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Linux Software

Red Hat Rivalries at Salon 65

EvilNight writes "There's an interesting article up on Salon that makes a few comparisons between Red Hat and Microsoft. Interesting reading. They also touch a little on the squabbles between LinuxCare and Red Hat. " A very good article. Covers a lot of the issues, and clearly.
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Red Hat Rivalries at Salon

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  • SuSE is at least as big as Red Hat, but much of their coding effort goes into proprietary stuff that you and I will never benefit from. Where did you get THAT bullshit from? my alternative email address: Michael Hasenstein
    --
    Michael Hasenstein
    http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/ [tu-chemnitz.de]
  • Why should commercial rivalry be considered 'mature' ?

    It sounds like the politics of the playground to me.
  • SuSE has acted like a bastard on may occasions (undermining Red Hat's IPO, etc.)

    so what's the etc., come on... Michael Hasenstein PS: (No, I deleted the comment about the first part of the sentense. It's just not necessary.)
    --
    Michael Hasenstein
    http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/ [tu-chemnitz.de]

  • If you want to get really technical,

    Linux : kernel, GNU/Linux : OS, [Slackware,RedHat,Caldera] : Distribution Channel

    and:

    NT : kernel, NT : OS, NT : Distribution.

    Mmmmn. choices choices.
  • maybe RH's employees which made support are all hard-core linux hackers (or whatever) which just are not accustomed to answer question to completely-dumb (not educated, not knowing what they are talking about) users.

    such users are the key to M$ success (just leave them dumb and happy and take a lot of money from them for it).

    i think a lot of such complaints about RH's support such as yours comes from hardcore windows users which hate to learn anything thus they feel under attack when someone sugest them to read 10 lines from some HOWTO.

    i also have to say that i never called MS support but a friend of mine worked for such and i had a chance to hear some answers: those answers were not helping you with your problem. they were just helping you with the actual incarnation of problem. such answer did not provide you with "how it works" so you do not know why it did not works. and such answers i'm not counting as "good support".

    (i also understand, that "good" support do not makes the supporter a lot of money. same as "stable and fully featured windows": no one will upgrade them thus M$ is not producing them)

  • Err... CodeWarrior for Debian.
  • The guy who runs Gnome is not a Red Hat employee.



  • I broadly agree. It seems to me that the work the various hackers RedHat employs do, is primarily aimed at improving the RedHat distribution, and that improving GNU/Linux in general is really a side-effect.


    'Twould be much better if, instead of employing Linux gurus and telling them to do specific things, RedHat (and other companies who benefit from Linux, such as LinuxCare, VA, Pac HiTech, etc.) should make contributions to an independent non-profit organisation, run by Linus & Co. which employed people like Alan Cox to improve Linux. That way, these peoples' talents could be harnessed in such a way as to improve the GNU/Linux system for everyone, instead of improving it for RedHat and then letting those improvements filter through into the community at large.


    The Dodger

  • Just a note -- the above article is only the first page, less than a third of the whole article.

  • by Ethelred Unraed ( 32954 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @05:50AM (#1803043) Journal
    I'm a little worried about this putative rivalry between Red Hat and LinuxCare, if it is indeed as rabid as Salon makes it out to be. Love 'em or hate 'em, Red Hat is quite possibly the most important distribution for getting Linux to spread beyond its current user base, with perhaps SuSE close behind. Red Hat gets most of its income from support, not from sales of CDs.

    Suppose LinuxCare, which does not have its own distribution, were to choke off Red Hat's supply line by killing off RH's support. Where does that leave Red Hat? Where does that leave Linux in general? We'd be left with Debian, Slackware, et. al., all of which are highly advanced distros, but none of which can really set foot in the enterprise or home market (cf. PHB, MomTest).

    In the end, only Red Hat and SuSE are in a position to spread Linux beyond its current "market" and seriously challenge Microsoft. If one or both of them dies off (or at least only limps along), Linux will not get anywhere. _Some_ kind of corporate or organized backing is needed.

