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Red Hat Software Businesses

Red Hat Moves Into European Linux Marketplace 85

Posted by Roblimo from the it-feels-strange-to-talk-about-a-linux-"marketplace" dept.
bOnUs (among others) slipped us the skinny on a story @ silicon.com that talks about how Red Hat is gonna use recent cash injections from Dell, Oracle and IBM to increase its presence in the heart of S.u.S.E. territory, AKA Europe. Normal business expansion in an increasingly borderless world? An attempt at creating Red Hat World Domination? This can be interpreted either way.
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Red Hat Moves Into European Linux Marketplace

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  • While world domination might be the trademark of Wall Street (as enshrined in US corporate law), I'd like to respectfully point out that other countries might not share the same extreme values. A study [brw.com.au] of the best US corporation compared with the second best revealed a long-term vision and strong NON-financial values where critical to their success. Sure you can be as successful as Bill Gates at the cost of half the planet hating your guts/products but then a few hundred billion will smooth that burden, right? Frankly, from the point of view of Wall Street, they wouldn't care less if Red Hat staff stripped naked and ran a circus because next year there will be another fad, another media frenzy, another roll of the dice. As the day traders are finding out with the brokerage fees and vigorish (mandatory payments to the dealer) the only people guarenteed to make money are the financial wheeler-dealers (guess who's pocket their mulimillion dollar bonuses are coming out of?). Now capital markets have a role but they are not the end-all and be-all that some people think. Basically companies are trading labor, goods or services to satisfy the wishes of consumers and if what you have to offer is superior and at the low-cost end of the efficiency spectrum, then natural dominance results. Growth for the sake of growth is rather pointless. Afterall, in biology we call unlimited growth a cancer.

    So I wish Red Hat luck along with the rest of the Linux distributors.

    LL
  • I once thought of getting ISDN card to my Linux box. Then I checked the price of an ISDN router (ZyXel Prestige 100) and went for that one. I've never looked back at the some USD200 I paid more for the router.
    That said, I'm a happy user of Rawhide who welcomes RedHat to Europe. When they open an office or service point or get a contractor to provide RedHat support in Finland, I'm all the happier. Even though I might not need it, that would probably mean a lot to many companies ('Look, we can get OFFICIAL support in Finland in Finnish, and they have these administration courses to get OFFICIAL RHCE like we have these MSCEs.').
  • Right now, Linux needs standardisation to become a more viable mainstream platform, and it needs backing from serious industry players; Red Hat are a driving force in both areas.

    There's been a history of Red Hat's unwillingness to take on standards that the rest of the Linux community has recommended. Being so large, they can refute our standards and begin their own, even if they're crap. In that respect you can liken it to MS, but I won't :)

    It promised me during the install that it had updated the KDE menus; had I been running SuSE I dare say it probably would have

    I doubt it would for any other distribution at all except where KDE is packaged identically. In terms of being a user, it should be recommended that unless the product says it has specific support for the product, then assume it hasn't.

    It's unfortunate Code Warrior is a single-dist-support only application, otherwise I'd go for it. What's impractical for a company producing apps for Linux to support, say, the top 5 Linux distributions? The variations must be surely minor, and the research time to find the difference is most likely quite minimal. Thus it would keep the proliferation of Linux dists up with the competition, and to make it easier for application programmers they would strive to be as standard as possible. The more robust and unfragmented the better, but not better when there's fewer distributions.

  • You have a point here.
    from The Nethelands:

    I'm more or less a newbie Linux user.
    I recently bought my first Linux distru.

    To me things were easy:
    RH 1 CD 149 Dfl.
    SuSe 5 CD 79 Dfl. -> much more value for
    you money (and a nice book)

    secondly SuSe is more up to date here,
    because RH is allways takes about 2
    months before it hits the shops, after
    release in the USA.

    I don't know if RH is more secure,
    more into SMP, or whatever.
    SuSe ran clean out of the box for me.
    I was running KDE and X windows within
    an hour after inserting the CD.
    (on pretty new hardware, i had waited until
    there was a distri in the shop with Xfree 3.3.3,
    because older didn't support my hardware)
    Within 2 days i had figured out how to compile
    my own kernel.
    And now i'm writing here about it...
    (now on my own machine, it has no connection to
    the Inet.)

    Downloading from Inet isn't an option for me,
    , maybe in the future, CableModem is gaining
    rapidly in the Netherlands, and the bandwith
    promisses are sky high. Next year my town will
    get cablemodem.

    Goetjes,
  • true. even though its 2am edt and i'm not ready to discuss this further =8)
  • If the govt is really that powerful, it is the people that let it happen.

