Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Red Hat Software Businesses

Ask Robert Young 269

Posted by Roblimo from the people-who-wear-colorful-headgear dept.
Yes, that Bob Young. The one who helped endow online information resource ibiblio.org, but is better known for his role as co-founder and Chairman of Red Hat. Ask him anything you want, but please hold it down to one question per post. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated inquiries to Bob (who is in England this week), and he'll send back his answers just as soon as he can.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Ask Bob Young More

Ask Bob Young

Comments Filter:

  • Glaringly obvious flaw (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is something that's been bothering me for years. During installation, in the network setup portion, WHY does Redhat insist that a hostname is of the form mycomputer.mydomain.com?

    That is what you call a fully qualified domain name NOT a hostname. The RFC states that the hostname is only the "leftmost portion" of the fully qualified domain name. Hence, hostname -fqdn. For godsakes can you please have someone fix that? We're Linux geeks, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

  • The Business Community (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What are the difficulties you have faced in trying to get the business community to embrace your OS solutions? How do you answer the business communties questions regarding support issues?

  • The software issue (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As is well known and well documented, Windows (in any of its incarnations) is not the best OS the world has ever seen. However, one of the largest factors we all agree on re: it's market monopoly is the huge number of software titles avaibable for the windows platform.

    I'm not sure why, but getting developers to write for Linux seems to be like pulling teeth... I wonder very much why this should be. Linux is superiour in every facet to Windows... the number of tools and toolkits available for the platform is huge. Yet still, the number of titles available is small.

    Given the importance of and need for more commercial software, what if anything can/will Redhat do the increase the amount of commercial software available for the Redhat platform itself, and Linux in general?
  • Funny that you mention it...

    Point your FTP client to here: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/7.1/iso/

    5 ISO images of the new SuSE 7.1 for your Sparc.

    Enjoy,

  • Second favorite distribution? (Score:3)

    by abischof ( 255 ) <alex&spamcop,net> on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:27AM (#313144) Homepage
    So, what's your second favorite distribution?

    Alex Bischoff
    ---
  • Do you think this whole US/China thing could have been avoided had the parties involved used Redhat on their aircraft?

    If that were the case, both Chinese planes would have crashed and China would force the US to accept its spy plane back.

  • Why does Red Hat ship with so many services running as a default? This is the main (but not the only) reason that Red Hat is considered insecure, since so many new users are not even aware that these services are running. Also, are there any plans to create a hardened version of Red Hat (similar to OpenBSD)?

  • Do you have any intention of packaging WINE into a version of Red Hat targetted specifically for Windows users?

    It would seem to me that this would be the optimum method to drive Windows off the desktop - especially as their liscensing becomes more restrictive.

  • A recent comment here from a Red Hat employee indicated that ReiserFS would not be included in the installation process. The reason for this decision was the lack of mature user-level tools for filesystem repair. This was the case of the last beta, although I don't know if you have changed your plans.

    This is a sound argument, but sometimes it seems to me that Red Hat is rather reluctant to advance its distribution in certain areas, i.e. RH7 still lacks a 2.4 kernel.

    Red Hat has influence, but not control, of technologies in the kernel and user space. Will Red Hat grow to be more receptive of technologies that are not a perfect fit with the architecture of your Linux distribution?

  • Lawsuit (Score:2)

    by emil ( 695 )

    Please explain the significance and what you expect to be the outcome of the recent lawsuit [theregister.co.uk] that has been filed against your company.

  • Red Hat Acquisitions (Score:5)

    by Kostya ( 1146 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:32AM (#313152) Homepage Journal
    I noticed that while Red Hat was valued highly, Red Hat used its funding to purchase companies like Cygnus and C2Net. Escpecially with the purchase of Cygnus, you appear to be consildating the infrastructure that makes linux viable commercially. One could conjecture that you are trying to provide developer tools and resources, both as a product and as a way to build into Linux (as in the motto "it is the developers/ISVs stupid!"). Red Hat is currently valued much lower than it was at the top of the hype, but one could argue that these (and other) strategic acquisitions give Red Hat an edge over the competition or the chance at surviving the tech stock maelstrom.

    Q: How do you see these acquisitions as helping Red Hat and its position in the market?

  • The problem is that even if you save $100 per workstation by moving to Linux the cost of retraining people to use it and the productivity they lose while they learn will be over $100 per user. (Assuming 10 hrs of ramp up time at $12/hr and that is for low level workers). And retrainint will be nessary even if you do not have formal classes if you put a totaly new type of computer infront of someone you have to assume that it will take them some time to figure out how to do all of the things that they need to do to do their jobs.

    Now I think there could be some very big wins for Linux on the desktop, but the pure outlay cost is not one of them. Less downtime and better security. And being able to replace a dead workstation quicly all would be pluses for Linux however.
  • rlogin? you are kidding, right? you do know that anyone who uses rlogin is basically walking around screaming "take my passwords, please!" Kudos to RH for their quite secure workstation install... in 7.1, it'll even do a firewall for you. Good for them...
  • What's in it for him is control over his data. The question is, should you sacrifice freedom for convenience?

    If not, either use free software, or just go back to pen and paper.

  • Hi Bob!

    My question to you is, when you allocate part of your budget to R&D, are you in fact cutting your own throat? (How's that for a loaded question?)

