Red Hat CEO Predicts Open Source Infrastructures With Proprietary Business Functionality (fortune.com) 53
An anonymous reader summarizes the highlights of Fortune's new interview with Red Hat CEO James Whitehurst:
A recruiter told Whitehurst the culture at Red Hat was "a little bit like that Blues Brothers movie, when Dan Aykroyd says, 'We're on a mission from God.'" But Whitehurst says geeky passion "makes it a great place to be a part of," and even argues that the success of Microsoft in the 1990s can be attributed to its Microsoft Developer Network, which led developers into Microsoft's platform and infrastructure. "Developers now are heavily using open-source tools and technology and, bluntly, I think that's why Microsoft had to open source .NET and why they're embracing more open source in general. Because open source is where innovation is coming from and is what developers are consuming, it forces vendors to participate."
Looking towards the future, Whitehurst says "A rough line would be almost to say most infrastructure is going to be open source and most business functionality above it is going to be proprietary." And he also warns open source companies, "if you don't have the unique business model that allows you to add value on top of the free functionality, in the end you're going to fail... a lot of open source companies have come and gone because they've been more focused on the functionality versus how they add value around the functionality."
Looking towards the future, Whitehurst says "A rough line would be almost to say most infrastructure is going to be open source and most business functionality above it is going to be proprietary." And he also warns open source companies, "if you don't have the unique business model that allows you to add value on top of the free functionality, in the end you're going to fail... a lot of open source companies have come and gone because they've been more focused on the functionality versus how they add value around the functionality."
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That's the first thing I thought too. It reads like RedHat is claiming to have invented some new revolutionary open-source business strategy to quickly cover up the fact they just figured out what everyone else already knew.
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I haven't been around the software entrepreneurial scene for a few years but what resonated with me was that Whitehurst noted that open source (actually any company) must be able to provide a return on investment and not just value to customers/society at large.
When RIM was crashing, I saw a number of ex-employees pitch and get investments in open source based applications which did do things that provided significant value to customers but there wasn't a clear case that anybody would pay for the end produc
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Many of these products used the "freemium" model in which the base functionality was good enough for customers to use without having to take the plunge and actually pay for the product.
Well it's tough to convince people to take the plunge on a relatively obscure product too, companies spend a lot of money essentially making sure the market knows what solutions they provide and the quality of their product. That's the point of this model which separates it from a demo or trial version, you actually get some basic functionality for free and because of that lots of people use it and lots of people have heard of you. The free part is basically advertising, it's not a bad model. It's only a ba
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Oh sorry, I ddin't know that only RedHat used systemd... They don't so the constant moaning about it is getting rather tiresome.
They aren't, but RH corporate inexplicably pushed it despite greybeards thinking moving wholesale to an unproven system with a leader with known issues was probably a bad idea.
Ironically, systemd solved problems that were mostly already-solved in RH-land, which is the big reason for the pushback ~2014 when it finally hit EL7 and enterprise admins had to actually care about it. (Boot speed? Please. Could have gotten a lot of that by mimicing Debian's use of DashAsBinSh. Virtually everything else other than c
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At least they're creating a great opportunity for a linux vendor that doesn't use systemd.
I wonder how long before we have a reprise of the unix wars?
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Already there:
RHEL vs Oracle vs MS...
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AFAIK CentOS uses systemd now too.
Software-as-a-charity (Score:2)
another freeloader trying to make a buck.
He and redhat are not on our side, tries to re-invent corporate unixes with lockin and excess profit. But that's not why we chose linux and Free as in freedom.
Enforcing his vision via systemd.
Since they are the only successful Linux company ever, I'd hold my horses before I bashed (no pun intended) them. Guys like RMS might, since they believe that people should just have altruistic goals and nothing more, but that's not how the real world works. Similarly, people just writing software and never expecting to get paid is something that we should accept as being rarer than pink unicorns w/ gold plated serrated horns
Words Matter (Score:1, Troll)
that's why Microsoft had to open source .NET and why they're embracing more open source in general.
(Emphasis added.)
Yikes. Did the CEO of Red Hat really want to use that particular word?
translation (Score:2)
"if you don't have the unique business model that allows you to extract money from users on top of the free functionality, in the end you're going to fail... a lot of open source companies have come and gone because they've been more focused on the functionality versus how extract money from users."