    Taco is Rob is and he's cool.
  • I think you're at the wrong website. You should go make your own.

  • Redhat is becomming the MicroSoft of the Linux world. =( While this may seem bad to many linux users, it may be a good thing in reality as it will help push Linux into the average home PC as a "dummyed-up" version while letting sysOps and the like use the more hard core versions.

  • I disagree with it being an attempt at "world domination". If people in Europe prefer SuSE RedHat just won't be sucessful over there. RedHat won't be able to force people to use it, but since I like RedHat, I wish them the best.

    People buy the distros that is *available*. I for one first bought a "combo-distro" from infomagic with debian 1.3 (it said 2.0 on the package .. booohoo), slackware, redhat and suse. I ended up using SuSE simply because it was the best (most up to date imho) distro on the cd's.

    When I recently wanted to buy a newer distro .. I only found slackware 4.0 at a decent price. RedHat beeing sold at $70 , no debian or suse in my stores.

    Then I got a friend of mine to burn out a copy of Debian -- which is my absolute favorite distro.


    Point is -- if you don't have a cd-writer, you need to buy what is available. If suse is most widespread in europe -- My guess is that its most available for those without much bandwidth.


    --
  • come to think of it, could RedHat be becoming a sort of M$ ?

    No. As long as they keep all their tools opensourced they can't. They may kill of competitors by delivering a better product or having better marketing, but quite frankly - it doesn't worry me.

    If you want to swap from one distro of linux to another, it doesn't take you more than a couple of days getting to know the other distros installation tools. And -- except for that they *are* quite much alike.

    M$ has gone too far, let's hope RedHat doesn't. If it does, it might get some users like M$ has. ie. "i must use it, its the standard, but i don't want to" kind of deal (even though it might not happen b/c its linux, so it'll run on any other distro).

    *exactly*. I can take redhat linux, make improvements, and sell it as 'arcade linux'. Provide my own tech support and so on.

    Personally I don't like the RedHat distro. I personally prefer Debian. So what? If someone uses redhat - that's their problem. And if I get an account on their box, I won't notice any big difference anyways. The programs I want will install on RedHat just as they will on Debian... AND, the other way around works just as well.

    So, stop worrying. RedHat and competition is a Good Thing.


    --
  • Standardisation is necessary for a product to succeed - be that the pedal layout in cars, or the user features and API's in an OS. Uniformity and market share are what perpetuates Microsoft Windows and QWERTY.

    Standardisation for the directoy structure.. yes, I think it's needed. But it's beeing worked on afaik. Standardisation of programs? Well. Not necesarily. We need standards formats, not standard programs. It is important that the document produced in my editor imports the right way into your editor.

    And remember one thing. Installation and so forth should never be done by non-techies. Neither for windows nor for linux. They try to do it all the time. In windows they do it and fails. In linux they wouldn't come that far.

    As long as the techies know what they're doing, we only need standards for "the things people see and use". And, standard 'inwards' in each company, so that the company-network is easily maintainable.. and so forth

    *ach. i'll stop ranting, i think you got my meaning*

    --
  • Four letters: ISDN

    Linux users are high tech users, and they install ISDN at home in many European countries. The cost of installing and using ISDN is low here in Norway, and in Europe in general. Installing ISDN is difficult on linux in general and especially on RedHat. Make a quick search for ISDN on a dejanews, on the norwegian linux news group (no.it.os.unix.linux.diverse) to get the point. I got 3200 matches on ISDN and 900 on ethernet since jan 1 1999. Now people are recommending Suse when ISDN problems pops up. If RedHat spent a few engineering weeks on ISDN support the RedHat goodwill rice dramatically in my eyes.

  • Redhat will have problems in europe (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Redhat has much to do for the european markets. Our own distros are quite well localized and don't have problems with 8-bit characters etc. which seem to still be problem for Americans. Last time I tried redhat it had some problems with our local characters a and o with dots. That is not acceptable here. Also gnome is quite poorly localized still so KDE is the only choice for desktop if you want it localized.
  • Particularly since we heard about these plans in July [slashdot.org]

    I don't really see that this is much different from the previous announcement, except for the fact that RedHat now has more money. And besides, did you really expect RedHat to not expand its base of operations?
  • Hook. Line and Sinker. I'm taking a bite of the flamebait.

    There will only be ONE distribution to survive the coming price and Capitalist war. It will be Red Hat simply because:

    Not everybody participates in it. If I remember correctly - Debian doesn't even sell their distro at all, but let third parties take care of that. They cannot lose, and they cannot win.