    To expand, why should I use a RedHat distribution, since it mainly isn't terribly different from a SuSE, Debian, or Caldera, unless RedHat has something that the others don't.

    But, RedHat can't develop a major system enhancement within large portions of the OS because of the nature of Free software. RedHat can only develop a proprietary userland applications (which, granted, isn't all that bad -- it leaves you plenty of room for powerful applications) because any major system enhancement that RedHat develops can almost immediately be absorbed by your "competitors". Thus, the profit-motive is significantly depressed (if not removed) from pure R&D.

    I understand that RedHat doesn't make significant revenues from OS sales -- I ask the question in terms of bugetary policy within the company and how it may (or may not) affect the decision-making process.
    "Beware by whom you are called sane."

  • Most important decision for RH? (Score:4)

    by MikeCamel ( 6264 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:11AM (#313167) Homepage
    What was the most important decision for Red Hat, through its history, apart from deciding to IPO? Was there a particular partnership, hire, technical call or anything else which defined the future for Red Hat?

  • Free- and Non-Free Software getting along? (Score:5)

    by Xunker ( 6905 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:21AM (#313170) Homepage Journal
    Hiya Bob!

    The venerable Richard Stallman has a habit of saying that all software should be free -- he is therefor not interested in making Free Software too interoperable with Commercial, Closed-Source software.

    On the other had, the also venerable Linus Torvalds has an opposite view; that free software has it's place and that non-free software also has place, and that all efforts should be made to make them co-exist.

    Since you have on foot in each world, as it were, what are your feelings on this? Should Free and Open source software be expected to "play nice" with software from various Evil Empires? Or should it concentrate only on relation with other like software projects, and require the commercial world adapt to cooperating with Free software?
  • Oh boy where to begin.

    However, this book is not available online in html format.

    Maximum RPM [rpmdp.org] A ten second google search turned that one up. Also try www.rpm.org, where you can get a latex version.

    However, *some* of us dont use X windows,

    Why not? You're crippling yourself to not run it long enough to print out a hardcopy.

    and for us select few, we cant view it.

    Try lynx.

    I have however, converted it from that format to text, losing much of the styling and formatting.

    Yes, that's what happens when you convert something to plaintext.

    In the spirit of open source, dont you feel that it is completely BACKWARDS to have a open source tool, where the documentation that allows developers to package using it is proprietary, non-open,

    Well, it's not like you can't redistribute it. For free. However it looks like you have to ask permission to modify it. Point granted.

    and subject to licensing restrictions?!!?

    As most licences are. See "GPL"

    The man page doesnt even *mention* half the creation commandline options, and I think that was on purpose.

    Perhaps in the interest of brevity? Are you annoyed that they didn't translate maximum rpm into a man page? I'm guessing most people want to know how to use it from a user's, not packager's, perspective. What you want would count as "too much information"

    Compunding the issue is the fact that the book has not been updated in years, let alone since the coming of rpm4!

    (sigh) Look, this book was pretty good when I used it but I did not take it to be the end-all and be-all rpm bible forever and ever and I doubt redhat intended it to be. There are many various sources of documentation on rpm, I'm sure you can find one that's more up-to-date. Check www.rpm.org.

    As a developer, I would love to hear why you dont want me to package using your system. The reasons outlined above lead me to that conclusion.

    As a fellow developer, I can't think of a better documented system. On any OS. Which I know is begging for a counterexample, but I would be interested to know about it. Perhaps someone can send me the URL for 'Maximum Dpkg'.

    Respectfully, buck

  • Do you think a recession will help RedHat/Linux? (Score:5)

    by donturn ( 7351 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:04AM (#313173)
    Bob,

    We had an Ask Slashdot a few days ago wondering whether a recession will help Linux or not. Since you're the CEO of RedHat, you probably have a better idea as to what effect a recession will have on RedHat and Linux. So, do you think you will gain more market share during a recession than you would otherwise?
  • I don't know whether it's generally true, but I know that the GnuCash [gnucash.org] project builds seperate RPM's for Mandrake and RedHat, because the library versions on each are quite different.

    Go you big red fire engine!
  • With MacOSX arriving as a desktop Unix (more or less) backed by a known, (sometimes) respected name, do you consider Apple to be a serious competitor, the same as Microsoft? Would Red Hat ever consider a PPC release to try and steer people away from MacOSX? Or, instead, do you think Apple will remain largely a niche player, but one that adds weight to the all-purpose viability of Unix?

  • Previously, RedHat's line is that "We are not competing with Microsoft". To this outsider, RedHat's goal seems more to be "Ready for the Workstation" (meaning they can sell to developers and engineers used to UNIX, and compete against NT in this space.)

    Not to mention that Microsoft lowballs the OEM price of Win9x/ME to the point that it's quite competitive with Linux on price even. The market isn't very profitable unless you look at the aggregate.
    --
  • When is RedHat planning to convert the dozens of different formats of documentation that they ship into the Unix standard man page format?

    As a user, I don't think pointing at the upstream package maintainers (like GNU) is acceptable, and that any OS distribution should have a common, centralized system of documentation and help.

    --
  • Linux needs hardware to run on, and that hardware is expensive.

    Actually, hardware is usually the cheapest part of the corporate computing puzzle, although, you are correct that capital purchases tend to get cut back during a recession.

    The cost of support and software licences and perhaps even infrastructure (network, Internet, etc) far outweigh the cost of hardware.


