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Red Hat Software Businesses

Red Hat West Coast Division? 67

Posted by CmdrTaco from the could-it-be dept.
hfcs writes "Just browsing the Red Hat Careers page, and a good number of their open positions are listed as being in San Franscisco. Just a couple of weeks ago, all positions were listed as being in RTP, NC. Hmmmm.... "
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Red Hat West Coast Division? More

Red Hat West Coast Division?

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  • I wish telecommuting was more common. I lived in Salem, OR and would have liked to stay there. But people just don't seem to like to let you do that, at least until they know you well.

    As it is I got suckered up to Salkum, WA - absolutely out in the middle of nowhere! But at least I get to use Linux all day...
  • I believe that RPM 3.0 addresses the issue of package dependencies now. Also, with alien it's possible to convert to/from .debs, .rpms, etc.

  • If you want programmers that are familiar with financial or commodities applications (there is some pretty high tech stuff being done in this area), you're not going to find them in Silicon Valley. Try New York or Chicago.

    Ummm... no.

    The Bay Area isn't Silicon Valley by a long shot. In fact, that seething morass to the south is kind of an embarassment to the rest of us.

    Given that San Francisco is home to a number of major financial services players, it's pure fallacy to say there aren't finance/commodity programmers to be found.

    The Bay Area economy is eventually going to collapse upon itself.

    No.

    There is an article in last week's U.S. News and World Report about the housing shortage...

    Yep. It's painful to go looking for housing. Very bad idea to move here. Don't do it. Stay away.

    Actually, rents in SF are about on par with Boston, which has recently seen the same sort of housing crunch. Oh well, there goes your suggestion...
  • I can see why RH would want a facility in the SF Bay Area. The bay area has the highest population of software and hardware engineers in the world. Even on my short street I know several engineers or people working in related fields. The drawback is that there is a shortage of engineers here so they're competing with other companies (i.e. Cisco) for good engineers.

    As for disasters, I think far more people in ths country are killed by tornadoes, hurricanes, thunderstormes, etc. than earthquakes. All modern buildings in CA have strict building codes designed to withstand an earthquake. At least it is possible to design buildings to withstand earthquakes, it's a bit harder to design a building to withstand a tornado or hurricane.

    Besides, the weather out here is quite pleasant in the summer and the winter is fairly mild.

    As a side note, what will happen when the New Madrid fault goes or the fault that runs along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains? At least here all the buildings are designed to withstand an earthquake. If those other faults go all bets are off.
  • The Bay Area isn't Silicon Valley by a long shot. In fact, that seething morass to the south is kind of an embarassment to the rest of us.

    And you probably weren't even born in the Bay Area at all. That "embarassment" is what has consistently greased the wheels of commerce for the BA for the last 25+ years, and has brought the State of California to unprecedented levels of prosperity; reversing the Great Exodus of the early 90s following the deflation of the military industrial economy of the Cold War. Were you here then? I was, and for 30 years before that.

    While "The City" grasps for relevance beyond its obvious superiority in the tourism, restaurant and rave departments by snatching the odd business that doesn't locate south of the Peninsula, the gold coins keep amassing in the coffers of Santa Clara Valley companies.

    Every time they declare the South Bay dead because of the tight housing market (I've heard it my whole adult life), things crank up another notch.

    So you can either take your snobby-assed attitude and park it up your backside, or you can learn to appreciate the engine that is the genesis of your employment.

    So tell me, where does Linus live and work?
  • > I'd rather live in the RDU area than any place
    > on the west coast... it won't fall into the
    > ocean any time soon. :)

    Heh, from what I've seen these past few years, it doesn't have to. The ocean seems quite willing to come to you.

    I prefer to *drink* my hurricanes, thank you :-)

    rjray
  • Nice to finally have a little more evidence to discount the rumors ;)


    Who am I?
    Why am here?
    Where is the chocolate?
  • Now, I know that this wasn't the main thrust of your point, but I just wanted to clarify something.

    There is essentially no way that a "9.something" quake could be "adjusted down" to a seven-point-soemething. There is a factor of thirty difference between any given integer value of quake intensity and the next value. Two integers difference in magnitude equals a one thousand-fold increase in energy released.

    A nine-point-oh would not have taken down a couple of buildings. A nine-point-oh would have eaten out the heart of Los Angeles.

    (Now, there *were* directional issues that "aimed" most of the energy of the quake away from the city and towards the mountains. But that alone simply couldn't have turned a 9 into a 7, or anything approaching that.)

