Red Hat Exec Takes Over Open Source Initiative 144
njcoder writes "CNet reports that Michael Tiemann, vice president of open-source affairs at Linux seller Red Hat and an OSI board member, has taken over from Russell Nelson as president pro tem. 'We thought that Michael would be a better president' Nelson said of the change, declining to share further details. Nelson will remain a board member and active in the group, he said."
I suppose (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I suppose (Score:1)
Credentials? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Credentials? (Score:1, Informative)
w00t (Score:2, Funny)
If some taxonomy is required ... (Score:1)
CC.
Red Hat the new Microsoft of OSS? (Score:2, Interesting)
After all, Red Hat is the de facto standard of all open source. Intel's compilers, Oracle and everything corporate is designed for it. Good luck installing not to mention running anything like that on other distributions.
Re:Red Hat the new Microsoft of OSS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Regards,
Steve
P.S. For a little blurb on Michael, read this [redhat.com].
Re:Red Hat the new Microsoft of OSS? (Score:1)
Re:Red Hat the new Microsoft of OSS? (Score:2)
Re:Red Hat the new Microsoft of OSS? (Score:1)
RPM has the added problem that it doesn't handle overlapping packages, i.e. files that exist in more than one package. That is a problem RPM shares with other package
Re:Red Hat the new Microsoft of OSS? (Score:2)
Re:Red Hat the new Microsoft of OSS? (Score:2)
If it were the defacto standard of all open source like you assert then we'd have problems running all sorts of OSS on anything other than red hat but that is not the case. I may have problems running soem closed source db, or a closed source compiler but that makes redhat teh defacto
"Open Source" BogoTrademark (Score:2, Interesting)
Then there was discussion that the "definition" fo Open Source would be reduced to exclude certain Free Software licences.
For someone in charge of a branding effort all of this seemed a little rash. Perhaps internal dissent is what was going on behind the scenes.
Re:"Open Source" BogoTrademark (Score:2, Interesting)
To be fair to Russ, that seemed to be part of a general corporatization agenda. The pressure to redefine open source was coming from HP through OSDL. A Red Hat guy running OSI is probably just another step along that road. Not saying that's good or bad, but it's what's happening.
Re:"Open Source" BogoTrademark (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't look at it that way at all. It's more like "The creator of g++ is heading OSI".
-russ
Re:"Open Source" BogoTrademark (Score:1)
Re:So... (Score:2)
-russ
Better fedora? (Score:1, Insightful)
- Cary
--Fairfax Underground [fairfaxunderground.com]: Where Fairfax County comes out to play
Re:Red Hat stabbed us in the back (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple of issues:
Re:Red Hat stabbed us in the back (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Red Hat stabbed us in the back (Score:2)
Fedora seems to have lost its focus, it's supposed to be community-oriented but comes out as just looking like red hat's beta that you're testing
Re:Red Hat stabbed us in the back (Score:2)
Really.. I don't even trust Gentoo kernels on Gentoo systems.
Re:Red Hat stabbed us in the back (Score:1)
Ubuntu?
Re:Red Hat stabbed us in the back (Score:2)
Ubuntu?
I was having SUSE and Mandrake in mind.
Free download for AMD64 (Score:1, Offtopic)
Riiiight...
Folks, get a DVD or CD torrent download here:
http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article
Re:Red Hat stabbed us in the back (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Better fedora? (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Better fedora? (Score:2)
Re:Better fedora? (Score:5, Insightful)
Their commercial offerings are what allow them to finance Fedora, Gnome, people like Alan Cox, and many other OSS initiatives. Plus they give away the source to that commercial offering.
"they leave their grassroots projects underdevloped and insufficient"
Says you. Fedora from the start has been in many users and reviewers opinions one of the better desktop linux distros available.
People need to get over the "Red Hat owes the community something" bullshit. Yes they moved away from the $79 one-size-fits-all model that everyone loved and many miss but they still contine to be a positive force in OSS.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Re:Better fedora? (Score:2)
There's plenty of people who didn't use RedHat well before the split in RedHat's offerings and the introduction of the Fedora distro.
WTF are you talking about? (Score:2)
The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2, Insightful)
For most of the 1990s, OSS was by programmers for programmers (and to an extent their non-programmer friends), but gradually those in the OSS field have been coopted by the business practices of
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2, Insightful)
That is very ominous sounding of you. A corporation is a collection of people. A corporation requires people to buy their products and services. A community requires people to volunteer and contribute. Everyone in the chain must produce value to continue.
A dictatorship requires guns.
Do you see the difference?
Has the entire world gone mad?
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:1)
Re:A dictatorship requires guns. (Score:2)
That's what the law is all about. You buy a law, you get the guns to back it up thrown in for free.