    --
  • How will the current slump in tech help or hurt those of us who make a living administrating and programming on Linux? How will this affect the number of people who become RedHat Linux Certified?

  • Re:Hey! (Score:3)

    by A Big Gnu Thrush ( 12795 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:11AM (#313182)
    Bob, since you are England this week, what can you do to guarantee the sovereignty of Sealand?

  • Other Dists (Score:3)

    by A Big Gnu Thrush ( 12795 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:17AM (#313183)
    Do you think the plethora of distributions hurts Linux as a whole? And do you view alternate distributions as competitors?

  • It often seems to me that RedHat is a bit schizophrenic about what it's market is: it can't make up it's mind whether it's for newbies, or a bleeding-edge, experimental distro. Despite the fact that RedHat's reputation was originally built on being eaisier-to-use, it has a distressing habit of shipping alpha quality software and making it the default, in effect pushing it on the new folks who are least able to deal with it. (I'm thinking about AnotherLevel, linuxconf and Enlightenment at the moment, I could probably think of others.) So my question is, can you say something concrete about what RedHat is doing about the problem of Quality? Post-IPO, was there an attempt at beefing up the QA department? Has there been any change in QA proceedures? Are there any plans to deviate from shipping by the calender rather than just whenever the software is ready?

    I do realize that this is a difficult problem: how do you work out QA proceedures for software that has no spec? I would guess that you must write your own specs based on how you expect the distribution to be used. Or do you get by without somehow?

  • Then I'd like to ask him, now that he *is* England, what it feels like being afflicted by foot-and-mouth, him coming from the Silicon Valley which is well known for its foot-in-mouth epidemic.

    Linux afficionados are also known for their highly contagious tongue-in-cheek comments style, I'm starting to wonder if there wouldn't be a corelation between the time spent on computers and the risk of catching a dreadful three-words diseases. Shall we start digging trenches around tech centers?

    /max

  • Who decides what goes in and how? (Score:5)

    by Can ( 21457 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:10AM (#313193)
    I'd like some insight on how the decision is made to include something in Red Hat Linux, how quickly to roll in new releases of software, etc.

    For example, I've seen pre-releases of KDE get included and updated in rawhide (and I believe in actual Red Hat releases) rather often, but even the individual GNOME components are almost never updated until well after a full stable release is announced. There are other examples, but that's the main one that comes to mind.

    There also still seems to be a lot of 0.x version software in Red Hat to this day. So, I'm just curious how you make these technical decisions are made.

  • Why invest in RedHat? (Score:5)

    by Merk ( 25521 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:12AM (#313198) Homepage

    RedHat has the biggest name recognition of all the Linux distributions. To many non-tech types Linux == RedHat. And you are now breaking even, yet despite that RedHat's stock went from $80 a share to less than $5 and there doesn't seem to be a sign of that turning around.

    What do you say to people who ask why they should invest in RedHat? Also, as a high-tech company I'm sure employees got stock options, how are they dealing with the crash in share prices and how do you convince them their options are still worth something?

  • Security (Score:5)

    by Rupert ( 28001 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:15AM (#313200) Homepage Journal
    Recently we've seen several worms attacking vulnerabilities in the default install of Red Hat Linux. What is being done to make the default installation more newbie-friendly from a security point of view? The average desktop user probably doesn't want or need BIND, do they?

    --
  • We created a DMZ on our network and installed an IDS using linux and snort. Used a box nobody wanted and the only cost was time. A Windows solutions could have cost upward of $80,000US and we would have never done it with the budget cuts we have had to make.

    While good for the company it should be noted that we aren't paying somebody for support on that system. So while I see a recession as being good for linux, I don't see it being good for a linux company. But that's just my experience.

  • say for example your company is strapped for cash. you want a new server and some workstations. well if you use linux instead of windows you can get more workstations with the money you saved by not purchasing windows 2000 server and workstation. companies might have to put more thought into purchases. Saving $80 per workstation and $300 per server might make linux more attractive.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • Win95 runs on a 486/33 (I've seen it - not fun), so I'm pretty sure 98 does, too. NT4.0 will run on a 486 - I've seen plenty of those... Where it is compiled, and what architecture you choose to compile it for are two different things. They may well all run on a 386, but who want's to test that.

    As another poster mentioned, Mandrake comes compiled out of the box (iso) for the newer versions of the x86 architecture.
    --
  • I've been fairly pleased with Redhat initiatives like The Center for the Public Domain [centerfort...domain.org] which funds ibiblio [ibiblio.org] (was Metalab, was Sunsite) and other groups working for freedom of information. We know that free software is political and having a representative in various political processes can be helpful. So, what standards bodies is Redhat on, what kind of political lobbying does it do and what issues does it advocate in those fora?
  • The quality of the questions scored 5 on this interview is extremely poor. Interviewing Bob Young has the chance to be extremely valuable for the slashdot community, however it appears it will be a wasted opportunity. Will he even bother to respond to these questions, as FCC chief technologist David Farber [slashdot.org] decided not to?

    There are serious problems with slashdot's moderation system and there is no forum to deal with these metaissues. Slashdot is very unlike the user driven site it once was.
  • Not really.

    Let's say that a company chooses to use postgres, mysql, interbase, or sapdb instead of SQL server. They can save hundreds of thousands of dollars and still use access through ODBC. No retraining of the desktop users and save a ton of money.