    I'm not suggesting that anyone boycott LinuxCare for the sake of Red Hat--far from it. I wish them well. Rather, I suggest that Red Hat and LinuxCare merge, cooperate, or that LinuxCare offers its own polished distro, for the sake of the greater good. A rivalry between the two--as things are now--is a Very Bad Thing(TM).

    Just my thoughts...

    cya

    Ethelred [surf.to]

  • According to Metrowerks once they've finished QA testing it won't just say "for Red Hat". If you're gonna bash Redhat, at least get your facts straight.
  • that's gnuFree software, thanks very much.
  • I think the Linux community is a little too "alternative". Just because RH is public and may possibly dominate the linux development scene in the future does not mean they control it. Just remember that Linux does not survive on commerciallism, and someone making a profit off of it does not mean they possess the ability to monopolize it.


  • I see two issues here, really:

    1. RedHat's actions as a member/citizen of the Linux community.

    2. RedHat's apparent increasing influence ove the future development of Linux.


    The first issue revolves around the question of whether RedHat's actions are beneficial to the Linux community as a whole. To lift an example from the Salon article, do we think that RedHat's decision to release new C libraries as quickly as possible is a good or bad thing? By asking questions like this, we can determine whether RedHat is a productive member of the Linux community.


    This issue will come to a head following RedHat's IPO, because after the IPO we will find out whether RedHat will place the interests of it's shareholders (i.e. profitability, market share, etc.) ahead of the interests of it's stakeholders (which includes the Linux community). The danger is that they will and that, in doing so, they may seriously damage Linux.


    The second issue is one I've addressed in a previous posting under this article - see above for my idea regarding a non-profit organisation, funded by contributions from companies which make money from Linux, which employs Linux gurus to develop Linux.


    Note that if RedHat do place their shareholders before the community, they could use the fact that they employ many of the leading Linux gurus to influence the development of the OS in a direction which serves RedHat's own commercial interests, rather than the interests of the community and users.


    The Dodger


  • Why should commercial rivalry be considered 'mature' ?


    Commercial rivalry equals competition. So?

    Competition is a Good Thing (TM). Why?

    Lack of Competition got us to the current situation with Microsoft.


    End of Discussion.


    The Dodger



  • Suppose LinuxCare, which does not have its own distribution, were to choke off Red Hat's supply line by killing off RH's support.


    If LinuxCare were to do this, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. They would lose a significant proportion of their business, including the Dell deal.


    Rather, I suggest that Red Hat and LinuxCare merge, cooperate, or that LinuxCare offers its own polished distro, for the sake of the greater good. A rivalry between the two--as things are now--is a Very Bad Thing(TM).


    Rivalry isn't all bad - after all, it implies competition and one of the main problems we have with Microsoft is that they have no competition.


    However, having said that, the merger/collaboration idea does have merits. Especially if the anecdotal evidence I've heard reflects the true state of affairs - i.e. RedHat's support operation is somewhat less than perfect.


    The Dodger

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Please re-read the original post. I wrote "customer service" and not "support"

    I have no problem using Linux. I have no problem admin. Linux. I can read HOW TOs and understand them.

    I am talking "customer service" - M$ treated me better than RH
  • So what's the beef if they GPL their code? Personally, I think they've come up with a pretty innovative business model and that they will de facto contribute to the advancement of OSS by being successful.

    Sure, maybe RPM isn't the height of technical beauty, I'll bet your code is so perfect at ver 1.0 that no 2.0 is ever required.

    I think it's great that they can provide an attractive enough working environment for their hackers that they can get them jazzed about working there.
  • All of the things you describe are possible, but are they really likely? Red Hat's S-1 makes it abundantly clear that their continued success as a business depends on the goodwill and active assistance of people they don't even employ.

    The Linux community is very, very effective at creating a public reactions crisis on the Internet for any company, and a company that has just gone public and hasn't established much of a track record is extremely vulnerable to any bad news. There will be thousands of day traders out there who won't necessarily react even-handedly to any bad news, and a lot of them use altavista, excite, or hotbot as their primary research tools.

    If an event like Rasterman's resignation happened after Redhat was publicly traded, his letter and the resulting entertaining threads on Slashdot probably would have slammed their stock price.

    I'm sure we'll get to see working examples of this in the near future. Stay tuned.

