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Red Hat Software Businesses

Red Hat Buying Cygnus? 200

Posted by CmdrTaco from the unsubstantiated-rumors dept.
Ok guys, this is purely a rumor, but its one that I've heard from several points on the globe so I'm gonna share it: Vulture Capitalist writes "I just got out of a meeting with Matthew Szulick and it appears as though Red Hat has inked a deal to buy Cygnus. In related news- we also understand that some people at Red Hat were so upset with the acquisition and it's corporate implications that they have decided to resign from their Sr. management (founding) positions. After the failed acquisition attempts with both Linuxcare and TurboLinux- this should prove to be a very interesting deal. I'm personally looking forward to the annual report! " Again, none of this is any more than rumor, but I've caught wind of it from several spots so I figure its worth sharing. What's interesting is that Cygnus has more employees then Red Hat, and actually generates more revenue.
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Red Hat Buying Cygnus? More

Red Hat Buying Cygnus?

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  • Is their going to be some change in the attitude toward open-source? Will the buisness plans change?

  • ? (Score:1)

    by plague3106 ( 71849 )
    Is this Redhat getting greedy? Also why would their sr. emps resign over this?
  • Do we have the makings of the next monopoly?
  • The name sounds really familiar, but I'm not certain what they make. Can someone enlighten me?
  • s their going to be some change in the attitude toward open-source?
    A better question might be 'how will it affect red hat linux?' I see nothing fundamentally wrong with red hat continuing its dedication to open source through linux, and operating in a more conventional, proprietary environment for other software, at least in the short term. Obviously I'd like to see everything go open source, but I'm not going to jump on the anti-red-hat bandwagon if they don't do it immediately.

  • Disappointed that CYG-WIN v 1.0 = $99 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Got used to using the beta for the longest time for free, for some reason just assumed the final version would be free.

    To price this admitedly useful package in the range of Win-98 and 3rd party office packages is kinda silly.
  • Why do you think "Red HAT" sucks? Out of sheer curoisity...
  • That is completely up to us, the consumers. If the sheep, I mean the people, hadn't bought in to all of Microsoft's crap, they would not had gained monopoly status. Personally, with the way Redhat distributions are turning out nowadays, I am looking for a new distribution.
  • They make integrated development environments. Their most famous product is Code Fusion.

    Why do people think this makes a monopoly? It looks like a horizontal acquisition to me.
  • The real question here is "What does this move mean for the community?" If this comes to pass will it have any effect, good or bad, on the community?

    Does it mean that Red Hat will get "special" versions of compilers that "optimize" for Red Hat? I mean, come on, "they" already "have" Codewarrior.

    I don't really know what it means for the community, so I'm asking those more qualified to answer. I do know that Red Hat appears to be pretty smart when it comes to serving the free software/open source community, so I'm hoping that after such a merger, it would just be business as usual. However, if the rumors of senior execs leaving Red Hat over the acquisition are true, then perhaps something else is going on?
  • I remember the time when Cygnus couldn't be bothered with updating GCC for the Pentium instruction set. I remember their high handed disrespect, and I won't forget it.
    They didn't have the resources to do that work unpaid -- and there is no reason why they should have done so.

    If someone had paid them to do it, they would have done it. Nobody did.

  • ...how long has the deal been in the works?

    I ask, because many of you probably remember the "name the company" contest Cygnus had a while back. It was rumoured that they wanted to change it because of 1.) a lower neccessity to emphasize "GNU" (cyGNUs), and 2.) because they'd been considering an IPO, whereas there's a Cygnus Pharmaceuticals already.

    This said, a while back, the outcome [cygnus.com] of the contest -- an indefinite delay -- was announced. In this light, such seems fairly interesting.

    Then again, I just might have seen one too many X-Files episodes. But I do find the resignation of senior management interesting as well.
  • I hope that they aren't getting greedy. M$ used to be pretty decent untill they got greedy, then they got sloppy about their code. I dislike monopolies as much as the next guy, but if a product is supeiror, You'll buy it.
  • RedHat's Market cap is at around $7 Billion now. It has nothing resembling prospects of earning that kind of money any time soon so the logical thing to do is buy up some other companies that make a lot of money but have small or none existent market caps.

    The greatest barrier is that a clash of cultures is dangerous and buying up something that's practically dead is almost suicidal.

    In other words, Corel is risky. SCO is bad. Cignus is good. Linuxcare would do wonders for RedHat's reputation :). Turbo Linux is good.
  • What's interesting is that Cygnus has more employees then Red Hat, and actually generates more revenue.

    If this is true, and Cygnus is a financially healthy company, then why on earth are they being bought out by the smaller, less profitable(as of right now), RedHat?

    It seems to me that the purchase should go the other way around if it were to happen at all. Something is up with Cygnus that we don't know about (why would they sell if everything was all ok?). Possibly internal troubles, or the like. Maybe RedHat will be getting a worse deal than they thought they were getting.

    I hope not, but that's how it looks to me.