    Same goes for things like proxy server, file and print services, ditching exchange, etc. You can fully populate the back end with linux and gain huge savings. You are forced to buy MS licences with every PC anyway so you really can't save money by replacing windows on the client.

    Star Office (open office) is actually pretty similar to ms-office especially considering that 90% of users only use 5% of the capability or office. They should pick it up with no retraining at all. If you have custom apps you can port them to kylix or wxwindows to prep for a future migration of your desktop.
  • What he means is that it's not windows.

  • Your impressions on the recent MS Interview (Score:5)

    by Amoeba ( 55277 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:13AM (#313229)
    Yesterday on Slashdot we got responses from an interview of MS exec Doug Miller and he touched upon some areas of Linux that caused a lot of debate and discussion in the forum. My question to you is, would you skim through the Doug's reponses and provide us with your counterarguments or comments?
  • Recent articles on Excite [excite.com] & Slashdot [slashdot.org] discussed financial problems with Be, Inc, and their effect on the suberb Be [be.com] Operating [be.com] System [be.com]. Every time I use Be, it drives me nuts that the Linux community has not been able to produce an interface this easy, powerful, & fun. Linux is an excellent server, but when it comes to putting that computer in front of my mom, it isn't quite so excellent anymore. As valiantly as projects like KDE, GNOME, Eazel, & Nautilus have tried, none of them have been able to come up with anything as slick as what Be has been trying to sell for years now.

    Some of the Slashdot discussion speculated [slashdot.org] that RedHat might be interested in buying Be. Others noted legal [escribe.com] difficulties in opening the BeOS source, but the company recently registered [slashdot.org] some thought provoking domain names [theregister.co.uk], so they may be planning to try it anyway.

    A very interesting comment [slashdot.org] noted that BeOS and Linux complement each other nicely, with BeOS a great desktop system for end users while Linux works best as a server. It's a good point. We may be expecting a lot of an OS to make it do well on everything from high end mainframes & servers to desktop PCs & handheld PDAs & even small embedded controllers. While it's impressive that Linux can do all this, maybe allowing complementary systems to have complementary roles might be a better idea.

    As the head of RedHat (chief hat wearer? ;), what do you think of such speculation? Do you think that Linux could stand to gain by using BeOS technology? Would it be worthwhile to purchase Be &/or get involved in opening their software? If Sony's BeIA [be.com] driven eVilla [evilla.com] internet appliance [slashdot.org] catches on, having a stake in that contract could be very lucrative, but of course that's a gamble at this point.

    Or do you feel that, as much as things may seem superficially similar, that there is too much dissonance between the Linux & BeOS worlds to make a merger worthwhile? Do you disagree that having separate systems for desktop & server could be a good idea? If you feel that there should be "one OS to rule them all," could (indeed, should)Linux take a lesson from Be about how to make a really good, easy, slick desktop frontend for the existing excellent but arcane back end that Linux provides?

    In short, should these two be wedded and can such a marriage work?



  • after your earlier successes ('father knows best', 'marcus welby, md') do you find red hat is a big enough challenge to keep your emotive skills honed?
  • Many hardware vendors are starting to claim "support" for Linux, but are only creating binary-only, 386-compiled RPM driver packages, resulting in vendor-distribution lock-in for their customers. This is being done almost exclusively with RedHat Linux, and leaves a very bad taste in customer's mouths when they realize they have been burned.

    An example culprit is Dell. The "Dell" RAID controller is a modified Adaptec RAID controller which is not supported under the kernel, but can be made to work under (only) RedHat 5.x/6.x while running a specific kernel version (the latest release was only for 2.2.14 kernels). I entirely understand that these driver choices are made entirely by the vendor (Dell) and are their responsibility, but a larger problem remains.

    Dell offers "Linux" packaged on some of their hardware, and claim that they are compatible with "Linux" with that hardware. Of course, much of their hardware is only "compatible" with RedHat Linux, and only under specific RPM releases for specific default RedHat kernels (such as the RAID situation just mentioned). This hardware vendor trend has caused a sort of "embrace and extend" situation involving hard-compiled drivers packaged via RPM. I have to work with three "Linux-compatible" servers at work that are NOT Linux kernel compatible. I am forced to run RedHat 6.1 with the 2.2.14 kernel, because it is NOT possible to upgrade to a newer kernel, or a newer distribution. It certainly leaves the impression that RedHat is trying to push other Distributions out of the market, while locking-in their customers to quickly outdated (and vulnerability-ridden) software.

    How does RedHat stand on the endorsement/promotion/disapproval of such actions by OEM partners, such as Dell?
    How do you feel about the indirect damages upon the rest of the Linux community, due to RedHat's stance on this issue?

  • Problems with RPM. (Score:3)

    by iamsure ( 66666 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:30AM (#313236) Homepage
    As a packager of some products, I have encountered the difficulty that is present packaging for RPM.

    First, a small rant. The primary "ideal" source of information for how to package rpm's is of course the book "Maximum RPM".

    However, this book is not available online in html format. It is however available in postscript which is easily read in X windows on a redhat machine.

    However, *some* of us dont use X windows, and for us select few, we cant view it. I have however, converted it from that format to text, losing much of the styling and formatting.