    David Bonn, CTO, Watchguard Technologies [mailto]

    -------
    "I'll shoot beer cans, but only in self-defense" -- Edward Abbey

  • the way to implement "open employment" semantics is to use the GPL.
  • by Noel ( 1451 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @08:08AM (#1803063)
    This article got me to thinking. It's great to have the Open Source, but that's not sufficient to keep the open software explosion going. There are at least a couple other areas that must be opened for the free software community to continue its phenomenal expansion.

    One is that we need to have access to hardware documentation in order to write drivers. Fortunately, we have seen much progress on this front. In the past few years, many companies have realized the value of releasing their programming docs so that drivers can be written. (I would like to know if the NDAs that RedHat has negotiated include release of the HW docs when the GPL'ed code is released, though...)

    The other is that we need to have Open Employment -- the freedom to hack no matter who is our current or previous employer. Until recently, this hasn't been much of an issue, since few people were paid to hack free software. Now that we have many companies that pay employees to work on free/open software, we need to ensure that the employers don't restrict the freedom to develop.

    This restriction could be done in a number of ways, either explicitly or implicitly. An explicit restriction could be a clause preventing employees from working on similar or competing products when they leave the company. An implicit restriction could be something like an NDA on hardware docs that only releases them to that company's employees. Both implicit and explicit restrictions tie the developer's productivity to remaining with the company. If restrictions like this are in place, then a developer who left the company, for whatever reason, might not be free to continue their work.

    Now, I'm not accusing Red Hat of having these restrictions. In fact, I think Rasterman's recent departure from Red Hat to continue work on Enlightenment at VA shows that Red Hat does not have these restrictions.

    But now that commercial Free/Open development is becoming the fad, I think it might be time to think about some Open Employment guidelines. Here's a quick brain dump for you to chew on (or chew up and spit out):

    These Open Employment guidelines are designed to safeguard the freedom of an Open Source developer to continue contributing to the community.

    1. The employer may not place restrictions on the developer that would prevent them from continuing to work on an Open Source project when their employment with the employer is ended.
    2. The employer may not tie incentives to the direction of the developer's Open Source development.
    3. The employer may not restrict the open discussion of Open Source projects, except as required by NDAs in pre-release situations.

    The neat think about commercial Open Source development is that companies are realizing that what's good for the community is ultimately good for the company as well.

    Comments?

  • The short time I worked at Pacific HiTech, I only knew a Cliff Miller, and a Craig Oda. Who's Craig Miller?

    Maybe Cliff has adopted Craig as his son? :-)

    Lotsa inaccuracies in there. I think a bit too much credence was giving to the C library issue. There's really only one C library. Is everybody supposed to stick with libc5 forever?

    Cheers,

    - Jim


  • I don't think she meant to suggest that Red Hat owned Linux. Rather, she meant that in the same way that my OS is Linux, or Fred's is OpenBSD, Red Hat's is Linux.

    Or something. Hey, I've never met Ms. London.
  • Not even funny, let alone necessary.
  • There is no license agreement for the CD. Of course not, this is all free stuff except for the pay-series with commercial stuff - where SuSE goes so far to separate free vs. non-free that even xv is in 'pay'. What you probably mean is the YAST license. But you don't say so, that means your deliberately spreading SuSE-FUD.
    --
    Michael Hasenstein
    http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/ [tu-chemnitz.de]
  • i'm sorry. i'm taking it back.
    (my post is wrong as related to yours)
  • Can someone post a quick summary? My worksite doesn't allow access to salon.

    kmj
    The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.

  • Amen.
    You can't say it much better than your third point: THEIR SOURCE IS OPEN. EMBRACE IT.
  • Subjects robert is sick of #99920: Red Hat is not Microsoft.
    So they release bleeding edge software. Good for them.
    So their boxed cds are expensive. If they can sell them, good for them.
    Everything that comes out of Red Had Labs is GPLed. Good for them.
    I love Red Hat.
  • ... so why do people throw a negative spin on companies who try to make a buck? Remember: Linux is about having an open source OS. NOTHING MORE!
  • by Retalin ( 68942 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @05:16AM (#1803074) Homepage
    Lets just get down to the facts of the Everyone vs. RedHat. When it comes down to it RedHat is the driving force of the linux world. Im not at all taking anything away from any distrobutions out there, in fact I use Slackware, but if it wasnt for RedHat the community would not grow.