Red Hat has managed this is by replacing things that worked with "better" versions that mostly worked, so you would pay for their support for when it breaks.
One reason I see a lot of open source (Score:2)
There was an article on folks switching from Oracle DB to Mongo DB on
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Open Source doesn't care for your software freedom (Score:5, Informative)
Let it never be said again that there's no substantive difference between free software and open source—here you have an open source booster (Red Hat's CEO Jim Whitehurst) pitching proprietary software as a good thing unto itself. Many years ago the Free Software Foundation told us about this when they wrote about the "Fear of Freedom [gnu.org]" and the section that highlights how open source enthusiasts and free software activists react radically differently to non-free software:
Whitehurst mentioned "why Microsoft had to open source .NET". What freedoms does that really convey to .NET users? It's worth taking a look at Microsoft's Patent Promise for .NET Libraries and Runtime Components and understanding its limitations. This patent promise doesn't look out for your software freedom. As End Software Patents warned us [endsoftpatents.org] two years ago:
Microsoft's "patent promise" so-called "protection" looks very different from how the GPLv3 treats users. End Software Patents summarizes the GPLv3's language in section 11 [gnu.org]: "[c]ode distributed under the GNU GPLv3[] comes with a patent grant which basically says the contributors can't use their patents against the users for exercising the freedoms granted in the licence" whereas Microsoft's "protections disappear very quickly for those who wish to modify or re-use the code".
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This does not have to mean what you imply it means. In-house business software is by its very nature proprietary. What Whitehouse is doing is essentially telling business that it is okay to build your own proprietary business software on top of FLOSS architecture, aka he's countering the usual 'if you use GPL software you must Open Source your internal software' FUD.
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... here you have an open source booster (Red Hat's CEO Jim Whitehurst) pitching proprietary software as a good thing unto itself.
I think he's just commenting on the fact that while people are still deploying and using proprietary software, they're increasingly going to do it on open-source infrastructure.
So while he's not pitching proprietary software as a bad thing, I think it's quite a stretch to claim the opposite, from this story.
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Okay so there are two take-aways here.
One is that anything that comes out of Redhat's mouthpiece is usually self-aggrandizing bullshit. That's not to say it's always wrong; just it's not well-developed. I can say any stupid thing based on first-observations and be right 0.1% of the time--that's approximately how economic political debates work (everything in economics violates common sense with an unlubricated broom handle). When Redhat is right, it's typically because their bullshit lined up with rea
Welcome to tools (Score:5, Interesting)
The hammer is open source. So is the screw driver, nail gun, wrench, and plyers. Tools have always been open source. Tools have never been for the end-user. The end-user has needs and requirements, and isn't interested in building it themselves. That's where the expertise of having-done-it-before is valuable. That's why we pay people to do things that they've been doing for others for decades. Of course I can learn to do it myself. I can learn to do anything that millions of men have learned to do before me. But I'm not interested in sewing my own pants.
I'm not even interested in repairing the stitching in one inch of my pants.
And yet, the needle and thread, sewing machines, and wood-working tools are all open source.
Do I build my own couch? I could. It's really easy to cut wood, screw it together, cover it with foam, cover it with cloth. It's really easy to follow a pattern and a design and a template. Still, no thanks, not interested.
I pay for someone else to build my couch because I'd rather spend my time working in my chosen profession than building a couch.
Open source doesn't change anything to the end-user. My clients who sell white tube socks aren't going to build their own web-site. Sure they could, but they aren't interested. They also won't be their own security guard (also open source), paint their own offices (brushes are open source), or even ship their own desks (again, open source).
Every tool, and every obvious technique is open source. Who cares. You pay someone else to use those tools for you.
One day, 3D printers will become ubiquitous. And still, it won't matter. I'll want a widget this big and this shape to do this -- and I'll pay someone to design it. Whether they cut it out of wood, or mold it out of plastic, or hit print, is totally meaningless to me. I don't care what tools they use. I want my widget. And no, I don't want someone else's widget. Their widget won't fit my business model.