    + They emply almost all the useful developers

    Please define "useful developer".

    + They are the most widespread distro

    And? So what? What does it matter?

    + They simply have MORE MONEY THAN ANYONE ELSE

    Oh, and therefore Micro$haft should win, in your opinion?


    Now stop complaining, code for the Good of OSS and let Red Hat make all the money.

    Code for the good of Open Source. Use the distro you want to use. Stop supporting ONE distro. At home, I currently have SuSE installed on my main server. RedHat on my private machine, and Debian on my secondary server. Debian will replace SuSE on the mainserver as soon as I get a temporary server up'n running so that I may build the server and transfer the data -- and have everything up'n running -- and then just .. swap..

    Why? Simply because I prefer apt. (Debian installtion-tool-thingie). That's MY opinion, and therefore I go for it.

    That's the important thing here. People should get to know each of the major distros, and maybe a couple of the minor ones, and choose the one they prefer.


    --
  • Here in Norway, most people I know use either redhat or slackware (a few people use suse and debian, but that isn't many).

    Hi Norwolf, my fellow countryman.

    The oldschools do still use Slackware - yes. But I really don't see the growth there. A lot of people use RedHat. But, after the gathering ('99), where free SuSE cd's was handed out - more and more people are moving to SuSE. Nearly everyone I've talked to the last 5 months, that has installed Linux -- has installed SuSE.

    So - SuSE is growing, RedHat is 'well known', and slackware is on the way out. Debian on the other hand is slowly growing, as more and more people try it out. It's a great distro imho.


    --
  • well, it's definitely not Open Source. you can't redistribute for a fee.

  • I agree!. Perhaps RedHat is becoming the system all *ix users despise with a passion.

    I always interpreted the motives of the linux operating system as somewhat open with the allowance for sale and distribution being a good thing. But with the recent cash injections from major companies into RedHat, the whole system is going to crash and burn. The less fortunate distributions will bend to the competition or go "underground" while RedHat continues making money.

    Sure its a great distribution but with the money it makes and the "brandname" software that it will soon support allows it more chance of getting the unfair advantage, much like drugs in an olympic event.

    Smaller distributions like Debian and Slackware are the ones that will suffer and it will be sad to see something as great as the linux philosophy and its 8 year history be replaced with the values of the evil green.

  • It all stems back to RedHat 4.2. One UK magazine had a copy on a cover disk, and I installed it.

    They had decided to make the sound drivers in the 2.0.x kernel modular, and had managed to get soundblaster drivers working, but had prevented a number of other drivers from even compiling. My soundcard was one of them. Grrr!!!

    I also was shocked that there was no real documentation as to what each package contained, and I ended up installing a lot of junk I was never going to install. This included a lot of utterly useless daemons. Why doesn't the install mechansim tell you what you are installing in some detail.

    Did a quick dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdb and went back to Slackware! :-)

    When I looked at RedHat 5.1, they hadn't improved the install method, although the sound drivers now worked. The commercial X server with this release didn't work with my card, exhibiting the same screen corruption as the server with a previous release of XFree86 - spooky!

  • Yes, the only actual advantage is the lower latency in establishing connections and general network latency which you'll shave about 100 milliseconds ping time due to the entirely digital line. That makes a significant difference for online games, of which the Linux crowd will be fairly small.

    For me, I dont have a problem with modem connections to the ISP, first connection always works, so I dont find that a bother, and the five seconds waiting are an insignificant amount compared to the total connection time, since I usually dont disconnect. And with the small speed difference compared to 56K modems, I just cant see a reason to spend an extra euro on ISDN. Sure, Id take it if it was offered for no extra charge, but it does cost extra, and it will be totally obsolete with the upcoming alternatives in a short while, so why bother?

    This is, of course, a criticism against the less-than-gifted people at the telecom companies. ISDN _could_ have been a great technology if they had pushed it three or four years ago, and had a lower over time connection cost than ordinary phonelines. As it is, as a barely above average technology mainly aimed at a miniscule market of small companies and badly located network gamers its a total waste.

    And, of course, the original point of Redhat having trouble because linux people use ISDN because theyre high-tech geeks is pretty much moot. The only ones I know using ISDN are a few of the bosses at work, who basically have gotten an ISDN router put at their house so the network people dont have to bother with their calls, and companies connecting to corporate network. The real geeks who care either get together and share a dedicated line divided with a router at someones place, or have ADSL or cable. All of which use dedicated routing equipment and wont make a difference between any Linux distributions.
  • and the five seconds waiting are an insignificant amount compared to the total connection time, since I usually dont disconnect.