    A brand new linux user cannot simply jump into slackware and install it and get everything going because its not "easy", however on the flip side of the coin all they need to do with RedHat is boot up and click Workstation, Server or if they want to get to the nitty gritty, Custom and they are rocking.

    RedHat has done what it set out to do. It has created an operating environment using the linux kernel that destroys anything Microsoft could ever produce. I love to hear people on the internet say "I hate RedHat" because when you ask them "why?" they just stutter, and say because its crap, or because its no good. They cant give you a true honest reason.

    RedHat as a company is not doing anything wrong. They are trying to get into the corporate market, and to do that you have to have an image that can be presented to CEO's. A naked woman with a RedHat CD over her ass is not going to get that for them. When you have an investment you protect it. This is merely all RedHat is doing and you CANNOT blame them for that. They are not playing any of the dirty games that Bill Gates did/does, they are producing an awesome OS that is free. For crying out loud just leave them alone and if you "dont like RedHat", there is a simple solution. DONT USE IT, and DONT push your opinion on other people.

  • I think the last part of the article is a masterful sumnation... Linux is growing up.

    We want to oust MS, force them right out - or at least make them produce good, cheap software and adopt a proactive attitude to the industry as a whole. Anyway, the only way they'll be forced out is by valid competition - RH are the nearest the Linux world has got to a "proper" company.

    I could go on for the need to come up with a definative set of standards for a Linux gooey - not a STANDARDIZED gui, but a set of standards for them all to stick too, but I won't (though I just did).

    I think people are giving RH a hard time because they're maybe disenfranchising the industry as a whole with their continued and growing dominance - tough! RH still give you their work under GPL, M$ are highly unlikely to do that unless somebody forces their hand... I think that somebody is Red Hat.

    Mong.

    * Paul Madley ...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
  • Before we begin tearing Red Hat apart for all the real and imaginary wickedness they've perpetrated against Free Software, quality and choice, and reading through all the redundant posts that defend them, I propose the following solution that should at least make this latest flamefest worthwhile.

    A voluntary Red Hat Bashing Tax, payable, for want of a better metric, in lines of code contributed to Free Software and/or Open Source projects. Say for instance that someone feels compelled to toss around unfunny parodies of Red Hat's name, like "FUD Hat", "Red$at" or "RootHat". Each occurance would oblige the posting individual to submit 10 lines of acceptable code to the project of their choice. More extreme complaints, such as Red Hat "forcing" people to use buggy software or not allowing the posting individual to configure their system without a GUI, would require 100+ lines of code submitted. Complaints about RPM could be a special case, in which the complaining party could submit code that corrects the alleged deficiency in RPM, regardless of line count.

    I believe such a policy would greatly benefit the Free Software community by generating a virtually infinite supply of new code while letting people vent all their frustrations and fears against a favorite target.
    ---------------------
  • Pity the market leader in such a climate. Red Hat
    spokeswoman Melissa London laughs at the Microsoft comparison:

    "It's so funny -- when was the last time you saw Microsoft make its operating system available for free download and remain committed to that?"


    Since when is Linux Red Hat's operating system?
    Bit arrogant, that. I suppose you could argue
    that it's a question of semantics, but the point
    has to be made. A distribution is not an
    operating system. Almost all of what's on a Red
    Hat CD is freely available elsewhere.

    K.
    -
    How come there's an "open source" entry in the
  • I can't help but laugh when *everyone* descends to defend the freedom and non-commercialism of Redhat, when at the same time I have an advert for CodeWarrior flashing at the top of the screen which has been shackled to only REDHAT linux.

    OK - you can let the OS be free, but you can still chain them with apps...
  • And it's FREE. It remains to be seen whether Code Fusion will be as good or better than Code Crusader, but as it is, if you're looking for something like a good IDE, Code Crusader is one of the best candidates for the role.
  • And they're releasing bugridden nowhere *near* ready distributions, charing $80 for the same stuff they were charging $40 for last version, and marketing their asses off as they prepare to pass off a substantial amount of control via their IPO.