    -Toaster

  • Makes sense. (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 10, 1999 @04:03AM (#1546245)
    Red Hat and Cygnus are in vertical, software-only markets, so a buyout or merge makes sense. Cygnus' major markets are the embedded space, GCC/tools customizations and GCC development. Red Hat is doing all the software work orthogonal to that: kernel development and packaging/maintainance/support. It's ridiculous to suggest that this could create any kind of monopoly, both companies are writing software under the GPL - if users are unsatisfied with any product they can take it and go a different path. Just like Mandrake does. If this deal proves to be true then there will be interesting times ahead!
  • like the old saying
    "those that can, do
    those that can't, teach"


    those with cash can buy what they can't do

    isn't there another company that likes to buy
    what it can produce on it's on?

    this is an ignorant comment not flamebait
  • The reason people think of it as becoming a monopoly is not because they are making horizontal acquisitions, but rather strategic ones. In computers, you can acquire a monopoly by simply dealing in too many areas. This is the reason Microsoft is one of the first companies involved in horizontal acquistions that has gotten in trouble. They were right to say computers would change the world. They didn't know it would modify the legal world as well.

    RedHat+Cygnus = A company with control over a popular environment for development (read:mindshare)
    Microsoft+VB,VC++,VJ++,COOL etc = A company with control over several key languages. People see this as what RedHat is trying to do. I find the Linux market to be something that naturally prevents this from happening. But, that said, it could stil happen.

    Luckily a lot of what is in RedHat Linux is not developed by them. Otherwise there would be a case against them.
  • RedHat has more money then any distrib, and
    all it's work is GPL'd, so this is no problem
    for Debian, SuSe, etc.

    It would actually bring more developers into
    RedHat, and just imagine what is in store.

    They have done nothing against the community,
    yet every one says "Next MS".

    Has anyone compared there market sizes?!?!?
  • Cygnus has been in trouble recently -- the outcome oftheir "name the company" contest suggests that they weren't financially strong enough to IPO. Getting acquired makes good sense there.

    RedHat, by contrast, has the advantage of a delusionally high market cap that is buying power today but could be gone the moment the market comes to its senses. Making an acquisition makes good sense.

    What it does signal is an agressive position for RedHat -- Cygnus isn't a Linux company, their expertise is more general Un*x and IDE/compatibility stuff. That jives with RedHat trying to push Linux as the Un*x of the future -- they need to build or buy more expertise in that direction.

    In my view -- this would be good for RedHat, good for Cyngus, good for Linux, and probably seriously bad news for all the other Unices (eunuchs?) on the block.
    --G
  • Red Hat shares have gone through the roof since their IPO, and therefore they have a lot of money sloshing around not working for them.

    I'm speculating [not literally], but I suspect they'd probably buy Cygnus using RH shares - they wouldn't have to offer that many to buy them out at current rates ;->

  • They make integrated development environments. Their most famous product is Code Fusion.

    Actually, I think their most famous product is egcs, aka gcc. Athough Cygnus doesn't "own" gcc, they've been the major source of enhancements for quite some time now.

  • For those who don't know, cygnus [cygnus.com] maintains most of the GNU development tools (GCC, GDB, binutils, etc.). It is a firm that has been making money off free software for ten years, mostly by porting GNU tools to embedded systems.

    I think this is a sad sign: if true, with this deal, Red Hat has shown that they are not confident about their own business strategy. Now they compensate for this by buying up other (profitable) companies.

    I don't see what the benefit is for the public.

  • I thought the comment about the annual revenues of Cygnus being greater than those of RedHat interesting, especially when considering the current market value assigned to RedHat.

    I wonder what the average revenue is for a good McDonald's location. Seems to me that it wouldn't be too far behind RedHat. Considering RH is going to generate so much money from running a portal...a slashdot competitor actually...I guess the large market cap must be justified.

    Now, if I could only get those fries on-line...

  • hmmm (Score:1)

    by Xkill_ ( 66601 )
    Its nice to know that Redhat is spending its new found wealth buying up companies, when it could be helping the development of linux more.



    "The importance of using technology in the right way has never been more clear." [microsoft.com]
  • While RedHat isn't profitable it's market cap is huge.

    This means that it has the power to buy up larger more profitable companies using only stock. One reason to do so is to get Cash, employees and salable products. Cygnus has all 3 in abundance.

  • Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)

    by PD ( 9577 )
    No, RedHat will not become a monopoly. Their core system cannot be owned and controlled by them. Do you suppose that you could buy a copy of NT, make some changes, resell it, and compete against Microsoft?

    That's what Mandrake did, as well as many others. I'm thinking of two guys still in high school getting rave reviews for their distro. The mere fact that these guys can do what they are doing shows that Red Hat will never enjoy monopoly power. Remember, monopoly power doesn't necessarily mean market share. Red Hat will get to be a big company, but never a monopoly.
  • I'm not so sure that it is Red Hat that is not confident about their own business strategy, that is behind this "rumored" deal. It may just be that they have Billions of dollars to fund something that needs to make revenue. They may be confident that they can make money, but probably not at that scale. So save some for R&D and to keep the stock holders happy (thus the stock up), use the rest of the money to buy someone else that is making some nice revenue.

    Just a thought, not a reality ;)

    Steven Rostedt

  • Well this does explain away a lot of stuff going on such as RH's new Open Source projects, the Open Source only distro etc. It seems almost like a balancing act of commercialism/open source mentality. They (RH) had the good taste to initiate a series of Open Source projects prior to this rumor getting released. The bit about founding members bailing is sort of worrisome, while acquistions (and sell offs of portions of a company, take a look at Lockheed Martin who is in a different sector, that freaking company has sold off parts, bought parts, sold off bought parts, it was a confusing mess while I was there) are part of a normal business cycle (except when it is someone like MS who buys, buys, buys and never lets go) it seems strange to me that Senior Management members - who could stand to make a lot of cash out of it - would leave. I mean if becoming successful or commercial was a problem for those individuals they would have quit a long time ago, I think there may be more to it. Nevertheless, I see no reason to worry. So many Linux users have a tendancy to use different distributions at any given time I am actually a little surprised at RH's success (Marketing?) but I wouldn't let it bother me.