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Tiemann is the founder of Cygnus Software (which was bought by Red Hat). If you want his OSS credentials, go to any copy of the GCC source and use grep. He's not heading this group because he's a corporate drone for Red Hat, he's heading this group because he's a better choice than ANY OF US!
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's entirely irrelavant and a stupid argument (if you can call it that). Presumably he wrote the code because at that point nobody else had. Just because it's since been rewritten does nothing to detract from his original contribution. You could claim that the current code is crap because it will be rewitten at some point in the future, and that too would be a
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2)
C++ also changed over time (going from its original implementation as the AT&T CFRONT pre-compiler for C, to a real compiler, and adding features). So of course, since the target evolved, the source would have to also.
It doesn't invalidate that the old code he wrote did the job; he would probably do it differently today if he
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2)
C-front had no bearing on GCC. There were, in fact, other true compilers for C++ before GCC, and GCC was never a C++-to-C translator like C-front. Did C-front back-end to gcc by default? I don't recall, but possibly. Still, it was never part of the GCC suite.
I never heard anyone calling M.T.'s code crap at the time, but that's almost irrelevant. It's clear that, even if he's the worst programmer ever, he is so prolific (GDB works on C++ because of him) and so able to build community (he
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2)
My point was that technology changes, and so does the code to implement it. If we have later versions that do better, it's only because we have prior versions that we can leverage.
My point was that the criticism of the author (Tiemann) of those prior versions because they aren't "as good as" today's code is lame, unfair, and just throwin
Not familiar with OSS licenses? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2)
He has been a great proponant and advocate or OSS all this time. I think he is probably one of the best choices for this post and I am comfortable with it.
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2)
I agree with you on h
Re:The beginning of corporate management of OSS? (Score:2)
Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the google cache of the withdrawn article. [64.233.161.104]
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:2)
That article is poorly written with a sensationalist title -- but not inherently rascist. At the base of it, he's advocating equal pay for equal work regardless of race, not calling black people lazy.
~jeff
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:3, Informative)
Um, yes he is. You can't spin away the title of the goddamned post.
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, it was still a stupid and insensitive title. As a public figure you always have to think about what you say and write and expect people to interpret things the wrong way.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:1)
I guess that makes Bow, Nigger [alwaysblack.com] racist too, even though it's been twice linked to in a front page Slashdot article and held up as an example of excellent games journalism. Yes, let's judge on the title rather than the content.
To Russ Nelson's credit he realized that the post wasn't a good idea, pulled it, and then posted a public apology. The man has already admitted that he was wrong. What more do you want?
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:2)
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:2)
I didn't say he was racist... (Score:2)
No need to be so knee-jerk.
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, at least he understood that people were not taking it as intended, and took it down. Quite a few people around here would have left it up, saying, "what's the big deal?"
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only does this show a lack of understanding of history (slave ships had begun British colony trade at Jamestown by 1620, and were involved with Spanish
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:2)
Nelson seems to be saying that if you're paid less, there is less incentive to give up leisure time for work. But the flaw in this argument is that if you have less money you need it more, so you may have to work harder and for longer simply _because_ you are paid less. This also applies to taxation: some argue that high income taxes hurt the economy by reducing the incentive to work, but other
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:2)
That might happen over time, through raises and bonuses, etc., but if one percerives one is ALWAYS going to get paid less for the same work, the natural response is to say "fuck it, I'm just going to work as much as my remuneration suggests."
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I signed it, too. (Score:4, Interesting)
-russ
Hi Russ! (Score:2)
Can you comment on the relation of the two incidents (if there is any)? Have you been getting internal pressures from Bruce and company to stand down? I'm not trying to drag anyone through the mud or anything, I'm honestly just very curious.
By the way, I think the only mistake that was made was taking down the original article. Sometimes you nee
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:1)
Do yourself a favour and make a statement supporting freedom of speech by signing this petition, please.
Re:Russ has gotten some heat.. (Score:1)
It's a pity that something racist can be defended by asserting the intentions weren't racist, or that the final conclusion, removed from its troubling context, is economically sound. I guess it's just easier to jump to someones defence than to think.
This is why... (Score:2)
While focusing on open source and Red Hat's take on it, the main concepts can be used so many places -- OSS or not. Watch it a couple times to really have it sink in; it's deceptively simple though the 'common wisdom' is to discard these ideas when 'reality' shows up (aka resistant managers who have gotten used to the status quo.).
I knew Michael Tiemann in college (Score:4, Interesting)
You could tell early on he was going to go far. He had a microcomputer he had soldered together himself from components, and ran a prolog interpreter on. It was the first I ever saw prolog.
Funny little anecdote, I decided to try out photography after dropping out of Caltech, so Bruce lent me Michael's very expensive Canon A-1 SLR camera. It would accurately meter a thirty second exposure at night.