    That's my point vis a vis money. In Germany (and I thought this was the case for Sweden too) the phone charges for a long Internet connection can add up. When I still had a modem, I usually didn't disconnect either just so the 5 seconds would be insignificant. Once I realized how quickly and transparently I could get back online with ISDN I set the timeout to 3 minutes, and lo and behold: My phone costs sank! I'd estimate I pay on average DM 75-150 (ca. $40-$80) less per month total (yes, including the ISDN monthly fee).

    Next to that, any price difference between a modem and an ISDN card is just not a factor anymore; in fact I'd pay more for an ISDN card. Of course, I'm a pretty heavy-duty surfer, and I read mostly sites like Slashdot (lots of reading, little clicking; especially if you set Slashdot to nested mode) so YMMV; however, I'd be very surprised if an ISDN card didn't pay for itself within a few months of switching, unless you're a very occasional Web surfer (which considering your Slashdot login, seems unlikely :-).

    And then there's the cool stuff:

    2 lines
    3 Telephone numbers
    etc.

    Chris
  • Actually, I'm specfically refering to the DPT Raid controller source. http://www.dpt.com/

    I asked that this source be included in the next release, no response at all. It's available, but not included. (?) I'd just love to ditch RH.
  • I don't really know what peaple complain about with slow SuSE updates/patches, but that's maybe an US problem.

    That's about it in a nutshell. ;) For an example, the update for Netscape 4.7 isn't availabe for 6.1 of SuSE, but RH has it online. Actually, SuSE should have more frequent updates for the US site to match the German site, along with common links for the "bad and evil" crypto stuff.

    In addition, KDE, Gnome, Windowmaker, etc, ala.
  • why don't we let linux get popular?
    redhat is sometimes thought of by newbies as the best one out there (many non-newbies as well *smelling a distro war*) so let it get popular so linux will grow even faster than it is now!!!

    getting more and more comfotable with dvorak btw... who ever said Americans never try anything new? heh heh heh...

  • I guess they needed something to do with all that money they raised.

    Frankly I don't think that the growth of Red Hat is sustainable if all they do is increase their market penetration. They should probably branch out into areas other than distributing and supporting Linux. Well, maybe they are already. Does anyone know what else they are doing?

  • I disagree with it being an attempt at "world domination". If people in Europe prefer SuSE RedHat just won't be sucessful over there. RedHat won't be able to force people to use it, but since I like RedHat, I wish them the best.

  • My greatest congratulations to all those who make Redhat available. The last version I used was 5.2 before my switch to debian, but RedHat, Caldera, etc are certainly making Linux known to big business and the world. I wish them the very best and look forward to see how this endeavor migh benefit RedHat, but mostly its effect on the Linux community as a whole.

  • *shrug* (Score:1)

    by Zurk ( 37028 )
    its not world domination..its just channelling out to a larger market. why shouldnt they ? everyone else does it too. And redhat is (lets face it) a normal boxed product.
  • RedHat could either go and start targetting advertising for people that are already using Linux and try and grab as much of the existing Linux market as they can, or they can try and target advertising towards people that aren't yet using Linux.

    Traditionally, RedHat has done both. I've seen RedHat advertising in the Linux Journal as well as in other computer magazines (probably mostly ones aimed at Unix users or programmers, though).

    I suspect that RedHat will continue to do both in Europe, too.

    At the very least, any attempt to completely only target at potential new Linux users instead of existing Linux users would be suicidal if successful because part of what helps to get new Linux users using a particular distribution is that it's the distribution their long-time Linux using friend (or colleague or random people in a local LUG, whatever) either uses or recommends.

    So, of course RedHat moving into Europe will take at least some business from SuSE, in the sense that there are people that might try SuSE and will instead try RedHat.

    Hopefully they'll both manage to expand the general Linux market enough, however, that business will continue to expand for both of them.
  • come to think of it, could RedHat be becoming a sort of M$ ? however, they're all after a 'bigger business'. SuSe did it by perhaps releasing a 'better distro', RedHat already has a 'wicked distro' so they move on, and try to destroy suse's distro with their wicked one by 'moving' into Europe. ie. opening offices, etc.. hmm.

    its all in a good business plan. and trying to outdo your 'enemies', however, M$ has gone too far, let's hope RedHat doesn't. If it does, it might get some users like M$ has. ie. "i must use it, its the standard, but i don't want to" kind of deal (even though it might not happen b/c its linux, so it'll run on any other distro).

    hmm, interesting stuff though..