    In the spirit of open source, dont you feel that it is completely BACKWARDS to have a open source tool, where the documentation that allows developers to package using it is proprietary, non-open, and subject to licensing restrictions?!!?

    The man page doesnt even *mention* half the creation commandline options, and I think that was on purpose.

    Compunding the issue is the fact that the book has not been updated in years, let alone since the coming of rpm4!

    As a developer, I would love to hear why you dont want me to package using your system. The reasons outlined above lead me to that conclusion.

  • Packaging standards (Score:3)

    by iamsure ( 66666 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:38AM (#313237) Homepage
    If openpackages [openpackages.org] becomes a defacto standard for *BSD, would your company consider switching from RPM to it, in order to allow the holy grail of "one package for all free/open (definition may vary) systems" ?

    This of course presuming that upon reaching that status, it has features that are comparable or better than rpm. (Which the current FreeBSD ports/pkg system CERTAINLY has acheived -- wouldnt you agree?)

    Further, have you considered switching to the apt-get/deb system? It is the number one reason most people seem to switch to debian, and in every way I know of seems to be superior technically to rpm.
  • With your sponsorship of ibiblio.org, and some comments that you have made, you have shown that you care about providing easy access to public-domain (and open-licensed) works - from software to art to research materials. I applaud this effort, and would be interested in hearing what you think needs to be done on a larger scale to make these resources more readily available to the general public. Would a superior metadata system help, allowing for better searching and cataloging? Does the web provide a good enough user experience for this, or do we need better peer-to-peer filesharing systems, with sites like ibiblio.org as permenant nodes? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

  • Hardware support (Score:4)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:32AM (#313240) Homepage Journal
    Unfortunately, most hardware vendors support Microsoft because MS has the largest share of the market and they know it will pay to support MS with drivers.

    Linux is not in that state, save for (perhaps) networking devices. Has RedHat considered helping to fund driver development for other forms of hardware? I'm thinking mostly of 3D accelerated video cards (by helping to fund the DRI group), but other items (scanners, USB->IDE interfaces, etc.) would be nice too.
  • Rob, what's up with the x.0 releases?

  • A unified desktop? (Score:3)

    by DarkenWood ( 71618 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @09:42AM (#313242) Homepage
    In the recent interview with Doug Miller [slashdot.org], he spoke of, or implied, that the lack of a standardized desktop could be keeping commercial developers from creating Linux applications. Do you think it's possible, or desirable, to come up with an 'official' desktop for Linux? If so, what do you feel is the best way to go about it?
  • RedHat is one of those few (if not to say the only), who has certification program. On one hand, I don't see much of the advertising of RedHat certification on the net, while on the other hand, it is possible to receive RHCE even here in Cyprus (from NetU).

    What are RedHat plans/strategies on promoting RedHat Linux Certification?

    Is there any interest in this certification program from resellers,corporations,IT proffessionals and/or anyone else?

  • Can you put Afterstep back into the distro? I have no problem downloading it, but when you try to convince other people to try it, they want to have the RPM on the CD. Besides, I think Afterstep is wonderful. Or do you envision the desktop going to only KDE and Gnome?

  • Hi Bob,

    About three years ago (or so) Redhat stopped selling any proprietary software after having previously acted as a channel for a variety of vendors including Metro-X, X/Open Motif, and (IIRC) Applixware. In doing so you made your company center its attention fully on open source, but at the same time you closed one of the then best available sales channels for companies interested in selling commercial software for Linux.

    Retrospectively, do you think this was a net benefit to the open source community, and how do you think that Redhat and the community's view of Redhat would have been altered if it had continued to funnel commercial software into the market?

  • Does the shareholders lawsuit just filed going to distract your firm from maintaining the 75+% [slashdot.org] mindshare with linux developers? It seems for web servers, RedHat is a favorite, and by a wide margin.

    Given the nature of the embedded side of your business, does Wind River's announced purchase of BSD code going to cause your firm to work harder, or just give up on the embedded side? Wind River didn't have a compelling price point per unit that can match the Open Source/Free Software models. And, well, no BSD or Linux vendors can pay 1 billion and get BSD/gnu-linux embedded in a set-top [slashdot.org] box.
  • What kind of improvements do you think are the most important in order for linux to succeed further? Which of these areas is RedHat going to be active in?

    "I may not have morals, but I have standards."

  • Using code from other Linux distributions (Score:4)

    by jmv ( 93421 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @09:00AM (#313253) Homepage
    Lots of Linux distributions (Mandrake-Linux is an example) have started from a version of RedHat and then added their own features and applications. This is, of course, the benefit of open source software. I'd like do know whether RedHat too has benefited from that by putting some of these enhencements back into RedHat distributions. If so, can you give the most important examples?
  • ot that money means anything but how did it feel these last few years as RHAT went from about 150 to 5 over the last 18 months or so?

    Was it depressing? Did you feel tha the 150 was so outlandish that it couldn't sustain itself?

  • Doug Miller of Microsoft recently said of RedHat:

    The model around Linux is truly bizarre. How much do RedHat or Calderareally make from selling their distributions? It seems not very much. Soin order for them to survive they rely on selling proprietary software,support, services, books, tee shirts, penguins etc. Not a veryrevolutionary business, but in the end they must sell something if theywant to survive.

    In general, Microsoft is touting the position that Linux companies will not survive much longer.

    Any rebuttal?