  • Re:What Does Cygnus Make? (Score:4)

    by Gleef ( 86 ) on Wednesday November 10, 1999 @04:22AM (#1546261) Homepage
    Cygnus makes:
    * The GNUPro development toolkit
    * ECOS, an embedded operating system (designed to work with GNUPro)
    * The Cygwin Posix-compatibilty environment for Windows
    * Other development tools (eg. Code Fusion, Source Navigator)

    AFAIK, their real revenue stream is in consulting, particularly for embedded systems developers. Check out their website: http://www.cygnus.com [cygnus.com].

    ----
  • Um, I think that Cygwin 1.0 was actually just the 20.1 beta packaged together in a CD with a bunch of other stuff. It's still available online as free software, because it was all licensed under the GPL. Don't worry, it's still free.

  • And also (Score:2)

    by Gleef ( 86 )
    They are very strong supporters of many Free Software development projects, most notably gcc, GNOME and Docbook.

    ----

  • Who's Cygnus: an off-the cuff history. (Score:5)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Wednesday November 10, 1999 @04:32AM (#1546267) Homepage
    I've seen a lot of posts saying "Who's cygnus?" While I don't know the company especially well, I thought I'd make a quick post of some of what I do know.

    Cygnus has been around since the dawn of time. err.. Well, the late 80's anyway. Basically, they were founded to provide commercial support for the GNU project. Their biggest area of involvement has been in the compilers.

    As nearly as I can tell, Cygnus makes most of their money from consulting, support contract for GNU stuff, and porting GCC to processor platforms for various vendors (e.g. Intel).

    EGCS is a cygnus project. I think glibc is as well. They have produced a version of the GNU development suite called "GNUPro" which includes some moderately enhanced stuff. They have produced their own Real Time operating system called Ecos (if I remember right). They have produced a complete port of all the GNU stuff to Windows called "Cyg-Win" which they sell for $99.

    When Linux came out, they blew it off. Now look at 'em ;)

  • Heh... Superior product? Maybe that's why so many people buy Microsoft products, because they're superior to others. Linux is coming along fairly well but it lacks the central standardization that Windows has -- the GUI, the programming specifications, etc. Don't get me wrong, I've got a dual boot system with Red Hat 5.2 and Win98, and I like Linux as much as the next person, but I still think Windows is better for a lot of things and Linux still has a way to go before they actually become a real competitor for the desktop OS market.

    As for the Cygnus/Red Hat thing, I don't personally like it but it may be good in some ways. I don't like it because I think maybe Cygnus's products will dramatically change, either for the worse, or hopefully for the better. I DO like it because I think it will improve the quality of some GNU applications like GCC.

  • Re:? (Score:1)

    by cruise ( 111380 )
    Is this Redhat getting greedy?

    Let's hope so. A little "inovation" and "agressive marketing" on the part of Linux/Open Source can do nothing but good.

    I prefer pico over any IDE that I've tried but I know many people prefer an IDE. Code Fusion is one of the better ones I tried from demos and this can do nothing but good to the Linux community. I only hope that the product becomes free. It does not appear to be free at the moment. (from the info I found on their web page) [Am I missing some download area?]

  • Now look at 'em?

    First of all, Cygnus is the most active developer of everyone's favorite compiler, so don't say that they blew Linux off -- they helped write the damn compiler for it. What did you expect them to do? Release their own distro? They're a compiler company, and they aren't tied to any one platform. I think they're doing a fine job.

    Also: Cygwin is freely downloadable, you don't have to pay $99 for it.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Why this could be a really good thing. (Score:5)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Wednesday November 10, 1999 @04:48AM (#1546277) Homepage
    Consider that, without fail, every Linux distro and application, even the kernel, uses gcc. And Cygnus are the acknowledged world experts on gcc. So, if improvements can be made to gcc that make it 10% faster, then suddenly Linux is 10% faster!

    On another note, one of the big things Linux needs to do is improve the quality and availability of "easy" development tools. Cygnus has a background in that area as well (although they are not necessarily the best). I know they've already done some work on precompiled headers and so forth.

    Given Redhat's record of contributing back to the community, I think this could be a really good thing for Linux as a whole.

    Go Redhat!
  • If this is true, and Cygnus is a financially healthy company, then why on earth are they being bought out by the smaller, less profitable(as of right now), RedHat?

    Remember, the financial world is mysterious to those of us impaired by a strong attachment to our logical faculties.

    For example, when Worldcom bought MCI it was a $8M company buying a $20M company. Somehow these things work.

  • The following post appeared on the CYGN investment board at Yahoo:

    Check out this rumor on Slashdot
    by: cyguy2000

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/10/0823 222

    No movement in CYGN's stock though, except for
    the higher than average volume yesterday.

    Beware, CYGN is not the Cygnus we're talking about here; CYGN does pharmaceuticals. Don't be taken in. In the meantime, could somebody please provide the real stock symbol for Cygnus software, or confirm that it isn't publically traded.