  • Standardisation is necessary for a product to succeed - be that the pedal layout in cars, or the user features and API's in an OS. Uniformity and market share are what perpetuates Microsoft Windows and QWERTY.

    Right now, Linux needs standardisation to become a more viable mainstream platform, and it needs backing from serious industry players; Red Hat are a driving force in both areas. Whether you see this as good or bad probably depends on the future you'd like to see for Linux.

    I just re-installed Star Office, from the new Sun distributed kit. It promised me during the install that it had updated the KDE menus; had I been running SuSE I dare say it probably would have, but it doesn't show up on my RH6 system. The failure is a minor inconvenience to me, but a showstopper to a non-techie.

    There will be an inevitable shakeout with the number of Linux distributions (of significance) coming down, and Red Hat is positioned well to be on top at the end of the shakeout. Let's just hope the open source model really works, and that they're not alone.
  • My limited and probably error ridden recollection of 6th form physics tells me it's impossible to cool matter to absolute zero. But people try anyway.

    As I understand it the GPL essentially prevents World Domination in the Linux world in the way MS have done it in the Windows world. It would be pretty much impossible to add undocumented API's or write some software that everyone else depended on to leverage your position in the Linux market.

    So since it can't be done in theory, why not try anyway?

    Red Hat are a public company. They have an obligation to their shareholders to earn a profit. Good on them for trying.
    ----------------------------------------- --------------

  • What's the point? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No one makes a big deal of SuSE selling in the U.S., "RedHat turf", so what's the big deal with RedHat selling in Europe, "SuSE turf".
    It's no ones turf. I don't see why this a suprise. If it is then wake up.
    Snoop

  • encryption export? (Score:4)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @04:19PM (#1632758) Homepage
    how will this affect Redhat's ability to include things like SSH, or other packages involving strong crypto, in european releases?

    they aren't allowed to ship those things outside the US now, right? so now will they be allowed to just send over the source code to the european offices and have _them_ compile the packages, thus circumventing the export controls?

    unless i'm really confused, this would be a _very_ interesting test of the "code-is-free-speech" waiver to the export controls. An american country publishing open source software with strong crypto through a branch located outside the US.. hmm

    -mcc-baka
  • Nothing like mature,well documented and intelligent conversation threads on slashdot.

  • Red Hat MUST Act for World Domination (Score:3)

    by The Ancient Geek ( 67131 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @04:20PM (#1632760)
    No--I'm not writing flame bait. I'm stating brutal, legal, fact in U.S. law.

    Everybody got all kinds of enthused a few weeks back when Red Hat did an IPO. Yeah, things got kind of funky about who could get pre-IPO shares and so forth, but Red Hat did the right thing and lots of deserving people got in on the bottom floor.

    But guess what? Red Hat is now a publicly-traded company. And the directors of a publicly-traded company have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize revenue. Let me re-phrase that in a different way: the directors of a publicly-traded company must always view the interests of their shareholders as being more important than the views of any group--employees, customers, community--anybody.

    So it is entirely fair to assume that Red Hat is moving into Europe intent on dominating the European marketplace for Linux. (Note, BTW, that the Red Hat official doesn't say, "for our distro of Linux"--he says, "for Linux.") Red Hat has to fight for market dominance, and defend their marketplace dominance, or else they're going to join the long list of technology companies that get clobbered by shareholder rights suits.

    We might all agree that the people at Red Hat are worthy folks. We might all agree that they are noble of heart, and true of purpose. But once they become a publicly-traded company, they have to constantly increase their share value, or their stock will be hammered. And if their stock price is hammered, and a plaintiff can demonstrate that the directors acted on behalf of another group to the detriment of the shareholders, Red Hat can lose a huge chunk of money. In other words, Red Hat cannot act "for the good of the Linux community" if that means that Red Hat revenues--in this quarter--will suffer.

    My little company develops large-scale software projects--but we also develop components for database vendors. Two of our clients have been through this process--when you go public, the rules suddenly change. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more whim-of-the-boss perks like Free Pizza Day or flying the staff to Bermuda for lunch. And all of a sudden there is no more visiting back and forth with industry chums, no more collegiality, no more "hey, we're all in this together." Suddenly the view--driven by all those guys in ties that Wall Street required you to hire--is that if we're all in this together, "this" must be a knife fight. (More or less verbatim quote from a finance guy--with really good hair--at a client's.)

    Red Hat's going to wipe the floor with SUSE--and SUSE won't know what hit 'em. It's not that Red Hat is Evil--it is simply that Red Hat has moved up to a different league, and in that league that's how the game is played.
  • Red Hat has a history of publishing source, heeding free software licenses, and being nice to the developer community. Let's assume they will continue to do that, and will thus publish their internationalization work so that others can make use of it in competing products. What, then, do we have to lose from this? Not much, as far as I can tell.