    Their boxed set has not even *half* the packages of Debian, much less the stability. RPM is widely reguarded as a joke; the worst excuse for 'package management' on earth. Even RedCr^H^HHat supporters I know hate Glint.

    But I don't give a damn about that idiocy. That's their problem. What I care about is the fact that all they're trying to do is make Linux a plugin 95 replacement that's as close to 95 as possible. What have they REALLY done for the community?

    Absolutely nothing that I can see. I have no need, nor desire, for Win95-like garbage windowmanagers, idiotic package management, and bleeding edge libraries that don't work right half the time due to bugs or core incompatibilities. What have they REALLY given to the community, compared to say, VAResearch.

    Let's see.. I have never seen any donations from RedHat; just hiring of people like Havoc Pennington, Rasterman, etcetera for their own gain. VAResearch donates machines on a semi-regular basis. RedHat's got their website. VAResearch runs the now defacto Linux site, linux.com, and provides connections and equipment for a GNU / Linux / GPL friendly IRC network. Which RedHat uses.

    Quit spouting the marketing bullshit; let's see some real contributions for a change.

    -RISCy Business | Rabid System Administrator and BOFH
  • I appreciate it. I want one of those Debian posters.

    kmj
    The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.


  • Red Hat isn't Microsoft. LinuxCare isn't Microsoft. The XFree project isn't Microsoft. SuSE isn't Microsoft. Debian GNU/Linux isn't Microsoft. Heck, if Microsoft GPL'ed their code, they wouldn't be Microsoft. ;)

    Let's get on with it, folks. :)

  • Taking things out of context isnt right. All she is saying is since when has MS done this?
  • Uh, why doesn't this story have Red Hat's logo?
    ---------------------
  • by Anonymous Coward
    . . . this is Salon trolling Slashdot. They know it will just start another going nowhere debate. Almost all of the quotes seem to be rehashes from other articles or anonymous/out of the blue quotes. Side A of issue followed by Side B.

    Interestingly they don't get to the true meat until the final page A) Redhat GPL's all their stuff B) which they don't state overtly--whiners worried about losing a competitive edge to companies who glomb kernel/OSS hackers are nothing more than whiners. For kernel issues, planning, bleeding edge garbage, where they are going, etc. etc.--why not go to *The Source*--the Kernel mailing list. Yes, for a non-kernel hacker or C-pro-pro (DemiGod) it is hard, and the companies who hire the kernel hackers do gain a slight advantage as they have in house experts, but that is called "doing business".

    RedHat is a company that wants to sell support--and a large part of that is selling it to *companies* not Joe-Doom. RedHat has found the best selling point to attract those companies--they have the source of the source. A RedHat rep dealing with a large company deploying an in house app has access to the people who know the kernel (as well as other apps) inside and out.

    As the article says, if RedHat makes a misstep they would quickly lose their advantage because the kernel hackers and other OSS leaders do not want proprietary solutions.

    And for the whiners worried about price and using the newest libraries--I'll give you a hint--**Never buy/use/install anything that is #.0**. And last I checked you do have choices, and as long as it is GPL'd this can not change.
  • Had she said, "when was the last time you saw Microsoft make its particular configuration and distribution of Windows available for free download," I imagine some people would have had a -legitimate- complaint: i.e. it would have been detached from reality and made no sense.

    It, sir, is completely a "question of semantics": she did not use the words, "Linux is Red Hat's operating system." She chose a perfectly cogent way to express a sound sentiment - why are you reading 'arrogance' into this when she offered none?

    Should /. moderaters be given an English comprehension test?
  • The article falls victim to what it is discussing - rampant over-analysis. Red hat is a company trying to make a living at supporting Linux for the business workplace. Is it so wrong for them to defend their image that they've worked to hard to build? Everyone fears the "Bill-Borg" so bad we're doing a witch hunt on anyone who smacks of success.

