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Red Hat Software Businesses News

Red Hat Co-Founder Bob Young Resigns 146

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the lvl-50-ceo-lfg dept.
Anonymous Coward's Cousin writes "Yahoo news is reporting that Red Hat co-founder Bob Young has resigned from the board. From the article: 'In a funny way, my resignation is perhaps the finest compliment I can pay to everyone associated with Red Hat today, I have complete confidence in the future of the company'"
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Red Hat Co-Founder Bob Young Resigns More

Red Hat Co-Founder Bob Young Resigns

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  • The resignation of Bob Young is both surprising and saddening. Bob has arguably been one of the key figures responsible for the rise of Linux in corporate settings, complementing the technical nous of people like Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, with an innovative and daring business model. The deep penetration of Linux into massive corporate entities such as IBM probably would not have happened as rapidly as it did without the pioneering advocacy work of Red Hat Inc, and Bob Young.

    However, Bob's record has

  • RedHat == Linux (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @01:38AM (#13824507)
    I don't think there is another "pure" Linux vendor that has done more for making Linux a household name than RedHat. Their smart partnerships with OEMs and computer manufacturers has been invaluable to the Linux movement. In a very real sense, without RedHat, there wouldn't be a strong Linux movement now.

    Bob has been behind much of this, though it is hardly something that one man can lay full claim to. Going forward, hopefully RedHat keeps it together and continues to generate Linux buzz.

    • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

      by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @01:52AM (#13824550)
      RedHat == Linux as much as Dell == Microsoft. In other words they're totally different even if they share good relations.
      • The scary thing is that for many people Dell=Microsoft. I mean, it says Microsoft when you boot your Dell, they must be the same thing right? Just like computer=monitor.

      • Does Dell maintain a customized Windows distribution or contribute code to Microsoft? No? Well, Redhat *does* maintain its own Linux distribution and contribute code. Perhaps the association is more relavant than you think.

        • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

          by stoborrobots ( 577882 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @08:02AM (#13825694)
          Does Dell maintain a customized Windows distribution...

          Isn't that what they ship me on the CD which comes with my shiny new Dell machine?

          They change the theme, and the screensaver, and the backdrop... and maybe include some custom apps... oh, and they choose some drivers to include. And they package it all with their custom installer... And then they change all the support links to point to Dell.com instead of Microsoft.com... Sounds like a custom distro to me...
          • What Windows OEMs consider "branding" doesn't really amount to a "new" distro. Even if they use a custom installer, it's still the same binaries, file layout, libraries, Windows Updates, etc. with some wallpapers/screensavers/etc. thrown in.

            With a Linux distro you could have totally different kernel revisions with any number of custom patches/tweaks/etc., different file system layouts, compiled on different compilers, different libraries, package management, etc.

            I realize that some people have just added wa

          • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Shakes268 ( 856460 )
            I'm sure I'm just stating the obvious here but Dell is a PC and PC Server manufacturer. They use an OEM version of Microsoft's Windows which includes some hardware specific things as well as some of their own software installed. However, they do not have a truly custom version of Windows as Microsoft's codebase is, as we all know, locked down. Redhat is in contrast a software company. It maintains a specific flavor of Linux that it uses for monetary gain through sales and software support. Linux/Redhat may
            • Their software is their revenue stream. Dell's is hardware. The two are VERY different and to believe they are the same, as much as you'd like to, is incorrect.

              The point I was making is not that Dell sells software, or even that Dell re-writes Windows...

              It's that Dell ships what looks like a customised version of Windows to the end-user (which is really just Microsoft Windows + custom drivers + branded screensaver/logos + custom software). To the end user, Dell makes "Dell's version of Windows".

              The point wa
          • If you consider minor tweaks to the screensaver and browser bookmarks as constituting a "distro", then I suppose you're right. However, when someone says Redhat==Linux, they're most likely referring to Redhat's substantial code contributions to Linux and open source software. Based on that, Redhat is hardly analogous to Dell.
          • If you consider minor tweaks to the screensaver and browser bookmarks as
            constituting a "distro", then I suppose you're right. However, when
            someone says Redhat==Linux, they're most likely referring to more than simple cosmetic changes. Redhat's given back to the community, made substantial code contributions to Linux and funded many open source projects. Obviously, both companies deal with operating systems, but any deeper comparison would be likening apples to oranges.
            • To be honest, I totally agree that Dell-branded Windows installations do not constitute "distros"...