    If we go beyond the things that probably aren't going to go wrong, we have one fear - that Red Hat may achieve name recognition and brand loyalty elsewhere, as it has in the U.S.

    Pardon me if I don't throw a fit about this :-)

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Is there likely to be a conflict between due dillignece and the GPL?

    Is is possible that someone could claim that publishing sources and making
    everything available to anyone is contrary to the interests of the company.

    Suppose, for example, that RedHat is faced with the situation where it is
    in their best interests to take over or dominate a smaller competitor and
    they decline from this as its not in the nature of the company to do so.
    Have they then acted in a manner contrary to maximising their profits?

    dave

  • That's called competition (Score:3)

    by Imperator ( 17614 ) <slashdot2.omershenker@net> on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @04:30PM (#1632763)
    RedHat isn't turning into Microsoft. Trying to compete with your competitors, is, well, competition. RedHat isn't trying to dominate every portion of your computer -- or even any portion. Throwing together a distro isn't rocket science, and RedHat knows that it's impossible to dominate the market.

    Let's look at an example. I own RedApple, which sells apple piesixs. I make all my apple piesix recipes freely and openly available, on the condition that anyone who sells a modified apple piesix without making a special deal with me has to give the recipe to anyone who buys it.

    Of course, apple piesixs ingredients are also all distributed under similar licenses, and anyone with some culinary expertise can put an apple piesix recipe together in a short time. So all that RedApple has over the upstarts a recipe that reflects more time in planning.

    And what if a competitor sells cooked piesixs for $2, or offers to squeeze them through extra-wide phone lines straight to your house for free? I've got to make money, don't I? So I offer support and consulting, to help you deploy Official RedApple Apple Piesix in your large dining room. I advertise and raise awareness not only about my brand, but about apple piesixs in general, and put apple piesix on stove tops and tables that used to use RottenNOP.

    All this time I continue to give back to the apple piesix community with new and improved recipes, even while some of my competitors are turning profits by including proprietary crusts. Yet because RedApple now has a ticker symbol and an insane market value, I'm now more evil than satan himself.

  • Even if, in five years time, there is only desktop OS: RedHat 2005 (Linux 4.10.1365), you'll still be able to roll your own distro. That's in the nature of the GPL. RD would have to replace all of the GNU tools with proprietary stuff *and* change the kernel.

    dave

  • Intelligent in the short term (Score:3)

    by konstant ( 63560 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @04:34PM (#1632765)
    No doubt many of us will grab our foreheads in disbelief that Red Hat has chosen to spend its money battling another Linux distro rather than increasing its market presence in the US. But if you take a moment to think about it, you see how much sense it makes.

    In the US, Red Hat is the talk du jour, as is Linux itself. The disorganized (or, actually, unwittingly organized) mass media have done a far better job marketing Red Hat Linux in the last few months than any targeted ad campaigns could do.

    In Europe, however, SuSe is making the bucks. It's the number one rule of publicly held companies that the stock must go up. That imperative overrides all other converns. It's for this reason that we see companies purchasing their competitors after they have exhausted their slice of the demographic pie. They have to keep growing if they want to survive.

    Well, RHAT wants to survive. They can't ride the tide forever, but eventually the journalists will discover some other new fad. Thus they have to send a message to their stockholders that RHAT is a sound, competitive investment. One that will continue to grow its market share and maybe someday (preposterous as it sounds) make a little money.

    Thus this maneuver against SuSe. It's the obvious target. The only target, really. They can't pique interest any higher in the US directly, so they're doing it indirectly. And if they happen to gain market share while they're at it, I'm sure they don't mind a bit.

    Oh, and if you're worried this will be a bad thing for Linux, don't. RHAT is not big enough yet to be a MSFT, so in the mean time they'll just be one more capitalist company fighting for dominance. And that always brings benefits to users. At least in the short run.

    -konstant
  • Europe is known for nobody wanting to pay for software.

    Humm.. Not in my experience, and personally I pay for the software I use.

    But, if they didn't want to pay for the software, they don't have to, as both Red Hat and Mandrake offer their distributions on the net. Oh, and by getting it off the net, you don't have to wait 3-4 months for them to ship it over here, either.