The photos on this page [geometricvisions.com] of my article Living with Schizoaffective Disorder [geometricvisions.com] were taken with Michael Tiemann's camera.
I've lost touch with them over the years though.
Re:I knew Michael Tiemann in college (Score:2)
This is incredibly off-topic, I know, but I'm drooling over that statement.
Sounds like a cool guy, though.
It's about time (Score:1)
G++ bugs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:G++ bugs (Score:1)
Leave Tiemann alone. His contributions may not be the best (at your eyes, at least) but he is contributing *a lot* to the community. Let's praise what he did/does and not bad-mouth his effords.
Re:G++ bugs (Score:2)
And my first comments were supposed to be taken as a joke and not seriously.
Re:G++ bugs (Score:2)
Reading your first comment, I assumed you were som 14 year old kid just trolling. There was no way to tell from your post that you were joking.
A Red Hat exec in the position? (Score:2)
The OSI IMHO should most certainly NOT be either directly commercial, or allow any commercial entity to use it in order to advance their own cause. I'm not sure how they're meant to avoid that happening if they start putting corporate staff in leadership positions.
hypoxia (Score:2, Interesting)
Fedora is pitched as the beta testing project for Red Hat. Stuff that gets into Red Hat Enterprise is supposed to be proven in Fedora. If you look at the actual packages in each distribution, however, it is interesting to note that RHEL 4.0 actually has newer stuff than Fedora core 3. If Fedora leads to RHEL, how can this be? Has Red Hat, having jettisoned its
FC and RHEL come from rawhide (Score:2)
So if one assumes that RHEL4 was based off rawhide and rawhide had progressed past
Re:FC and RHEL come from rawhide (Score:2)
If RHEL draws its lineage from rawhide rather than Fedora, then what exactly is Fedora?
What is Fedora? (Score:1)
Re:I Consider that red hat ... (Score:2)
Red Hat, Also sells propietary software, but they don't develop it.
This is so far from the truth as you can possibly be: Red Hat is a huge contributor to open software (GNOME, glibc, kernel, gcc and a ton of other things). And they don't sell proprietary software.
Fucking troll! (Score:2)
I consider you... (Score:5, Insightful)
Red Hat, Also sells propietary software, but they don't develop it.
Red Hat does not sell proprietary software. You're accidentally right about them not developing it, though, since RH only develops free software. Plenty of it.
also, they make bad publicity for GNU, since they bash most distributions in favor of their own, they spread FUD about Free Software having no support
Right. Developing lots of free software to make it better creates bad publicity. You'd be hard pressed to find Red Hat spreading any FUD, unlike you, they don't need to. For anyone with more than two brain cells and their eyes open, their position with Ubuntu, for example, is friendly competition. Only animosity with competitors that I can remember was with Sun, and not all that surprisingly, started by Sun. As for support... Red Hat's business model consists of selling support for Free Software, no need to say more.
But redhat, doesn't develop anything
You mean aside from employing top kernel hackers, top gcc hackers and top gnome hackers? RH has also invested heavily on gcj to help us gain a Free Java implementation. I'm sure those people would still contribute whatever scraps of free time they had from they day job to FOSS if they hadn't got a job at RH, now, they have a change to do so fulltime without worrying about their jobs. Not to mention purchasing several companies and releasing their previously proprietary applications for free, what an evil thing to do!
Red Hat's contributions to FOSS are among the greatest of any company, ever, and they continue to do that despite your drivel.
They also use our name (Free Software and Open Source Software) as a selling point.
They have every right in the world to describe their stuff as Free Software, since that's precisely what it is.
I'd also be careful about using forms of word "we" when talking about Free Software, since I happen to think you haven't ever contributed one line of code, or anything else for that matter, in your life. Anyone who had, wouldn't be so ignorant as to spread this kind of baseless FUD. Jumped from Windows last week probably, and now you think you know everything there is to know about Free Software? Well, here's the newsflash: you don't.
Re:I consider you... (Score:2)
I keep hearing that in these redhat threads. Can you give me some examples?
Re:I consider you... (Score:2)
There are several here [redhat.com]. Not including the projects RH employees contribute to which they don't host.
Re:I consider you... (Score:1)
sources.redhat.com hosts GNU packages and other outside projects as a favor to the developers. These are not Red Hat products, and Red Hat doesn't decide what to put in them, but Red Hat is proud to help them out with facilities and, in some cases, by contributions of code.
Looks like the code contributions are at best a secondary function of that site. What contributions of code, exactly?
Re:I consider you... (Score:2)
Lots of them [redhat.com]. They are pretty easy to find actually. pick a project and look through its changelog.
What do you mean? (Score:1)
Remember though, for software to be proprietary you need to be able to (legally) *prevent sharing and use of the source*. If you can do that it's not proprietary because ownership is no longer under only your control.