              However, things like CentOS, which is a re-compilation of upstream Redhat sources with changed logos, and Knoppix, which is a custom-install of debian, with changed logos and a different configuration-script, get counted as "distros"...

              In the context of the parent discussion, though, the point was that people think Dell and Microsoft are the same thing is because Dell ships Dell-branded Windows installations,
      • That is a stupid comparison. Redhat is hugely responsible for linux, paying many of the core people on many of the projects associated with linux. Dell does not pay MS employees to hack the kernel.

        Can you name any other distro's which are on approved vendor lists in most major corporations?

        To corporate America at least, Redhat == Linux. Redhat is what you purchase when you go buy "Linux". Redhat provides support for Linux. It is the reason Linux is so well funded and able to grow. Not Mandrake, Gentoo, Suse

    • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lisandro ( 799651 )
      I always had this love/hate relationship with RedHat... on one hand, their Linux distributions (besides tech support, which is excellent) always gave me problems; specially when compared to other more "modern" distros. RPM is a big culprit of this, i might add - you don't fully get how ugly that packaging system is until you try something better, IMHO (apt-get and Portage comes to mind). I haven't tried a RedHat distro since the RedHat/Fedora "split" though, i heard they got a lot better.

      But,

      • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:4, Informative)

        by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @03:00AM (#13824715)
        RPM is a package format (equivalent to DEB).

        apt-get is a package download/install tool that resolves dependencies. apt-get is not better than RPM... they can't really be compared because they serve very different purposes.

        As a Fedora user, I use apt-get, yum, yumex, up2date and synaptic (mainly the last two). I haven't had "RPM hell" since about RedHat 7-8.

        If you get the opportunity - give a modern RH based distro a go. Good steps have been made.
        • I was talking about the package system as a whole, not the tool nor the package format, excuse me if i wasn't clear. RPM (and RedHat, by extension) used to be notorious for circular dependencies [distrowatch.com] issues. I suffered them myself, back in the RH7 days (7.2, to be precise), and even came across packages that simply wouldn't work at all, even if the dependencies were correctly installed.

          I moved to Debian for a while, and when Gentoo came out, settled for it. Never had a package installing issue

          • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:2, Insightful)

            by poptix_work ( 79063 ) *
            People who complain about "circular dependencies" issues are only showing what fools they are.

            Of course some packages are going to rely on each other to be installed, this is why rpm lets you install *more than one package at a time*.

            What would *your* solution be? Tossing a bunch of different software packages together into one package, just because they require each other?

            Linux distributions have enough problems without persons like yourself spreading FUD just because *you* failed to RTFM.
            • No, my solution is a modern package manager - which calculates the complete dependencies tree of a package and installs them in one sweep, even downloading if necessary. I did read the manual, and suffered the trial & error process of installing RPM packages back then. RPM package tools have improved since, thank God.
              • Both up2date and Red Carpet have been around quite a while. Certainly since the Red Hat 7.x days. What you're doing is roughly equivalent to complaining about dependencies on debian, yet using dpkg to install things. Or since you mention Gentoo, on which it would be sort of like installing tarballs by hand. Oh well, another Red Hat story and the rpm dependency hell pops up. Who would have guessed?
                • This should be a warning to companies (and OSS software teams): if you make a bad product, it's reputation can be a millstone around your neck long after your problems have been fixed. Do not give in to the temptation to rush a piece of crap out the door, hoping to fix it later.

              • This is exactly what Fedora's yum does. Has for a few years now.

                RPM dependency resolution issues only came about because users would --force install packages that screwed up library version numbers. From then on further packages would get confused about what versions were installed on the system and you get what you deserve for trying to bypass the built-in check: instability.

            • That seems a bit stupid. If two packages are mutually dependent, why they hell are they not just *one* package?
              • If you do that you end up with larger packages where smaller ones would have been better.