    To address another point, the Northridge quake was similar in magnitude to the Kobe quake. In the former, a handful of people were killed. The latter quake devestated a city, and killed scores of people. I'd say that the respective building codes of the cities involved are greatly in evidence in that comparison.
  • God, how did I get sucked into this stupid exchange?

    >Same kernel, same programs.

    So, if it is all the "same", why even have different distributions? I understand that the kernel is the kernel, that most of the GNU utilities are going to be the same, yet there obviously must be advantages/differences to other distribution.

    >Linus uses Red Hat at work and SuSE at home. You calling him a newbie?

    I didn't call anyone anything. I like RedHat. I learned a lot by installing and using it. I was a complete newbie and RH was my first experience, it was pretty easy. I'm ready to explore further into other distributions.

    I'm not trying to start up yet another distribution war. I'm a convert to linux who is curious about distributions other than RedHat. I guess I should just shut up now since I'm not getting any useful information from the benevolent guardians of truth and knowledge that obviously inhabit ./

    (sorry for the sarcasm, its early and I'm only on my first pot of coffee)


  • Posted by sUbZ3r0:

    Red Hat is promoting itself very well. It's good to see different people, either newbie or guru are able to use Linux. I have always used Slackware and always will, because Slack not only behaves like a "real" UNIX, but it can be used as a real UNIX. It's unlimited programmability is what makes it so special.
  • Use debian, Use RedHat. Use both. Use something else. But DON'T claim that a distribution is 'for the big boys' at the expense of another. All that is, is a bunch of insignificant kids who want to feel superior. There isn't a distribution that I've messed with for any length of time that wouldn't let you get under the hood and tinker {slackware's claim to fame}, and there are arn't distributions that you can't set up to work, and get out of your way while you do YOUR work.

    Sure there are some differences in how they operate, but those arn't that hard to deal with. Remember Perl's motto: "There's more than one way to do it".

    Stop the distribution wars. Start distribution competitions, but not wars.
  • I used to live in San Fracisco. In my oh-so-Windows centric job I got to deploy an SMS server today. Oh joy... I'd much rather be a part of the Open Source / Linux wave, and I do like the Bay Area, but...

    In your neanderthal state my ferrets are illegal. My five fuzzies are my babies. They don't bite, but they might lick you to death trying to make friends. Still, California is the only state in the continental US that defines them as "wild" animals and bans them, despite 2,500 years of domestication.

    Just one more example of why the Left Coast isn't the paradise it's cracked up to be. Here in the Triangle, where Red Hat is located, it's pretty darned nice, taxes are lower, the cost of living and doing business is lower, and my ferrets are legal. :) I think both Red Hat and I will be here for the forseeable future.
  • Technologically ahead maybe, but not by "years" (as you claim). Please think before you FUD -- both are basically the kernel + common UNIX/Linux programs.

    It is my estimate that with the paltry development staff that Red Hat Software, Inc. currently has, it will take them at least a couple of years to properly test and implement the thousands of packages that come standard with Debian. After all, Red Hat Software, Inc. is a small company with maybe a dozen staff members actually doing development work, while Debian has hundreds of package maintainers and an amazingly advanced system for building and installing them.

    Red Hat simply ignores the complex graph theory necessary to properly implement a system that resolves package dependencies, while Debian took the time to do it right.
    --
    I noticed

  • If this helps to confirm, I'm leaving my current contract position in the south bay to start a new position with them next Monday (the 26th).

    :-)

    rjray
  • Anyone who thinks that location is irrelavant has never been to the Bay Area. You can't throw a rock without hitting ten programmers.

    Most of the talent is here. Most of the existing companies are here. The venture capital lives here and doesn't want to move.

    Anyone who claims location is irrelavant has never tried to carry on a real discussion via email. There's a reason conferences exist: having people all in the same room helps a lot.

  • It doesn't take a genius to realize that what they are building in SF is nothing more than a marketing and spin factory.

    Given the lack of developers in the area and the cost of hiring the ones that are available, I highly doubt they will ever move the software development team out there.

  • I will definitely agree that the BSD ports system is sweetness and light and I love it dearly. I simply enjoy the ability to take nine diskettes and do an install of Debian from anywhere, to any box no matter how scraggly.

    I use apt-get in order to build bare minimal systems that have no unnecessary cruft on them. If I'm building a nameserver, I'll install the base system, type apt-get install bind, and then configure the thing to upgrade itself every week as bug fixes come in. No cruft, and no unnecessary services or possible exploits that I can't easily monitor.