  • If by "easy development tools" you mean Visual Basic, well you're right, we don't have anything quite that good yet. However, if you mean something more like Visual C++, I suggest you check out KDevelop; it's a very handy, color-coded IDE. The online help could use some work, but otherwise it's wonderful.

    Incidentally, making the compiler 10% faster, does not make Linux 10% faster. It just makes linux compile 10% faster. I doubt RedHat buying Cygnus would make a huge difference in the compiler development -- Cygnus is more than capable in what they're doing.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • IIRC part of the business plan that RedHat laid out for their IPO stated that they planned on purchasing other tech companies. There is nothing evil or inherintly wrong with that. In fact it make good sense.

    What doesn't make sense to me is the reactionary response that RedHat by virtue of operating as a business is evil, or the next Microsoft. This is the real world we are dealing with here, purchasing other companies is not evil unless they are using unfair or illegal means to force the purchase, which seems unlikely.

    What is sad here is the unfounded fear and paranoia that seems to run rampant...
    • Red Hat has shown that they are not confident about their own business strategy...

    Change happens.

    It seems Cygnus wasn't confident about their business strategy a few years back when they went from a Free Software [fsf.org] support operation to selling packaged software that was complementary to Free Software (IDEs and the like).

    I wonder if this means the new combined company will release everything GPL'd or if RedHat will start producing and selling for-fee packages? Or will Cygnus be run at arms length with no changes to either organizations? If this is the case, it's hard to see why RedHat's making this buy.

    One HUGE potential synergy I see between Cygnus and a distro maker would be for Cygnus to polish up Cygwin (their Unix porting layer for NT based on Free Software) and have a distro package that has the Cygwin tools thrown in (probably on a separate CD). If you could add-in a Free Software X-Windows for NT then this could be viewed as a Linux compatibility package for NT, allowing interoperability and porting support between the two environments.

    Let's face it, most organizations are not going to throw out all their Windows and go to Linux in the short term, but rather add in some Linux where it makes sense. Environments like Cygwin (if made mature) could be a boon to these customers allowing them to produce programs in Linux that could be easily ported to their Windows machines.

  • Cygnus' bundling of gcc is used by Wind River Systems as the cross-compiler for their embedded OS, VxWorks. Cygnus, I'm sure, has been making decent royalties from that relationship. BTW, Cygnus did not blow Linux off. They have been the major supporters for gcc, gnats, glibc for a very long time.
  • Huh? No it isn't. What they're saying is that if you want your changes to be included into their source tree, you have to sign your copyright over to the FSF (or Cygnus).

    You're still perfectly welcome to develop your own code and do whatever the hell you want with it under your own copyright.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • It isn't publically traded.
  • Hmm. I don't care either way, but MS was never really decent. Did you watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley" ? It was pretty accurate.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • I agree, it seems that lots of the flack Redhat is getting from Linux users has to do with the fact that it is becoming popular, Redhat really can't "be the next Microsoft", since what are they selling but support? The user base for Redhat is growing, and I think that people who moved to Linux to be different/elite are feeling a little crowded now.
    It seems that every Redhat article on Slashdot lately is full of comments like "Redhat is the next MS, look they have stock, they have money, I'm switching to Debian." Use a distro you enjoy using and that serves your purposes. So far it just seems that Redhat has done plenty for the community and very little against. Of course, when they do something for the community, then everyone says they should have done more. Heh, ya can't win.
  • I believe what was meant was 'if they could suddenly make the compiler generate code which ran 10% faster, then Linux would be 10% faster'.

    As for the effect of RHAT buying Cygnus, the one thing that would be a little more likely is that while profiling an inefficient portion of code, it would now be feasible to work directly with the compiler team to generate faster code.

    As for IDE's, I prefer vim :-)
  • Good point. Coding techniques have a lot to do with how "maintainable" a program is. If everybody is doing it their way, no one is doing it the right way. The right way, in this case, is anything that has some adherence to a standard.

    I think it's funny when people call Microsoft's code "sloppy" -- Very few people outside of MS have actually seen MS code. Microsoft, AFAIK, has a system by which their programmers all write code. On top of Hungarian Notation, they use a very specific structure in their design process.

    Most open source software, by comparison, doesn't have a design process. At least, not a formal one. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but in the long run it can really be a killer. The Linux kernel itself doesn't suffer from this, because Linus has done a wonderful job of maintaining all the code that goes into it -- a lot of other OSS projects don't fare so well.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • In April 1999, the egcs steering committee was appointed by the FSF as the official GNU maintainer for GCC. At that time GCC was renamed from the "GNU C Compiler" to the "GNU Compiler Collection". From http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html [gnu.org]
  • Doesn't cygnus produce a few high quality unix/windows development tools? I don't know the specifics but I am under the impression that they have always had a few non-open-source software offerings.

    Presumably, if they get absorbed into Red Hat, they would follow the Red Hat open source policy and we would all get access to the (GPL?) code.
  • In April 1999 egcs was merged back into GCC
  • RHAT's fundamentals amaze me. They only made 10 million dollars last quarter, and lost 1 million. That is freaking peanuts. If ALL their revenue was profit, their P/E ratio would still be an extremely high 150 (6 Billion/40 million). That is insane. Also, if you look at Excite's excellent financial page on RedHat [excite.com], you'll see that only .3% of its shares are held by institutional investors. They obviously don't believe that this stock is a good long-term buy. I firmly believe that this company can never live up to the insane valuations that it has achieved. Their services are not unique and will not become a dominant player unless...