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You are confusing "free" with "open source". Hammers aren't free, but they are open source. You don't get the blue-prints, just like you don't get the code-flow diagrams or design commentary or code documentation. But you do get the hammer, and you can see everything that the hammer is. You can peel off the handle, and you can test the material, and you can see how it works, why it works, and when it fails.
Hammer manufacturers compete on many things (including price), but mostly on what design elements
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People generally equate "open source" in software with the concept of "free" because it is implied you're allowed to have a software without paying for it, and you can convert the source to software.
If your friend makes you a copy of a hammer, he must expend several hours of time, plus money in materials and fuel, to produce that hammer. If your friend makes you a copy of a software, he only needs to drop it into a file share or burn it to a CD--actions which take seconds. A Web site providing copies of
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You're totally wrong from the start.
First off, "FOSS" needs the "F" for a reason.
Second, source code cannot be turned into software. I don't know why you think that it can. Some source code requires days of powerful machine time to turn into software. Most requires a compiler that likely isn't free. Many need a whole host of compiler instructions, configurations, and a full IDE-worth of resources specific to the developer's choosing to be compiled.
Dude, I build web-sites and even my shitty perl code is
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First off, "FOSS" needs the "F" for a reason
In your nerd-world maybe; in the world of business executives, systems administrators, and line management, "open source" means "free shit that comes with Linux". Half of them don't understand the difference between "open source" and "freeware", and some people call Linux "freeware".
Second, source code cannot be turned into software. I don't know why you think that it can. Some source code requires days of powerful machine time to turn into software.
This is logically-inconsistent. It can't be done, and it takes days to do?
Gentoo compiles from stage 1 in under a day on a modern commodity PC. If you want KDE instead of Gnome, you need 40 hours. To turn that code into
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I'm going to stop at your logically-inconsistent accusation based on your logically-inconsistent inability to read.
I said "source code cannot be turned into software" and "source code requires days of powerful machine time to turn into software". The former is missing the requirements listed in the latter. If you can't compare two sentences, and see the big huge difference, then we're done here.
So I'll summarize, for you, to satisfy your early complaint -- alone, without some amount of help, expertise, do
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I said "source code cannot be turned into software" and "source code requires days of powerful machine time to turn into software". The former is missing the requirements listed in the latter. If you can't compare two sentences, and see the big huge difference, then we're done here.
That's not how language works. You stated an absolute premise when you said source code cannot be turned into software, the same as if you said mere thought cannot bring matter into existence; then you said a machine can turn source code into software. Which is it? That there is no means by to turn source code into software, or that there is a means by which to turn source code into software?
alone, without some amount of help, expertise, documentation, know-how, assistance, time, resources, and understanding, most source code cannot be turned into software merely by commonly available computer hardware.
Categorically false. Most source code can be turned into software with less required effort than creating the
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I'll stop again at your start. In order for the statement "source code cannot be turned into software" to be false, you'd need to demonstrate that all source code everywhere for all time can be. I did not state an absolute. You interpreted it thusly.
But again, this is all meaningless. This is you arguing syntax again. Stop picking one statement of mine that has nothing to do with the argument being made.
I argued that tools, in general, tend to be just as open source as software. That a hammer is just a
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I decided to read the rest of your post. A few things stand out.
First, you're talking about software application (mostly), that perform a set of tasks within a system -- so you can mimic such a system with a container, shoehorns and all. I'm talking about software married to the system. You can't shoehorn it into another system, it is the entire system.
Second, you're now a professional. If you're arguing that a professional can build open source code into software, the only word left to say is "duh". A
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Software "married to the system"? You write perl code; you're not talking about kernel modules integrated with a monolyth.
Third, I wrote every line of code for my software. I did every design chart. I decided what it needed to be, and how it would work. I used it for years, and based my entire livelihood on it. I employed dozens of people. Then, with international issues being what they are (CIA directly connected to Rackspace), I changed data centre providers to save over $15'000/year. It still took me three months, and three persons, to set up the old software on the new network, and took me two years to plan the move.
I had a discussion about using AWS versus Azure recently. The concern raised was that moving off AWS if it became hostile would cost years of time and lots of risk in transition.
I created a small document summarizing the advantages of deeply-integrating with AWS, as well as the risks, and the manner in which to isolate those risks. I've done the same with various other softwares to