  • I hope you meant you babble sarcastically - otherwise i would have to say that you represent what causes europeans often to have a prejudice against citicens of the United States of America:
    Ignorance of present ongoings outside their State or Country, Ignorance of present ongoings inside their State or Country, unquestioned repetition of authorities and their views and clichees (aka religious leaders etc.), a backward nationalism, that ignores the possibility of a people to learn and remember. But then again i hope this was meant
    to be sarcasm or irony or whatever and if not then pray to your god to send down some brain - open your eyes and question your authorities, please .o.

  • Re:No problem, as long as they publish sources (Score:3)

    by xnixnix ( 31045 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @10:34PM (#1632769)
    As this crap about the Yast license comes up now and again - here the text in full - even if it bothers u. I have bolded out some stuff that i find interesting or problematic. What do ESR and RS think about this license anyway? Read it then make your judgements:
    YaST Copyright (c) 1995 - 98 S.u.S.E. GmbH, Furth (Germany)

    The object of this licence is the YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) program,
    the name YaST, together with S.u.S.E. Linux, the Linux Distribution of
    S.u.S.E. GmbH, all programme derived from YaST and all works or names
    derived in full or in part thereof together with the use, application,
    archiving, reproduction and passing on of YaST, all programs derived
    from YaST and all works derived in full or in part thereof. The YaST
    program and all sources is the intellectual property of S.u.S.E. GmbH
    within the meaning of the Copyright Law. The name YaST is a registered
    trademark of S.u.S.E. GmbH. In the following S.u.S.E. GmbH is the
    licensor and every user or processor of YaST or works derived in full
    or in part thereof, together with every person who reproduces,
    distributes or archives YaST or S.u.S.E. Linux, is the licensee of
    S.u.S.E. GmbH.

    The following licence terms are recognised as a result of the processing,
    use, application, archiving reproduction and dissemination of YaST.
    distribute or to amend YaST or works derived from it. These actions are
    forbidden by the copyright act, if this licence is not recognised. If
    this licence is recognised and complied with in full, it is also valid
    even without the written consent of the Licensee.

    1. Usage
    YaST and S.u.S.E. Linux may be used for personal and commercial
    purposes if the copyright and licence terms of the installed packages
    and programmes are observed.     The use of YaST, even if a modified
    version is used, does NOT exempt in particular the Licensee from the
    duty to take due care with regard to the licence terms of the
    packages or programmes installed through YaST or works based on it.

    2. Processing
    All programmes derived from YaST and all works derived from it in full
    or parts thereof are to be filled on the opening screen with the clear
    information "Modified Version". Moreover the operator give his name on
    the opening screen, stating that S.u.S.E. GmbH is not providing any
    support for the "Modified Version" and is excluded from any liability
    whatsoever. Every amendment to the sources which are not conducted by
    S.u.S.E. GmbH are deemed to be a "Modified Version". The Licensee is
    based on the YaST programme is created, provided that the following
    conditions are satisfied.

    a) Every amendment must have a note in the source with date and
    operator. The amended sources must be made available for the user
    in accordance with section 3) together with the unamended licence.

    b) The Licensee is obliged to make all work distributed by him which
    is derived as a whole or in part from YaST or parts of YaST to
    third parties as a whole under the terms of this licence without
    royalties.

    c) The amendment of this licence by a Licensee, even in part, is
    forbidden.

    S.u.S.E. GmbH reserves the right to accept parts or all amendments of
    a modified version of YaST into the official version of YaST free of
    charge. The Licensee has no bearing on this.

    3. Dissemination
    It is forbidden to reproduce or distribute data carriers which have
    written consent of S.u.S.E. GmbH or S.u.S.E. Linux. Distribution of
    the YaST programme, its sources, whether amended or unamended in full
    or in part thereof, and the works derived thereof for a charge require
    the prior written consent of S.u.S.E. GmbH.

    All programmes derived from YaST, and all works derived thereof as a
    whole or parts thereof may only be disseminated with the amended
    sources and this licence in accordance with 2b). Making YaST or
    works derived thereof available free of charge together with S.u.S.E.
    Linux on FTP Servers and mailboxes is permitted if the licences on the
    software are observed.

    4. Guarantee
    No guarantee whatsoever is given for YaST or for works derived from
    it and S.u.S.E. Linux. The S.u.S.E. GmbH guarantee only covers
    fault-free data carriers.

    S.u.S.E. GmbH will provide YaST and S.u.S.E. Linux "AS IT IS" without
    any guarantee whatever that it is fit for a specific purpose or use.
    In particular S.u.S.E. is not liable for lost profit, savings not
    made, or damages from the claims lodged by third parties against the
    indirect consequential losses, in particular not for the loss or
    production of recorded data.

    The observance of the respective licences and copyrights of the
    installed software is incumbent solely upon the user of YaST and
    S.u.S.E. Linux.

