat has chosen, knowingly and specifically, to remove all non-open source software from their distribution. If you review the contents of 5.2 you will note that the BRU backup software, Metro-X, and all other commercial software has been removed from the package.
Even most of the books related to the distribution are copylefted, and available for download. Want the installation guide? Download it. Want to learn more about the RPM packaging system? Download a copy of "Maximum RPM" by Ed Bailey. Follow the links for more documentation.
They've funded open software. They've started paying creative people so they can spend full time hacking Linux, like Alan Cox. The work done by these people goes directly to the communit, not to Red Hat first.
You make a big deal out of the desktop wars and Red Hats actions related to that issue. What Red Hat did was not to denegrate KDE, but to take a simple, consistent position that no Red Hat distribution would include non-open source software in the core distribution. Period. Then they contributed money, personnel, time, and web space to Gnome, the open source alternative. You also choose to ignore the fact that a lot of people, myself included, have tried KDE - and don't like the approach. I applaud the effort of Mattias Ettrich and the KDE group. I regretted the choice of Qt until they started opening up the license for the libraries. But even if KDE had chosen to use GTK+ as a library, I still don't like the look and feel.
What's so evil about having choices? What's wrong with having Gnome and KDE?
Like the Grinch, I suspect your shoes are too tight, or your heart is two sizes to small. Take off your shoes, open a good beer, remove the necktie, join those who let their karma trample selfish dogmas. 8^)
Jeremy, an interesting article, and an interesting attempt to raise some concerns. Unfortunately, you seem to fall victim to a few traps along the way, and they detract from your basic points.
The "traps" I'm referring to include the demonification of capitalism as an enemy in some way to open source software, the assumption that, in your words, "There Can Be Only One" commercial vendor for Linux, and (despite your comment in the addendum/update at the end) specifically selecting Red Hat as an example. I'd like to briefly comment on each of these points. (Like you could stop me, right! Ignore, possibly.)
Demonification of capitalism: You include a number of references to capitalism & corporate actions that both label them as evil, unthinking, and uncaring about areas beyond their own pockets, and imply that they're one and the same thing. Your little Adam Smith quote & derogatory remark is a good example here.
Capitalism & Corporate economics aren't the same thing! They get confused, and politicians mix the labels freely, but that doesn't change anything: calling a skunk a rose won't change the smell, and labeling corporatism as capitalism doesn't either. Most corporations are fully avowed enemies of any approach to Laissez Faire economics and capitalism. Look at the amount of money they spend to encourage special laws which only act to increase their power and income. Fair competition is the last thing they want.
Adam Smith pointed it out, and no real refutation of his basic points have been made. Every economic decision, at all levels, has consequences in the rest of the market. We don't really understand what those consequences will be, can't plan 'em, can't really do more than recognize them and attempt to deal with them realistically. Look up Ludwig von Mises and Praxeology sometime. Markets aren't just about money; you can be paid in pride, dignity, self-respect, external respect, admiration, any number of other "currencies" which are important to you. Corporate structures and values arn't really about markets; they don't believe in markets, and damn sure don't believe in unintended consequences - they think they can predict consequences and control them. This is one of the reasons companies go bankrupt all the time.
Bottom line here is that the attack is polarizing and detracts from your basic points.
"There Can Be Only One." Pardon me for saying so, but bull . This is based out of the old fashioned corporate economics you denigrate in your article, and fail to recognize the paradigm shift involved in the whole open software concept. It's a marketplace of ideas, and the ground rules as laid out in the GPL and other "open copyrights" (or copylefts) are changing the way the game is played. You're applying the old rules and expectations to a new game.
Now, part of the reason I liked your article, and appreciate your concerns is that when you change the rules there will, again, be consequences. Along the way to a new outcome, things can get rough and some of the things you express concern about might be attempted.
In an open market of ideas, such as Linux and the GNU, BSD, Berkeley, and other copylefted material you cannot "corner" the market. You can try to capitalize on the situation, but there are no guarantees. Note that Caldera, backed by Ray Nordla who has buckets of cash on hand, isn't doing quite as well or growing as fast as Red Hat, which started on a shoestring by a guy who was spending all his time hacking Linux & not getting paid for it. From a corporate viewpoint you'd tend to suspect that Caldera would be the fastest growing distribution. It's good, but it's not the fastest growing or even best recognized, is it?
"Red Hat the Company" "Because sooner or later, Red Hat the Compay will be owned and run by an economic rationalist with a legal obligation to increase shareholder value (as all publicly traded companies are required to do, or they get sued) using any and every means at their disposal."
Bad shot, from many viewpoints. One, you tend to turn people who like, support, and defend Red Hat & it's distribution off so they ignore value in your ideas, and Two it was, again, an unnecessary attack. You could have used a fictionalized company name to make your points.
In any case, there is a fundamental difference in businesses, such as Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, LST, and others; and traditional, product-oriented companies. The product is basically free. The GPL was drafted by attorneys, directed towards a specific goal, and is, I suspect, not quite as fragile as your concerns imply. Additionally, what these companies are doing is making a pittance on the direct product (the distribution), and attempting to make the real money for themselves on the services.
MicroSoft, as one example of a traditional company, sees it's product as the software. Hence, closed source, high prices, rapacious acquisition of competing products, etc. (If they saw the product as service, then quality would be more of an issue there, instead of the creaping "featurism" that they display.)
Service is the ultimate market product in many ways. It is directly, and only, based on customer satisfaction. It depends on reputation, and failure on the part of the seller to provide satisfaction would eliminate the reputation (and destroy the value of the product) in very short order. The certification programs that Caldera and Red Hat (amoungst others) are starting now are a part of that product, and also help to act as a control on those companies, also. How so? If I want to start up my own company, selling service and support for Red Hat, Caldera, (whatever) Linux, and I have their certification, it would be hard for them to apply FUD to reduce my marketability and to abrogate it to themselves. They would have a hard time claiming I was unqualifed, if they, themselves, have certified me as being so. In any case, the model they seem to be assembling for support is one where they supply training, testing, and certification, and then a loose alliance with service companies in local areas. They will take the request for service and hand it off to the nearest local agency which is a member of the alliance. Such a model would give Red Hat and it's associates an advantage, but not dominance, since vendors selling hardware locally can also be certified, and can sell maintenance contracts with the hardware package.
Just a thought.
The primary reason that Red Hat is slower now on releases has little to do with "corporate anything", and a hell of a lot to do with a goal of improving the releases in terms of how well the parts work, and the whole works together.
If all you want to do is throw a lot of software together in a package & call it a distribution, great - you can roll out a new release with every new kernel version. But you'll take a lot of flack for the failure to check that everything works.
Red Hat has _greatly_ expanded the beta program, and taken other steps to ensure that all the parts work together as well as possible.