    Their only solution to this dilemma is if they are able to buy up enough Linux players so that they can offer a portfolio of products that they can be the one stop shopping site for all things Linux. Sort of the MS of the Linux world (I know they won't own the code, but for businesses, it won't matter [they'll be happy buying a total solution]). Anyway, I ramble, but it is an interesting phenomenon: A company with an insane valuation can justify the valuation by buying enough companies so that their valuation is justified.
  • Let's face it, most organizations are not going to throw out all their Windows and go to Linux in the short term, but rather add in some Linux where it makes sense. Environments like Cygwin (if made mature) could be a boon to these customers allowing them to produce programs in Linux that could be easily ported to their Windows machines.

    What I think would be cool is to use cygwin (and their native-compiler thingy) to produce a distribution of linux that actually runs under windows.. might have to make some kernel shims, but really just taking the exact same tools that you use in a standard linux distribution, and run them under the windows kernel. KDE for windows.. hmmm.. you can replace the shell in windows.. it would be the coolest thing, because I'm forced to run windows at work, and then I could run all the cool linux stuff too with just "./configure && make && make install"

  • Do we have the makings of the next monopoly?

    Will Red Hat start using anti-competitive and illegal practices to force people to sell/bundle/preload/use their products?

    Probably not.

    -Brent
    --
  • Given Redhat's record of contributing back to the community, I think this could be a really good thing for Linux as a whole.

    It seems to me likely that Redhat would probably open up some of the proprietary parts of Cygnus and release stuff under GPL sooner, as it would fit with the rest of the business. Cygnus would just expand their range of service business (which they would probably swing slowly towards Linux).

    Since gcc now has an open development process nothing much would change there.
  • EGCS is a cygnus project. I think glibc is as well. They have produced a version of the GNU development suite called "GNUPro" which includes some moderately enhanced stuff. They have produced their own Real Time operating system called Ecos (if I remember right). They have produced a complete port of all the GNU stuff to Windows called "Cyg-Win" which they sell for $99.

    your description is a little off. cygwin is still quite alive and well and it is quite free. gnupro is the package for sale.

    "The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

  • I don't see RedHat doing anything that hurts. In fact, they may actually help!!!

    Cygnus is quite profitable. And they have a lot of non-Linux products and interests. In fact, they are a great company when it comes to bringing OpenSource to non-OpenSource platforms. And they work akin to Sendmail (free product, charge for GUI and support).

    So get off the "next monopoly" thing with RedHat which is impossible. In fact, I like that RedHat is at the top. It would be MUCH DIFFERENT if Caldera or SuSE was on top.

    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

  • Looking to MicroSoft as an example, acquisition in this inflated industry is a good thing. RedHat has lot's of cash to blow and they need to blow it beofore it's gone or others outpace them. I think this particualr acquisition is probably a good move and I've yet to see any major RedHat moves that have damaged the community. I suspect that as a few other distros and support oriented companies gain mind and marketshare that they will have oportunities simalar to this. This is nothing but good for the movement and a sign of opensource's commercial viability.

  • I think this is a sad sign: if true, with this deal, Red Hat has shown that they are not confident about their own business strategy. Now they compensate for this by buying up other (profitable) companies.

    A company buying another one, a sign of not being confident with their own business strategy?????? What are you smoking? I don't get all the alarmists posts here AT ALL. This buyout makes complete sense. They complement each other's business, RedHat has all the resources to buy them, RedHat can't become a monopoly (ever heard of Mandrake????) ...

    I'm just amazed.

  • Re:Hmmmm (Score:3)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Wednesday November 10, 1999 @05:33AM (#1546313) Homepage
    Quoth the anonymous Coward:
    Name a free compiler other than gcc.
    One word:
    lcc [princeton.edu]
    Anybody out there ever tried it? I haven't, it doesn't appear to be on a par with GCC, but the point is that it /does/ exist.
  • Its foolish to hear the "founding partners threatining to leave" as they're just looking for an excuse to cash out on there lucrative stock options, and i'm sure there is a clause that lets them sell if they should feel the company is not going in a direction they feel necessary.

    On the other hand, why doesn't Redhat just form a corporate body for Gnome, and buy them out and finish up that product? They seem to have all but abandoned the KDE environment, and this would allow redhat to have a redhat library and foundation class for more of a "redhat" system..

    With all the money redhat has, why does't it start aquiring some of the startups? Like finish its portal it promised, buy up some foundation companys to increase its product line. Aquire Applixware to offer an application environment. Start a coorporate body for Xfree86 to offer support sertvices and funding, and then aquire it or spin it off. Do what others are doing, making things work.. redhat seems to be sitting on there arses!

    Its amazing how slow redhat as a company seems to move, yet they can keep up with their releases every 6 months.

    Aquire, grow, increase losses, but show earnings are on a rise, force more cash infusions from investors, show bottom line is increasing so that your stock isn't over valued as much as it is...

    don't just sit there and look like an aquisition from the very same company's that you failed to aquire! it won't be long before turbolinux will snag you, or if Caldera wins its lawsuit, expect them to have tons of money with nothing to do except aquire..

  • Linux needs apps, apps require tools (Score:4)

    by davie ( 191 ) on Wednesday November 10, 1999 @05:33AM (#1546315) Journal

    This is a no-brainer. You're Red Hat, you've just been infused with tons of capital, you want to do things to improve the market penetration of Linux. How better to do this than to buy up the key Linux development tools vendor?