    However, I'm certainly not going to try to argue you into running Debian. After all, why do I care what you run?
    --
    I noticed

  • Sure if you're looking for the skill set du jour (which is of course dictated by the Bay Area). Not every single programming job involves the internet or e-commerce.

    If you want programmers that are familiar with financial or commodities applications (there is some pretty high tech stuff being done in this area), you're not going to find them in Silicon Valley. Try New York or Chicago.

    There are whole high tech areas in Austin and Boston. The number of programmers outside the Bay Area far outweighs the number inside. Only the people inside the Bay Area think they are the center of the high-tech universe. And there are other sources for venture capital than the Bay Area.

    The Bay Area economy is eventually going to collapse upon itself. There is an article [usnews.com] in last week's U.S. News and World Report about the housing shortage and how the skyrocketing rents and house prices are causing extreme pressure on those whose salaries are not based on technology.
  • California may be at risk for earthquakes, but here in the southeast, we're at risk for tornadoes and hurricanes. Dad works periodically with GE and said that when they moved a bunch of their employees to North Carolina from San Jose, California, many of them were absolutely terrified of the thunder and lightning, let alone tornadoes and hurricanes. Having also lived in California, I have to say that the lack of a tornado threat is a little more reassuring (Who wants to get picked up by 100 mile-per-hour winds?), but the thought of having your office building come down around you without warning is just as bad. I'd rather deal with the tornadoes and hurricanes, of course (you usually get some warning that they are coming), but some people would rather deal with the risk of being squashed by steel and concrete. I guess it's a matter of preference, but avoiding California just because of the earthquakes doesn't mean a whole lot....


    Who am I?
    Why am here?
    Where is the chocolate?
  • As a Left Coaster, I take some offense to that, but seeing as it's probably a reference to California, I'll let it go... ;) Now if RH decided to move up here to the Silicon Forest [Oregon], maybe Linux closer proximity to Redmond could wake up Micro~1 a bit...
  • Robert Hart has been the manager of Red Hat's office in Mountain View (CA) for a few months. He's been to a few SVLUG meetings before and since, but it's obviously easier for him now that he lives in the area.

    He was also one of the panelists on SVLUG's July 14, 1998 "Future of Linux" panel at the Santa Clara Convention Center. (Hard to believe it's already been a year!)

  • One of the items in the official IPO stuff included what the millions from the IPO would be spent on and "geographical expansion" was listed. Not too surprising that they want an office in CA...
  • I gotta admit I've felt like this for a while and I'm getting ready to give it a try on the new box I'm building.

    It's funny that I just have this feeling that I'm limiting myself using RedHat, even though it has been a very good experience to get familiar with Linux. I'm not sure how this mindset got to me or how valid it is, but I feel the same way that Debian is for big boys and I'm past the RedHat 'phase' and ready to move on.

    Ah well, guess at least I'll learn something.
  • Hrm... Well. Hot and humid, yeah, but you get used to it. As for Jesse Helms, that's true. He's a wart on the ass of humanity, and of the south. As a side note, I nearly got arrested for defacing public property for hanging mocking Anti-Helms posters outside his office, along with near the state house and other places in Raleigh... anyway....

    I'm a Tar Heel fan, so mnyeah on the last one. :)
  • I agree that California has excellent building codes. After moving back to the southeast, I went around for months looking at buildings thinking "that would never pass earthquake standards." However, we both know that the codes alone are no guarantee of building safety. Two examples come to mind. The first is the freeway in San Francisco that pancaked the top level onto the bottom level. The second is Northridge Meadows (since rebuilt under a different name). Neither one survived earthquakes, although I heard rumors that the Northridge quake was really a 9.something that was automagically adjusted down by the government so that FEMA wouldn't have to pay out as much (even though FEMA still got seriously scammed). My point is that personal risk is a matter of taste. If the sky gets dark, I can look at the weather channel and see if a tornado is coming. If I go curl up in a depression or a closed space without windows, I'll be OK. With a hurricane, I have days or weeks lead time before the thing hits. With an earthquake, I know when it hits. The first few times, it was unnerving. After a while, I got to where I didn't even notice the 3.somethings, although there was a 3.4 that made me think someone had drive a car into the apartment. Granted, I lived in the San Fernando valley from 94-96, so there was no major activity, but that doesn't provide much reassurance after hearing stories about TVs flying across the room at shoulder-level ;)