                Suddenly you can't upgrade one without downloading both.
                • Why would smaller ones have been better? Wouldn't it be better to remove the mutual dependency by restructuring the packages?

                  I would love to know a real-world example backing up your position. My position is amply supported by the normal "one-way" dependency of packages containing executables to packages containing shared libraries. It makes sense because many executable packages depend on the one shared library package, thus there is a high probability that you already have a required chunk of code install
                  • It's more complex for the package manager but that doesn't matter anymore since more modern package managers handle those cases without problem. It's also more maintainable that way since now you can have two maintainers for it instead of just one.
              • So should each application package include all the files of the version of the runtime library it was tested with?

                Should you have 200 versions of the runtime library, one for each application?

                How about the same thing for GTK, GNOME, Qt and KDE libraries?

                If every binary package was statically linked, we would not have all these package dependencies.
                You might run out of memory with 200 copies of these libraries all taking up space.
          • Yeah Yeah Yeah ... I'm a Gentoo MeToo :) Portage rulez :)

            Seriously, though, when Red Hat changed Red Hat 10 to Fedora Core 1, I switched to Debian. I'd probably still be running Debian if the free as is freedom crowd at Debian central hadn't spent so much time cursing Java.

            A lot of the software I run uses Java and only really works with the free as in beer Sun JDK. So ... I tried Gentoo for other reasons, and was so overwhelmed by its excellent collection of Java tools, on top of its easy system admin

          • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:3, Informative)

            by Matt Perry ( 793115 )

            RPM (and RedHat, by extension) used to be notorious for circular dependencies issues.

            You mean that the myth was notorious. In reality there wasn't any issue as long as you used RedHat's RPMs for your distro. The problem that you speak of is not because of the format but because of who packaged the RPM. The article that you linked to even talks about that (downloading some random RPM off of someone's site). It's caused by a lack of experience on the part of the package creator. You can create a cir

      • Re:RedHat == Linux (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        (...)

        RPM is a big culprit of this, i might add - you don't fully get how ugly that packaging system is until you try something better, IMHO (apt-get and Portage comes to mind). This is such a load of crap !

        RPM is a package standard, just as DEB is.

        apt-get is a package manager that resolves dependencies automatically when you install a given package. Yes, it is good. And yes, it came before any RPM equivalent. But there have been equivalents FOR YEARS in the RPM world. Never tried urpmi from Mandrake/M

        • Portage uses what is known as ebuilds. You can think of them as much evolved .spec files. One of the things the ebuild does is point at the source_uri, which is where to get the files involved in building whatever package you're trying to install. For the most part, those are tarballs of the source, in order to extract, compile and install said package. Sometimes though, there are binary-only packages which are distributed in RPM format, so the source_uri points at an RPM. However, rpm2targz is used upon th
      • Yes, this is something I can easily agree with. RedHat was my very first distro, when I didn't know absolutely nothing about Linux, or GNU, or whatever. And I abadoned it just because of rpm "suckness" and total unstability of RedHat 7. But RPM was quite a troble. My next distro was Mandrake, however, so I can't claim that I just left rpm for good :) Last years I have used Debian and Gentoo all the way.

        However, after years when I hadn't touched RedHat for ages, I installed RedHat 9, I was quite surprised. Y

    • Don't forget that if Redhat wasn't there, someone else would've done it... sure, Redhat is the one who has done it, but in my opinion, there's no doubt that if Redhat wasn't there, someone else would've stepped up and pioneered with it...

  • Unpopular department (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xiroth ( 917768 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @01:38AM (#13824508)
    lvl-50-ceo-lfg Who'd want to quest with someone who's going to take all the loot?

    • Re:Unpopular department (Score:5, Funny)

      by patio11 ( 857072 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @01:43AM (#13824523)
      When you've just aggroed Microsoft, who is level 500 and has an Area of Effect: Death spell that it can cast on an entire industry every couple of seconds, perhaps someone clad in an all-purple Penguin Suit doesn't look so bad.

      To anyone who says this comment is nerdy: consider where you are. Glass houses, stones, etc.