  • It was Mark Ewing's (co-founder of RedHat) lacrosse cap

  • I was dismayed to see you and Mark step aside and let the new-hires (or new-acquires?) take control of the company.

    What have been the good and bad effects of the new management?
  • There's an old Irish saying:

    If you want to know what god thinks of money, look at those he gives it to.

  • Loosening the golden ring from Microsoft's grasp (Score:3)

    by cworley ( 96911 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:43AM (#313263)

    This is the same question I asked Doug Miller of Microsoft:

    When Compaq (later followed by others) loosened the GoldenRing from IBM's grasp by reverse engineering theirproprietary bios, theOpen Hardware PC platform revolution was ignited.Motherboards, memory, adapter cards, etc... could be made byanybody; hardwareinnovation increased at a rapid pace, and prices plummeted.

    That left only two proprietary pieces atop the Open HardwarePC: the Intel CPU and the Microsoft OS.

    Intel's been losing ground, especially with clone maker AMD(but, AMD still has to pay Intel royalties for every cloneprocessor).

    The OS, though, has proven tough to emulate. Not only doesit reach the pinnacle of complexity (where chaos kicks in),but any emulatormust chase Microsoft's tail: the emulation will be worthlesscome Microsoft's next OS patch (i.e. the DRDOS settlement).

    In Judge Jackson's findings in the Microsoft Antitrust case, he concluded that Linux is not positioned to overtake Windows, because it isn't Windows compatible.People won't switch because of the training costs and potential for incompatibility with their existing data.

    Personally, I believe Open Source is a software revolution, just on a different tangent from the average user. In order to win over the average user: they don't just need a great desktop, they need full Windows compatibility.

    How will Open Source lure the average user from Windows?


  • Mandrake (Score:5)

    by Xenex ( 97062 ) <xenex@noSPaM.opinionstick.com> on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:13AM (#313264) Journal
    Linux-Mandrake [linux-mandrake.com] started off simply as basically a copy of Red Hat Linux with KDE installed (which was the most advanced desktop environment at that time). However since 'growing' from Red Hat, it has become a distibution of it's own, with a incredibly simple install, more features/applications (ReiserFS, more intergrated Gnome/KDE menu...), Pentium optimised applications, and generally is more 'bleeding edge'.

    How do you feel about the fact that Red Hat Linux was 'the womb' of what would now have to be considerer one of the strongest Linux distros for the desktop, and a major competitior to Red Hat on the desktop with it's claimed "99% Red Hat compatibility"?

  • Not worth asking, as companies can almost never comment on pending court cases, for fear of saying something that can be used against them.
    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
  • What is your reaction to the pending class-action lawsuits being filed on behalf of stockholders accusing Red Hat of misleading [siliconinvestor.com] SEC [siliconinvestor.com] filings [siliconinvestor.com]?

    Is this a case of sour grapes after the metoric rise and subsequent fall of RHAT?

  • Linux Standards Base (Score:3)

    by daBuddha ( 135756 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:29AM (#313286) Homepage
    Bob-- Given the way the tech market in general and the Linux market in particular have gone over the past year, Red Hat, as the brand leader, is clearly in the catbird seat. In order to give Linux the credibility and reach it deserves, there need to be more end-user applications, and application software vendors want standards. Microsoft is a standard by its sheer dominance; Java is a standard by Sun's grace, but Linux has the opportunity to be a much more open standard. What do you think of the current direction of the Linux Standards Base and where do you see Red Hat fitting in?

  • Re:Problems with RPM. (Score:3)

    by bellings ( 137948 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @02:50PM (#313289)
    It is however available in postscript which is easily read in X windows on a redhat machine... However, *some* of us dont use X windows, and for us select few, we cant view it.

    What the hell are you talking about? Why on earth would you need X to read a PostScript document? GhostScript will run on damn near anything.

    Not only that, but the book is available in LaTeX source form. That pretty much guarantees that it's available on just about any computer and any operating system that's come out in the last 15 or 20 years. LaTeX is so ubiquitous that if you have a spare IBM PCjr from 1984, an old black and white TV for a monitor, and no hard drive, you can probably use it to format and preview the document. I would also be very suprised if you could find any working printer that could not be used to typeset that book.

    You're just trolling here, and you know it.
  • Which brand of ketchup do you buy?
  • Yeah, perhaps the question would have been better phrased,
    In
    Giving it away [umich.edu], you suggested that we could all easily make ketchup in our kitchen sinks. I tried and succeeded only in making a mess. Can you give us that recipe?

    But you have to rush if you want anyone to read what you write on slashdot ;-)

  • RedHat and Microsoft .NET (Score:5)

    by tmoon ( 152958 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @09:06AM (#313297)
    What is your view on the Microsoft .NET and its impact on Linux in general and RedHat in particular?
  • Perhaps you should check the ftp trees.

    For example:
    ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/7/redhat/updates/7.0/en/ os /i686/glibc-2.2-12.i686.rpm

    ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/7/redhat/updates/7.0/en/ os /i686/kernel-enterprise-2.2.17-14.i686.rpm

    Same goes for i586.
  • In the recent Doug Miller interview, he speaks a LOT of interoperability. Most of that interoperability he speaks of is over the internet. My worry is of interoperability on the desktop.