    Who am I?
    Why am here?
    Where is the chocolate?
  • Oh please, Ian. Everybody knows that it's basically just been Robert Hart and his telephone up until now.
    --
    I noticed
  • By the way, I really did like the weather...the only thing I really missed were the occaisional lightning storms (they really are pretty) and the green trees that I grew up with....people in California always said to me "how can you stand the humididty...it must be like taking a shower after your shower!" but you you get used to it to the point that you never notice it (except on really bad days)...like everything, there are trade-offs....nice weather, no trees vs. inclimate weather, pretty trees...it's all what you prefer :)


    Who am I?
    Why am here?
    Where is the chocolate?
  • I agree, move the offices to downtown portland and maybe we can get a real good seattle/portland rivalry going...
  • >But DON'T claim that a distribution is 'for the big boys'

    I didn't. All I said (I thought) was that I've gotten the impression that it is so. I've never used Debian so I know it by reputation only. I've used RedHat all along, but I have to admit that I've gotten the impression (right or wrong) that its for newbies and Debian has different advantages for more experienced users.

    So I'm going to give it a try and see what its about and judge for myself which suits my particular needs better. I doubt very much that I would wipe my RH6 install since it does what I need for my primary machine, but I'm interested to try a different distro on the new AMD K6-2 box I'm building.

    So sue me. :-p

  • I survived the Northridge earthquake (I live less than two miles from its epicenter). It was intense, but most houses in my neighborhood came through with little or no damage (as did mine). On the other hand, a frame house--and most other structures--have little chance against a tornado or flood.

    My dentist's office was right across Tampa Blvd from Northridge Meadows. He suffered very little damage (some broken stuff in the lab, an X-ray head crashed into a wall), and he was back seeing patients in less than a week. (Given we were still having pretty strong aftershocks, I'm not sure I would have gone to see him at that time, though.)

    Northridge Meadows was built in violation of building codes; not only was it missing a shear wall required by code, but structural members (lumber) and fasteners were not up to code either. It was cheap, shoddy construction. It was hardly unique--some other areas became ghosttowns because of heavily damaged apartment buildings--but it was, fortunately, the only such building that pancaked.

    Rumors that the Richter number for the Northridge quake was "adjusted" are no more than that. Part of the reason for the damage it caused was the soft soil underlying much of the San Fernando Valley and the nature of the fault itself (thrust faults generate relatively more vertical energy than strike-slip faults like the San Andreas). There is no such FEMA rule, in any case...

    -Ed
  • Same kernel, same programs. BTW, Linus uses Red Hat at work and SuSE at home. You calling him a newbie?

  • What's stopping RH from moving operations altogether to the west coast?

  • Those are all web-development and E-commerce positions, except for the "office manager" (they'll need one of those anyhow). Perhaps they're fixing to move their portal operations out West, or create yet another on-line Linux store.

    -Ed
  • Did Red Hat not recently buy a well-respected web site design shop?

    As previously mentioned, all of the positions in SF look web related.

    Sounds like Red Hat is just creating a new division on the West Coast so all those new employees from the design house don't have to move to North Carolina (I expect most wouldn't want to!).

  • Here's why: (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19, 1999 @07:58AM (#1795380)
    http://www.salon.com/tech /log/1999/07/16/linux/index.html [salon.com]
  • Technologically ahead maybe, but not by "years" (as you claim). Please think before you FUD -- both are basically the kernel + common UNIX/Linux programs.

  • Coming soon to a Bay near me.... (Score:3)

    by DaveTerrell ( 923 ) on Monday July 19, 1999 @07:59AM (#1795382) Homepage
    this pretty much says it all:
    Office Manager
    San Francisco, CA
    Red Hat is seeking an Office Manager to assist in setting up a new office on the West Coast (Bay area).
    other jobs listed include "Editor-In-Chief", "Manager of E-Commerce", and "Manager of Marketing/Sales", plus some "Web engineer" type stuff. No development, though (yet).
  • I feel as though I should be running Debian. After all, I'm no Unix newbie and all the big boys use Debian. I tried Debian briefly but I didn't like the install, especially dselect and didn't see any clear advantages to using it. I probably didn't give it a fair shake, only about a week, but I went back to using Red Hat. I felt that the aspects I liked the best in Debian, like apt, were better done in FreeBSD which also has a better installer IMHO, and I missed the "friendliness" of RedHat like linuxconf (does it work with Debian?).

    As I said, I really like the idea of a completely open source OS, and I will try Debian again soon to see if I can feel the love. Let me know what I'm missing.