      • Re:Unpopular department (Score:5, Funny)

        by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @03:31AM (#13824789) Journal
        So does this make Ballmer a lvl 500 ,Chaotic Evil ,Ork ,Barbarian .(I wish there was a Gorilla race) .
        His feats include
        1:Barrel throw ,
        2:Developer dance (Dance around like a prat and call a wave of Developers to stampede the enemy) ,
        3:War cry '(Intimidate the enemy with a war cry of ""I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it
        again,"")
        4:Immature Prat (Act like a total tit and say ""I'm going to fucking kill Google."")

        His armour and weaponry
        Helmet , MS-helm of +4 Developers
        Armour , +5 plate mail of Anti-trust avoidance
        Left hand weapon , +5 Axe of Google fucking kill
        Right hand Weapon , +8 club of fucking bury
        • Wow, do I sense a nerd generation gap?

          +5? +5 to what? ;)
          • GFK (Google fucking kill) Is a spell that lowers the intelligence of the wielder and gives you a +5 bonus to your bullshit skill .
            Anti trust avoidance is an ability gained that allows you to use money to pay off officials whilst avoiding Charges for bribery

            For the first bit I had to go with the new fangled 3.5 rule-set .. which i browsed over , I don't think I have actually played DnD for 15 years or so . My memory could be rusty.
            • The original posters were strictly speaking in World of Warcraft terms, you chimed back with D&D type stats. The generation gap comment was to note a possible misinterpretation of the comments based on generation. An older person (35+) may see the WoW stats and think D&D. Vice-versa for the younger crowd.

              My '+5' comment was a 'joke' meaning that while a +5 modifier to D&D equipment usually has an obvious meaning, to WoW equipment it does not. Must be +5 strength, defense, or whatever.

              I'm old
        • Did you mean

          "Helmet , MS-helm of +4 Developers, Developers, Developers!" ?

          Man that guy makes me laugh.
        • Armour , +5 plate mail of Anti-trust avoidance

          Except in Nebraska!

  • Saw it coming a mile off. (Score:5, Informative)

    by stevo3232 ( 794498 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @01:42AM (#13824518)
    One of my local LUGgers works for Bob Young on the side at the football team he owns (he runs the tech stuff like the website and broadcasting), the Hamilton Tiger Cats, and he said he could definitly see Bob resigning. He's been jumbling about too much stuff lately and he really isn't paying attention to redhat or linux at all very much recently. I think possibly running the Tiger Cats and just wanting to relax for a bit are greater reasons for Bob's resignment than going off to work on this other .com thing. He's really been quite busy as of late though and he hasn't made it out to the local linux user's group meeting in over a year now so I'm pretty sure he's done with linux for a while now. Ah well, maybe he can come out to more of my local lug meetings now! :)

    --stevo32 (Stephen Clement)

  • Show of faith. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @01:46AM (#13824532)
    "I have complete confidence in the future of the company'""

    So when's Ballmer resigning?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Show of faith. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by dwater ( 72834 )
        > and live in a house which the Thunderbirds would be proud of! Sheer madness!
        > Man, if I were him, I'd take all that loot and go find myself a nice island to buy.

        Eh? The Thunderbirds did live on an island - Tracey Island, IIRC.
      • I thought about this myself. Near as I can tell, with Gates (Balmer, et. al) It's not about money. It's like a competitive sport. They enjoy the rush of killing the competition. If it were about the money, they could have walked years ago.

        It's unforutnate that more people don't do this; The question is: When is enough, enough? As a business man, you should make your 20 or 50 million and then step aside and let someone else have a go. Unfortunately, the same mentality that motivates these people to m

  • I have complete confidence in the future of the.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by zegebbers ( 751020 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @01:50AM (#13824541) Homepage
    company, and the value of my shares.

  • Translation: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @02:18AM (#13824611)
    "Thank you all for everything. Now if you'll excuse me, I have just realized I am now very rich, so I'm going to go drink for 32 years."

  • no one cracked this joke yet? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dithi ( 88241 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @02:27AM (#13824630)
    rpm -e BobYoung.rpm
    • What's your point - karma? The article is exact cut and paste of that press release.
      • If every article from every news site was confirmed true and there was never any lies or half truths published then I would have no problem with your comment.