    For example, we Linux users have a choice of either KDE or Gnome for a desktop. We have a choice of prompts, choice of window managers, choice of MANY different things. For the tech-head, this is great. Freedom in development is great. Though, for the average, ever-elusive novice Linux user, this freedom to choose is complicated and can be very confusing.

    How is Red Hat planning on this interoperability/easy user experience without pigeon-holeing(sp?) themselves into one market or another, or splintering into sub-distributions?

  • One choice you forgot.

    Slackware SPARC [slackware.com]

  • Redhat is in the same boat as [yahoo.com] VA Linux as far as lawsuits. I'm going out on a limb and guessing that you believe that nothing has gone wrong. Why do you believe that these company's are attacking you and VA? What do you honestly believe the outcome for both will be?

  • The Desktop (Score:3)

    by jester-tx ( 170962 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:07AM (#313304) Homepage
    What are, if any, Redhat's plans for the enterprise desktop? Has there been any consideration towards working with Ximian?
  • Hi Bob,

    Over the past couple of years the "soup du jour" of the "Open Source Business Model" has been the notion of software as a service. While, I firmly believe that this is the way software should be marketed, I've yet to be convinced that anyone has found the "way". With Ximian, Eazel, and a host of other companies offering the promise of value added services for their software, what in your opinion sets Red Hat apart from the rest?

    Thank you.
  • That's a misconception, that RedHat in other distros are just taken the code out there and slapping it on a CD. They are introducing new tools (like RPM and various installers) which requires their people to get paid -- no other way around it.

  • MS vs. Open Source business model (Score:4)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:24AM (#313308)
    In a recent Slashdot interview, Doug Miller of Microsoft basically said that the Open Source business model doesn't work. Proprietary code with no source available is the only way for companies to make money on existing open standards.

    What is your reaction to this comment, and do you think the current Open Source business model works? Does it need to be changed?

  • Where did you get that hat,
    Where did you get that hat?
  • Who's your haberdasher, and where should we go for stylish fedoras (red or otherwise)?
  • Also, as a high-tech company I'm sure employees got stock options, how are they dealing with the crash in share prices and how do you convince them their options are still worth something?

    Reprice and/or hand out more options. Common practice when stocks go down.

  • It's the economy, stupid (Score:3)

    by ZeLonewolf ( 197271 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:10AM (#313322) Homepage
    How do you see free-software companies like RedHat staying viable in an increasingly dot-com-hostile economy, when their main product can be obtained for free?

  • Standardization (Score:5)

    by milo_Gwalthny ( 203233 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:22AM (#313325)
    Bob -

    Doug Miller, a Microsoft executive, was recently interviewed for Slashdot. Many of the questions posed were regarding the competitiveness of Linux with Windows in the medium-term. To paraphrase, Rob said that there was no viable business model based on Linux, that the lack of standardization (ie. KDE v. Gnome) would be enough of an economic disincentive to commercial application developers to prevent them from venturing into the market.

    On the face of it, he seems to have a point. What do you think? Does Linux need to be herded down the path towards a super-majority recognized 'standard' to be successful, or can the type of open-source movement to date provide enough tools and applications to drive Linux to dominance?

  • Would you really recommend it for desktop use? (Score:5)

    by update() ( 217397 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:11AM (#313333) Homepage
    I'm a Linux enthusiast and contributor but I still don't see where it's "ready for the desktop" as I would understand that phrase.

    Bob, if you had a non-technical friend or relative who currently uses Windows, Quicken, Office, IE and AOL, could you in good conscience tell him it would be in his best interest to use Linux instead? What exactly would be in it for him?

    Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

  • I am your average new Linux user and personally bought Red Hat 6.2 sometime last year. Being new to Linux I did not know many commands. I was dissappointed with the lack of support (in the form of a brochure, commands, etc.) that came with the software I purchased. I'll be honest, it took me two days of searching the web and newsgroups to learn that I needed to type "startx" to get to the xwindows. My skills were further tested when I had to learn commands to decompress files nevermind having to compile them.

    My question would be: What are you doing to bring Red Hat to the masses of average computer users?

  • I was wondering what directions you pictured RedHat Software taking, with how best to develop a Linux distribution, be it for home use, commercial use, or server use, or if you had originally had something in mind other than what has developed, and where do you think RedHat, as well as this community, should be heading?

    "Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."

  • DMCA a threat to open source? (Score:3)

    by cabalamat2 ( 227849 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:53AM (#313338) Homepage Journal

    Do you think that laws such as the DMCA pose a threat to open source software, in that they may lead to the creation of proprietary, encrypted file formats, running only on proprietary operating systems, for media such as films, music and books?

  • What do you think about people calling Red Hat the "Microsoft of the Linux world?" Do you think this is a valid association?

  • Red Hat Future Desktops (Score:3)

    by BoarderPhreak ( 234086 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:15AM (#313344)
    Will you stick with the GNOME environment to feature "killer apps" like Nautilus and Evolution or will you ever switch to KDE now that anti-aliasing support and similar heavy-hitting apps are available, not to mention the GPL'ing of Qt? Do you feel Red Hat made the right choice to go with GNOME?

  • Question (Score:4)

    by BoarderPhreak ( 234086 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:03AM (#313345)
    What do you think of cnnfn.com's recent "Top Ten Tech Stocks to Avoid" article that mentions Red Hat as one of them?