    --
  • Well, given that my neighborhood has more Linux startups than anything else (including vagrants), this is hardly surprising. I guess they felt cut off out there in North Carolina. All the really fun stuff is going on out here. My suspicion is that they're trying to catch up with Debian, which is technologically years ahead of them (partly due to the increased communication among developers, many of whom live and work in the Bay Area).
    --
    I noticed
  • According to recent articles, Red Hat has acquired a web design house in whole or in part to advance their portal presence and stuff.

    Even so some of you feel they should move all of Red Hat to the coast to get in on the action. Why?? In this digital age a programmer/developer can telecommute. Location is irrelevent unless you need to have physical access to the hardware you are working on.

    Besides, when California slides in the ocean one of these days, Red Hat will be happily high and dry in NC. And I'm sure housing is cheaper there if you really wanted to move.


  • I used Debian at first, and it was okay. I did find it easier to download and install a few packages, and get it all working, although the installer took some time to figure out...

    However, what's with the nine diskettes? That sounds like a reason to buy a ZIP-drive, at least.
    (I got mine to work on a 286, I just had to make a 5-1/4" disk with the DOS driver on it at first, and ever since then, I've been sold on them--it's so handy for copying files off of old computers, provided they have a paralell port... Besides, with 100MB of space for an install, put in an X-server configuration too, while you're at it...)

    Also, I haven't spent much time with FreeBSD, although the kernel configuration looked nifty, and the minimal disk looked weird, and I use Red Hat as my primary distro, although I'm currently un-thrilled with Red Hat 6. It is more bloated and unstable than a Linux distribution should be, so I'm waiting for the revisions to fix this. Of course, you could say the same thing about Kernel 2.2.x, but... we'll see how well it improves, I have some faith in both of these...
  • Motorola's world headquarters is in Schaumburg (about 20 min from Chicago)


  • However, what's with the nine diskettes? That sounds like a reason to buy a ZIP-drive, at least.


    Naah. YOu can install straight off of the CD, if you're into that sort of thing. Boot right off of it and all. I just like the fact that I can take any old 386 with 8 megs of RAM and install a minimal distribution on it. Also, those same nine disks will do the all-out bells-and-whistles install that I want on my networked desktop box.

    Hey, kids. Linux is a network operating system! Why not install it as such?
    --
    I noticed

  • Re:Location no longer matters (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'll give you two advantages to locating your company in the Bay area.

    1. There is a large pool of workers available there. It's easier to recruit people if they don't have to move.

    2. Networking (the person to person variety). Most of the industry leaders and venture capitalists are located in that area.

    Of couse, there are lots of reasons why NC is better too, primarily lower operations costs (cheaper office space, lower taxes, lower salary levels).
  • For those of you who are flaming North Carolina, citing geography as a reason for moving, bear this in mind:

    The Raliegh/Durham area of North Carlina, including RTP (Research Triangle Park) is a very modern, progressive area, rife with high-tech companies. It is commonly regarded as "Silicon Valley Easy", is rated consistently as one of the best places in the nation to live, is in proximity to three major universities (Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, and NC State), as well as several others within a couple hundred miles, and is, generally speaking, a very nice place.

    I'd rather live in the RDU area than any place on the west coast... it won't fall into the ocean any time soon. :)
  • Computer/technical companies want to be near large metropolitan areas. Unfortunately, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and South and North Dakota don't sport enough population to get the attention of a major computer/technical company. Wisconsin, Missouri, and Minnesota are the exceptions to the aforementioned, but are still losing out to states like Texas, California, Washington, and Oregon. Illinois is yet another exception, because it is the home to one of the 10 largest cities in the US. Beyond that, South Dakota is yet another rarity, because there is no good reason why Gateway is there. One day, someone decided that it would have been better in one podunk city than in another podunk city. Gateway is a strange beasty.... so is Ford, John Deere, and Outrage Entertainment.

  • Re:San Francisco Linux companies (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Odd comment about a project that started in Helsinki and remained there throughout its formative years. Geographical proximity is indisputably less important now than ever before in history and I expect that trend to continue.
  • RedHat has had a west coast office for months now, believe it or not. It just hasn't been very big.

    A while back, I went to a MicroComputer Users Group meeting here in little old Olympia, WA. The reason was a rep from RH was speaking there, he was cool, an Australian (no, not Raster, but he was still with RH at the time). For life of me, I can't remember his name. He _was_ the west coast division at the time, and he said as much during his speech. It was fun, but more for the uninitiated masses though.

    (Oh yeah, he had a Red fidora with him.. It actually looked really cool).
  • I also can confirm, I start the same day as rjray.

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