        However, in todays society its always better to have complete 100% confirmed sources for news articles. News from the horses mouth is a hell of a lot better than crappy cut and paste from god knows where.

        If somebody comes up with the original source then its to the benefit of everyone - let the lad have his karma.

  • I imagine there's a great big hottub somewhere out there...

    [sun] Schwartz: Weez be so much betta than youse, man.

    [rhat] Young: First they mock you, then they tease you, then they flirt with you, then I win. Or something.

    [msft] Balmer: Dude, has anyone seen my shaving cream?

    Young: Tell you what... I bet you ain't got the cahones to walk away and let your company do its thing. Sun would fall apart at the seams.

    Schwartz: Booyshaykaya. Youse first.

    Young: Okie Dokie.

    Balmer: Google must die.

    It all went downhill f
    • Why does Schwartz talk like Ali G? Although, admittedly, it does make for a funny transcription...
    • Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.
      Cojones.
      Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.
      Cojones. Cojones.
      Cojones.
      Cojones.
      Cojones. Cojones.
      Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.
      Cojones. Cojones. Cojones. Noise, for the lame filter.

      Cojones.

  • He saw the signs (Score:5, Funny)

    by pchan- ( 118053 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @02:32AM (#13824647) Journal
    The math is simple and the handwriting is on the wall. No, Netcraft does not confirm this, but Bob figured out that hard drives double in size about every two years. A base Redhat install doubles in size every 9 months. It will be less than 6 years before a Redhat desktop install requires 512 gigs, and shortly after that, the requirements will surpass the largest drives available on the market. He's escaped, and will slowly sell off his stock, take the money and walk way.

    Also, I hear he runs Slackware now.
  • I think Bob has done his part. Redhat is a global leader and needs some sharp edges and should consider hiring new fire-breathing sharp-edged staff. How about Terpstra? I'm available as well :-)
  • I could give two squats what happens, as long as my shares don't tank.

  • Sounds familiar... (Score:5, Funny)

    by node 3 ( 115640 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2005 @03:48AM (#13824839)
    "I have such enthusiasm and confidence in the mission." -Hal 9000

    :-)
    • "Hal, you're going crazy. RPM -i new-psychological-profile-1.2.05.rpm"

      "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid that package has dependencies which are unsupported."

      "Damn!"

  • I hadn't even heard of lulu.com, I'm ashamed to say. This is probably good exposure for that company, citing it as a main reason for his resignation. lulu.com is cool, by the way.

    And no, I don't think he did it for PR. I believe that he's genuinely too busy for Red Hat.

    RP
    • lulu.com is cool, by the way.
      Yes, it actually seems so. It took me a couple of minutes to realize it however -- the site's design immediately triggered my evil-domain-name-buyer-and-adware-mongler filter, probably because of the marketing-like image on top and the long columnized list of links. It took me quite a while to get past that, so that I could what the site was actually for.

      I, for one, would seriously recommend a redesign of the site.

  • I'll lay money that in two years, we'll look back and with hindsight say this was the point where RedHat started to become another SCO. Young is a man of principle. What do we know about the remaining board?
  • I still remember arguing with Bob Young at RTP area LUG meetings back in 1995 about why RedHat should release sales numbers. I still think it would have given Linux more credibility to have the numbers out there. But all's well that ends well.
  • Now, if he follows in Gentoo's footsteps and runs away to a new job at Redmond, that'll really be weird...

    My, while we're all making our little speeches about El Sombrero de Rojo, it's occured to me that I've done way lots of harping on my favorite distros, but forgot the background one. Red Hat has been the distro that I leave on the family box. I know, as a Slackware man I'm supposed to look down on Red Hat, but: I see Red Hat as the convenience distro, the generic choice when you can't decide what kind

  • When he moved from his position as CEO in 1999 to a member of the board, he had always anticipated this happening...and he has taken a back seat as of late (ever since starting Lulu Tech Circus [lulu.com]).

    This is the way a good founder/CEO steps down from his company...it's just that lately, we haven't had many good CEOs in the public eye.

    This is certainly not bad for Red Hat...and I wonder now who will take his place on the board...

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