  • SPARC Platform Edition? (Score:4)

    by BoarderPhreak ( 234086 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:07AM (#313346)
    Will we ever see a SPARC platform release of Red Hat again? Red Hat implied that there just wasn't enough customer demand. As someone who has used it, I have to admit - I kind of miss it, especially now that the 2.4 kernel and many heavy advancements have been made to things like GNOME and XFree86, etc.
  • As a shareholder of both Red Hat and Microsoft, among others, it has been gratifying to me to see Red Hat doing so well in becoming profitable.

    My question is, where do you see the profitable areas of Linux as being for Red Hat (or other distros)? Is it embedded systems more than servers, or info appliances? And has the introduction of major players such as IBM into the Linux R&D space been a help or a hindrance to Linux growth?

  • Dear Mr. Young:

    We all know that Linux (especially in combination with Apache) rules the server space. However, widespread adoption in other spaces seems elusive; only developers and geeks run it as a desktop OS, microkernel architectures tend to be preferred for embedded applications (where I'm betting the Hurd will do well), and nobody outside of IBM uses Linux to run a wristwatch.

    Where do you see future growth for Linux? Do you think ease-of-use issues (e.g., recompiling the kernel to support a newly-installed device) will eventually be conquered, allowing broader desktop adoption, or will Wine be the key, by pushing back application availability horizons? Will my consumer appliances run linux anytime soon? My car's dashboard?

    Thanks for your time.

    - Brad "Toaster: Kernel panic" Heintz
    --

  • Well, OK, given. Yahoo! and other super-high-volume sites use BSD variants for serious volume/uptime/security, etc., but the usage stats I've seen still show Linux/Apache dominating overall. Though of course, if you have different information, I'd love to hear about it.

    OK,
    - B
    --

  • RedHat's x86 Linux distro is compiled on an i386. This means meeting the lowest common denominator for the Intel architecture, just as Windows 95/98/NT is only compiled on a Pentium. Does RedHat plan on making multiple distros for higher Intel architectures? I would think this could make RedHat a more favorable option when choosing a distro, since compiling for higher architectures can mean improved efficiency.

  • Can the Server Biz Subsidize Desktop Dev? (Score:4)

    by frostman ( 302143 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @09:40AM (#313370) Homepage Journal

    Let's be optimistic and assume that RedHat will achieve profitability through its support services for businesses running RedHat Linux.

    Would it then make sense for RedHat to use some of its resources to help intensify the struggle towards desktop-readiness for Linux?

    It seems to me that would be a good thing to do, since it could help expand the RedHat user community, ergo the customer base for RedHat's services... especially if Linux could become a viable desktop OS for larger enterprises, in which case RedHat, as the leading distro brand, would probably get the lion's share of support contracts.

    Do you see this happening? Why or why not?

    thanx.

    - frosty
    www.medienkunst.com [medienkunst.com]

  • Re:The Real Story (Score:3)

    by r_j_prahad ( 309298 ) <r_j_prahad AT hotmail DOT com> on Thursday April 05, 2001 @09:35AM (#313376)
    A pimp. How appropriate. In other words, a guy who makes a profit by selling something that most people could get for free with a little effort.
  • Shouldn't companies like redhat that sells software that other people have made for free contribute economically to those individuals and their families?

    You have some in-house developers but overall you haven't paid much for your product (and your service that is build on that product).

    It seems quite unethical that (at least for your redhat os boxes) you take all the revenue but don't pay anything to its developers and inventors.

    Don't they deserve to get paid?
  • There was a lot of finger pointing, but don't think the truth ever came out.

    Why exactly was the beta gcc put in Redhat?

    It seems there would have to be a serious reason to justify using it. Most companies put out software for redhat, that users of other distros can run dispite it being developed on redhat. Making a binary incompatability between redhat and the rest of the world is a pritty big step that looks to be monopolistic. I just want to know what technical reason required it to be done in the first place.
    -EvilMonkeyNinja
    a.k.a. Joseph Nicholas Yarbrough
    Security Grunt by Day
    Programmer by Night

  • Dream Deal? (Score:3)

    by BillyGoatThree ( 324006 ) on Thursday April 05, 2001 @08:23AM (#313394)
    A lot of CEO's spend a lot of their time trying to "work deals"--partnerships, big contracts, co-branding, etc. A lot of these deals produce nothing, or next to it. But some of these deals are spectacular successes that propel a company into the stratosphere (on more than just paper).

    What do you think RedHat's "dream deal" would be?
    --
  • As a long time Linux supporter (and a long time Red Hat and Debian user), I've never been very interested in Windows - until now, with the coming of Windows XP, which, quite honestly, appears as though it will completely head us off at the desktop. My question is this - what do you think the viability is of dedicating *serious* work to a project to make Linux *the* desktop. Example: work on the USB support in the kernel, as well as support for digital cameras and additions to GIMP so that a user could open a picture directly off a camera in GIMP (or whatever app) instead of first downloading them? Add a completely integrated File Manager that is both powerful and easy to use (we really don't have this yet). Graphical configuration of *EVERYTHING*, and make it *simple* for the end user. A group of very talented hackers would need to be set up to do this, and it would probably require some forks, but if OEM support could be leveraged and Windows programs could be run using WINE (but the end user wouldn't need to *know* we were using WINE), it's possible we could make serious ground. Do you think this could ever happen?

Slashdot Top Deals

E = MC ** 2 +- 3db

Close