    How many of you who are worried that RH are trying to become the Microsoft of Linux have considered what might happen if Borland repeat their 1980s DOS compiler coup on Linux? Before Borland's Turbo Pascal came along, a decent DOS compiler couldn't be had for less than several hundred to one thousand dollars; TP rolled out at ~$75 a pop, took the compiler market by storm. Suddenly, everybody was using TP to develop DOS apps. What if Borland's Linux compilers took the Linux market by storm and left Cygnus in the dust? How many of you would be complaining that RH weren't doing anything to preserve Cygnus and leaving us at the mercy of Borland?

    Like it or not, the future of Linux involves NASDAQ, venture caps, and lots and lots of money. Technologies like "egcs" and embedded development tools that are important to the future of Linux will be acquired. What we should be asking ourselves is not, "Is it a good thing that someone may buy out Cygnus?" but "Which company would we prefer to take the reins at Cygnus? Turbo? Caldera? Red Hat? Microsoft?" I'd prefer that Red Hat end up with Cygnus since they've demonstrated that they are dedicated to the GNU concept. Some other vendors seem all too willing to market closed add-ons to Linux and would probably hurt Linux if they had control of Cygnus.

    Right now, the Linux development tools space is where it's at, and this would seem like a wise move on Red Hat's part.

  • If the maintainer's behaviour becomes intolerable, you can fork, as a last resort.

  • Seems to make sense to me (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If Redhat wants to compete and go toe-to-toe with the MS's and IBM's of the world then they need a support structure and more importantly, they need to have the personel to do anything it takes to support.


    The GPL gives them and everyone else complete control over code but that's not real useful if you don't have a staff who understands the code and can work on it. Linux is going into the enterprise, that's where it's at. Redhat needs to be able to promise to customers that if something flakes out they can fix it. bad version of GCC comes out and you can't compile your kernel (this seems to happen with almost every release, it's not a fabricated scenario) redhat needs to have the facilities to promise that they can fix it and do it in a reasonable time frame. That's the way that market works. You need custom code? Cygnus appears to be masters at that game.


    By in large, I see it as a step towards giving redhat more credibility and linux as a whole (especially the redhat variant) more credibility. Consolidate some tallent, deploy a support structure, win big corporate accounts and then have the capacity to solve problems when they arrise. It's worked before and it will work again.


    This does lend itself towards the Redhat is Son of MS theme. I still don't think we need to worry about it yet but it does alarm me to some extent that Redhat could stop funding GCC work and GNOME work and have an impact on both projects. I don't think they'd risk it but at some point the appeal of profit from CodeFusion is going to win out over doing the right thing.

  • I find this rumor questionable, not because I cannot see RedHat buying Cygnus, but because:
    1. Cygnus is used by other companies, too (Wind River Systems [wrs.com] for one). If RedHat bought Cygnus, what would WRS do?
    2. Why would anyone at RedHat have a problem with merging with Cygnus? I simply cannot see anyone getting their back up over this. Anyone have a good reason somebody would resign over this? Until I see one, that makes that part of the rumor suspect.

    This hypothesis just doesn't seem to fit the facts.

    P.S. If you follow the link to WRS above, either disable cookies, or disable "Warn me before accepting cookies". WRS's server is very cookie-happy.
  • Please send bug reports instead of just stating something sucks.
    If we don't know about a bug, we (quite obviously) can't fix it.
  • You are either lying ore ignorant. Note that the FSF insist on the same thing for assorted other software projects : gcc, emacs, etc...
  • Hungarian notation is not something to be proud of.

    wParam, anyone?

  • The reason is that they want to be able to relicense it under a closed source license.

    Is that the same reason that the FSF wants you to assign your copyright to them?
  • It seems to me that supporting Cygnus, which does a lot of open-source development, is a good way to help Linux.
    --
  • While Cygnus' *current* work and RedHat's *current* work are orthogonal, there's no guarantee that they will stay that way after they merge. In fact, they almost certainly won't.

    I like Cygnus. A lot. I don't like RedHat. A lot. I want them to *stay* orthogonal.

    What will happen to the quality of Cygnus products once they start being targeted specifically for RH? Our Suns and NT machines are starting to not suck nearly as much due to Cygnus tools; I don't like the idea of Really Cool Product Version 14.73 being only on RH, while all the other platforms only have Version 2.2 because those don't generate revenue for RH and aren't "worth" porting.

    Just my two timeslices. Flame away. :-(

  • It was gratis ($$$ free), but not free in sense of freedom. (Only "fair use" for private persons.)

  • Re:? (Score:2)

    by kijiki ( 16916 )
    PICO??? good god. Use teco like us real men. EMACS AND VI SUCK, TECO FOREVER!!! (For those newbies who just "discovered" unix thanks to linux, teco is what inspired edlin. before such blasphemous tools like vi or emacs.)
  • ... RedHat ?!?

    Cygnus was going to rename themselves several months ago, were they not? Perhaps being acquired was a simpler solution than agreeing on a new name.

    Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity

  • Forgive my ignorance - maybe I'm just a nerd whannabe. What is a GNU. Please don't blow me off, I am a quick study but I need a start. My profession is dimetrically opposite of the techno stuff that you banter about so easily.
  • I wouldn't worry about some Anonymous Coward critiquing Redhat. The recent IPO and should indicate that there are more people who disagree with his opinion.
  • Folks,

    Based on my previous experience with companies
    being acquired, I think there is a good chance
    this move would result in damage to Cygnus. Some
    activities may be considered "non-strategic" to
    Red Hat and shut down. It is also typical for
    acquired companies to lose significant portions
    of the best staff as they see control of their
    destiny lost.