    Lest we forget the days of Apple vs. IBM where it was the hobbists versus the Mega Corporate Monster, remember what became of that (besides spawning the "Bill-Borg") -- legitimization of the PC as a tool, not a toy. Same with Red Hat. They are going to turn the "hacker os" into a legitimate os and we'll all be better for it because since it's open source code, the os can't be the leverage to force another monopoly.

    So let Red Hat be the company they want to be, and in this modern democracy vote your opinion with the standard business voting ballot -- the allmighty dollar.
  • by substrate ( 2628 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @05:35AM (#1803092)
    CodeWarrior isn't shackled to RedHat. People with a clue are capable of running it under other Linux variants and are doing so. Some assumption had to be made about the installation, MetroWerks chose RedHat. No doubt RedHat did some campaigning for this. That's their perogative.

    MetroWerks is releasing RedHat for Debian in the future according to their press releases. This may be the result of campainging by Debian. That's their perogative.

    Users presently have a choice of an easy install under one Linux variant: RedHat. Soon they will have the choice of an easy install under two Linux variants: RedHat and Debian.

    Clueful people will of course still be able to make it work with their variant of choice with additional effort. Any shackles against doing so are imposed purely by your skills.

    If every linux vendor agreed on standard places to put things and standard technology this wouldn't be necessary. None of the vendors seem to be making any real comittment to doing so however (creating some ficticious standards body which recommends your distribution as the standard isn't a real comittment)

    I don't work for MetroWerks, RedHat or Debian, though I used to be a satisfied customer of RedHat (not so satisfied anymore)
  • MetroWerks is releasing RedHat for Debian in the future according to their press releases. This may be the result of campainging by Debian. That's their perogative.

    :) Redhat for Debian?

    What, praytell, is that?

    kmj
    The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.


  • All of the things you describe are possible, but are they really likely? Red Hat's S-1 makes it abundantly clear that their continued success as a business depends on the goodwill and active assistance of people they don't even employ.

    RedHat's current owners recognise and appreciate this. But they're about to sell off a significant percentage of the company and it's possible that this could result in a change of control. I doubt it would, but you never can tell. If control of Red Hat fell into the hands of individual(s)/compan(y|ies) who place more value upon short-term profitability and market share above continued support of the open source community, we could see our worst fears come true.

    The Linux community is very, very effective at creating a public reactions crisis on the Internet for any company...[comments about share prices]

    So why is Microsoft still the biggest company in the world?

    There will be thousands of day traders out there who won't necessarily react even-handedly to any bad news, and a lot of them use altavista, excite, or hotbot as their primary research tools.

    #1 - What long-term effect does a depressed share price have upon a financially-healthy company, the majority of whose shares aren't traded on the stock exchange? Is a company going to fold because the 20% of their company that is traded on NASDAQ is worth half what it was this morning? This isn't rhetorical - I don't know enough about the subject to answer this myself.

    #2 - I believe that Internet stocks are perceived as being more vulnerable to PR because (a) only a very small portion of their stock is available for trading, and therefore, demand for those stocks results in a disproportionate rise in perceived value; (b) the new breed of amateur/inexperienced day traders know feck-all about investments and go by PR and hype rather than solid indicators, such as sales figures, profitabiity, market share, etc.; (c) many Internet companies are more PR, hype and bull than true substance.

    But that's just my opinion. ;-)

    If an event like Rasterman's resignation happened after Redhat was publicly traded, his letter and the resulting entertaining threads on Slashdot probably would have slammed their stock price.

    I think that the whole Rasterman story reflects more upon the relative youth (immaturity?) of Red Hat as a company. If you think about it, Red Hat has grown pretty damned quickly, and there's not all that much to stop anyone from doing what they've done. Given the necessary skills, ambition, motivation, drive, determination and resources, of course. :-)

    RedHat, Amazon & eBay don't have a monopoly on ideas, creativity and technical know-how... None of them were here yesterday, but today they're big. So who's to say that a company which doesn't even exist yet isn't going to wipe the floor any of these companies out?

    On the Internet, your competition is just a click away.

    The Dodger
    who's just heard his boss use the phrase "the angle of dangle" and is ROFLing as a result... (-:

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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