    This is all part of the hurly burly of business,
    but given the stregically important role that
    Cygnus plays in the OpenSource world, most notably
    with GCC, we could all suffer.

  • Ok,

    If it's true, good for them, they need apps. And, I think that buying key companies that make Linux cool is good.

    On the other hand, I would have loved to see them buy VMWare and open source whatever they can in it!

    Of course, these bought companies should be independent divisions of redhat that keep their name and employees etc....

  • just a thought..if microsoft uses a very specific design structure and all, why do their programs tend to be totally unstable and buggy as hell?

    peace,
  • It is the part of the free software foundation that produces code. See Here [gnu.org]. The original idea was to develop a completely free Unix. Some Finnish guy came along and created his own free kernel, though, before they finished. He used his kernel, and the add-on tools they developed, to create a complete, free Unix (or Unix-like) system. (He also used their development tools to build the kernel.) This is what most people call Linux. As they say on their website: "though these systems are often referred to as ``Linux'', they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems."

    (Personally, I don't think that this rolls off the tounge well enough to ever catch on, but it is a shame that the GNU people don't get as much public credit as they deserve.)
  • The answer to all of your questions can be found at www.fsf.org [fsf.org]
  • They have a couple of proprietary products, but I doubt they make them much money.

    So I don't think this would affect Red Hat much. Maybe they would make the proprietary Cygnus products free software, that would not cost them much.
  • cygwin is still quite alive and well and it is quite free. gnupro is the package for sale.

    Yes, Cygwin is free, but it costs $99. See the sales page [netsales.net] if you don't believe me. The last beta (b20.1) is downloadable from Cygnus's site, but 1.0 isn't. Since it is free, though, there's nothing to stop anyone from buying it and then selling copies la Cheap Bytes, or putting it on an FTP site.

    BTW GNUPro is free as well - or at least most of it, there is some proprietary graphical debugger stuff.

  • *IF* this *WERE* to happen, it probably wouldn't change much for the community.
    Red Hat is all about open source, any theories that gcc would move to closed-source or that there would be a special optimizing version for Red Hat internal use only won't happen.
    Also Red Hat won't give SuSE, *BSD, ... special broken versions of compilers. Red Hat is not Microsoft.
    I won't speculate on the future of Cygwin if Cygnus goes Red Hat for now - not until this becomes more than a rumor. Suffice it to say, none of the Red Hat employees here heard about the rumor before it was announced on /.
  • teco? Good god man, you don't need all that glitz. Edit your files with echo, cat, head and tail like a real man!

    This message is powered by Vim. Just cause VIM rocks.

  • Perhaps as part of the deal, some Cygnus execs
    are going to move into senior roles at RH. Or
    some purists objected to how a RH/Cygnus merger
    will deal with Cygnus' non-GPL code.

    If RedHat wouldn't use non-GPL QT, why would
    they suddenly start bundling Cold Fusion or
    whatever the hell that Cygnus product is called?
  • >). If RedHat bought Cygnus, what would WRS do?

    You are making the assumption that if RHAT buys Cygnus than they will be dropping support for other OSs. I really doubt that could happen. Remember Cygnus is the maintainer of GCC/EGCS, all their software is GPLd. The same with RH, all the stuff they create in-house is GPLd too.

    This is probably a good idea, get Cygnus in contact with some of that IPO money before it runs out. And aquire a small stable buisness at the same time.

    I doubt that Cygnus would stand for much bullying on RedHats part, and they could always take the code with them. Remember, traditional software paradigms don't work in a GPL environment.
  • They maintain binutils and gdb for the FSF. They are the single largest contributer to gcc, and the head of the gcc team is a Cygnus employee.

    Their main revenue comes from selling support for gcc (and the GNU tools) to various makers of embedded devices, including ports to new hardware.

    They have started selling boxed packages, such as GnuPRO, CodeFusion, and Cygwin. GnuPRO and Cygwin are just packeded versions of free tools, CodeFusion is proprietary.

  • You can read all about Cygnus and its free software business plan from Michael Tiemann's chapter [oreilly.com] of "Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution" (aka The Book that Slashdot Made).
    --
  • The only non-free software on the CD is the install program. This means that you can install it on as many platforms you want, and that you can put all the software (except the install program) on ftp if that is what you want. Free speach, not free beer.

    It is *not* just b20.1, but a later version.
  • If RedHat bought Cygnus, what would WRS do?

    Maintain the compilers themselves, or pay somebody else to do it!

  • It's just that the FSF are legally cautious and don't want to face copyright infringement lawsuits later on. When you assign copyright to them, they promise to make the code available under a free licence (there is a form somewhere, I don't know where though).
  • What a sorry bunch of FUD!

    Linux made it to the big tent without NASDAQ and will continue regardless of NASDAQ. It shows an atrocious misunderstanding of free source software to say otherwise. It simply can't be hijacked.

    Suppose Borkland did release a killer IDE for Linux. Further suppose Borkland did intentionally make it incompatible with everything that exists now. How many free source developers would actually release code that *required* such a beast? Can you imagine a distribution that came with sources (as required by the GPL) yet couldn't be built except with the Borkland IDE?

    You have got to be sleeping poorly to come up with any such scenario.

    Like it or not, free source software CANNOT be hijacked.

    --

  • Take a deep breath and read my post again. I stated that "the future of Linux involves..." I did not say that the future of Linux is "dependent upon..." NASDAQ, etc. I did not, as you put it, "say otherwise."

    Can you imagine a distribution that came with sources (as required by the GPL) yet couldn't be built except with the Borkland IDE?

    You have got to be sleeping poorly to come up with any such scenario.

    You came up with this scenario, not I. If anything, Borland have hinted that their compiler products will be very compatible, and why should't they be? There's no compelling reason I can think of, strategic or otherwise, for Borland to make their products incompatible or use non-standard switches, etc.

    Maybe you're not old enough to remember the Turbo Pascal era. I am. It was an amazing time for folks who wanted to write their own software, and I think Borland can be credited with making PC software development a real cottage industry. Borland have proven that they can do compilers and can (occasionally) figure out where the marketplace is headed. Look at the Borland developer survey if you want to find out what developers are telling Borland about what they'd like them to do with development tools on Linux. If Borland are still as sharp as they used to be, they'll shrink wrap a drop-in replacement for egcs that (at least according to early benchmark reports) may very well produce tighter, faster code. If they give the Linux user a choice between a Free compiler that produces good code, and a $125.00 compiler that produces much smaller and faster code and requires no tweaking to build the kernel and/or projects packaged for autoconf, I think they may just repeat their compiler revolution.

    Whence cometh the "hijacking" rhetoric? Who is hijacking whom? I see one company that is in business to make money, purportedly considering the acquisition of another company that is in business to make money.

  • Mergers these days are typically stock swap deals. The purchasing company issues new stock and gives a certain number of shares to each stockholder of the purchased company. Deals can also be all cash or some combination of cash and stock. You are right in that this process is dilutive in that it means there is more stock issued. The main point investors look for, however, is whether earnings will be diluted, i.e. whether the P.E. ratio of the combined company will be smaller or greater than the expected P.E. ratio of the purchasing company alone. Of course in the topsy-turvy world of tech startups, earnings are less important than growth, so investors will be looking at how the combined company will grow in comparison to Redhat alone. Incidentally, most mergers are not as good as the investors expected them to be.

    As for the money generated by the IPO, indeed IPO companies do use IPOs to generate inexpensive capital, but the main concern in most IPOs is to create a market into which the founders and venture capitalists can later sell their stock. In a typical IPO plan, venture capitalists are looking for a 10x return on invested capital. To that end, the venture capitalists, founders, and private placement retain about 90% ownership and invest around 10% of the total capital of the company, whereas the public invests 90% of the capital and gets 10% of the ownership. A pretty nice deal huh?




    --
  • On top of the reply above this, I'd point out that a lot of new Microsoft programs are incredibly stable -- more so than a lot of OSS programs I know of.

    Outlook 2000 is a very streamlined program. Redesigned from the ground up, I can't remember ever having it crash on me.

    Visual Studio 6.0 is another great one. This is probably my favorite Windows program (aside from my DVD player). It doesn't crash and, although KDevelop is quite kickass, there really isn't any IDE out there as good as VS6.

    So I guess what I'm saying is that Microsoft's applications are actually pretty good. It's their operating systems the bite.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

    • 1. Cygnus is used by other companies, too (Wind River Systems for one). If RedHat bought Cygnus, what would WRS do?

    RedHat doesn't really have an offering in the same space as WRS. I don't see why they wouldn't continue to support WRS. For that matter, RedHat would probably be happy to support all the commercial gcc users whether they compete with their Linux distribution or not. At this point, I think RedHat would love to start showing a profit.

    • 2. Why would anyone at RedHat have a problem with merging with Cygnus? I simply cannot see anyone getting their back up over this. Anyone have a good reason somebody would resign over this? Until I see one, that makes that part of the rumor suspect.

    It may be that RedHat is pushing out some of the senior people in favor of senior people from Cygnus, who have demonstrated how to make money on this Open Source stuff. Or, it could be that the proposed new combined company will continue to sell the Cygnus for-fee licensed products and some of the senior people at RedHat find this intolerable.

  • Anybody out there ever tried it? I haven't, it doesn't appear to be on a par with GCC, but the point is that it /does/ exist.
    Here is what John Carmack posted to the lcc-request mailing list about LCC
    "I had seen a reference to LCC in comp.compilers, so I thought I would check it out.... Wow. An 11k line ansi compiler. I am impressed. The documentation and example code was clearly structured, and I got everything generating proper code in about three days. A couple more days of bug chasing and optimizing, and I have a damn good tool. This has saved me SO much time (it was fun, too). If the authors are at all into PC games, they can have a couple free copies with my compliments!"
    That was back in 1994, and this more recently from his .plan file
    The tools necessary for building mods will all be freely available: a modified version of LCC and a new program called q3asm. LCC is a wonderful project -- a cross platform, cross compiling ANSI C compiler done in under 20K lines of code. Anyone interested in compilers should pick up a copy of "A retargetable C compiler: design and implementation" by Fraser and Hanson.
    I've got the book. It's expensive at $70, but I think it's worth it if you want to understand how real compilers work as opposed to the toy compilers most classes and books use to teach compiler theory. It's only weakness is that it only explains the theory necessary to understand the code. But there are other books for that.

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