    5. Rights
    No other rights to YaST or to S.u.S.E. Linux are granted other than
    those negotiated in this licence. An infringement against this
    licence automatically terminates the rights of the Licensee. However
    the right of third parties who have received copies or rights under
    this licence from the Licensee, are not terminated as long as all
    parts of his licence are recognised and observed. If the Licensee
    is subject to conditions, or obligations as a result of a court
    judgement, patent terms, licence terms, or another reason, and these
    conditions or obligations contradict this licence as a whole or in
    part, the Licensee shall only be exempted in full or in part from
    this licence and its terms with the express prior written consent
    of S.u.S.E. S.u.S.E. is entitled to withhold its consent without
    giving reasons. 6. Additional restrictions.
    If the distribution or use of YaST and S.u.S.E. Linux or parts of
    S.u.S.E. Linux is restricted in a state either by patents or by
    interfaces protected by copyright, S.u.S.E. GmbH can specify an
    explicit geographic restriction of the distribution of YaST and
    S.u.S.E. Linux or parts of S.u.S.E. Linux, in which these states
    are fully or partially excluded from distribution. In such a case
    this licence includes the whole or partial restriction as if it was
    written down in this licence.
  • Don't forget all the work that they sponsored on XFree86. They do contribute stuff back to the community.
  • The leader is written as if they are not already here !!! They have been selling Red Hat Linux over here for years. How can they move into a market that they are already one of the leaders in ?
  • Why would anyone install ISDN? At least in Sweden, it isnt cheaper than an ordinary modem, and its not even significantly faster. Pay even a low installation fee plus isdn router or card, for a 10-20% speed gain and no price gain (or use both channels and double your costs... woohoo), with a technology thats virtually dead because its window of opportunity has been completely squandered by our dear internet wannabe telcos? No thankyou. Ill go for ADSL or cable or something that may actually make a difference on both.
  • Just a few fundamental points here...
    1. Competiton is good
      Simply put, it breeds a better product. S.u.S.e. has enough of a user base in the E.U. that it will not be erased by RedHat. In order to compete with RedHat, S.u.S.e will likely become more open and "developer-friendly". In order to compete with S.u.S.e., RedHat will likely become more solid.
    2. Growth
      No, not good, necessary for a business to survive in the computer industry.
    3. World Domination and Microsoft
      This notion is somewhere between silly and ridiculous. RedHat and Microsoft are both experiencing success and profit, similarities end there. Where MS uses its weight to develop closed "standards" and thwart independance, RH is doing the opposite.
  • Red Hat has a history of publishing source, heeding free software licenses, and being nice to the developer community.

    And, to be fair, SuSE hasn't been as well known for doing this. In particular, YaST (a major component of SuSE) has a commercial license, which leaves the rest of SuSE, basically, commercially licensed.

    RedHat has a tendency to release what they've done under the GPL instead. (such as RPM) Heck, SuSE uses RPM, as well. In that way, RedHat has already helped SuSE out by releasing their work under the GPL.
  • It's linux world dominations. And yes, anything good that happens to RH would be automatically inheritied by Linux. Forget that not sweet geeks.
    --
  • That redhat establishes itself in europe is great for the entire linux community.

    Here in Norway, most people I know use either redhat or slackware (a few people use suse and debian, but that isn't many).

    Multiple choices is a great thing...
  • Redhat crypto is a different product from Redhat Linux. They already do this and redhats crypto stuff is freely available on non us mirrors. ssh and others are non us products to begin with so they were imported into the US..not the other way around.
  • This expansion is logical and necessary move for Red Hat and they're welcome on the European mainland. Attention to local language support in the software itself and in the helpdesk facilities is still a must over here if RH is to grow.

    Suse's dominance is often trumpeted but Red Hat certainly has its share of fans too. I don't think we need anybody to be claiming anything as their turf. Suse can defend itself on technical merit or with marketing just like everyone else. In some ways they appear to be aiming more for the desktop where RH is more of a server thing. It's nice to have a choice. Of course, they both consist of mostly the same software anyhow and can both be made to do most things quite easily.

    They could well coexist. Or we could all be switching to Mandrake next. We'll just have to see what happens. Me, I honestly wouldn't mind if everyone would just use one Linux distribution, or at least all the novice users, it would make support and identifying and getting rid of common problems easier for sure. Choice is good, chaos can be disruptive.

  • Suse sells in europe and north america, so why can't RedHat? This only help's linux.
  • I fail to see how this could be bad on any front. Competition forces both parties involved to make their product better in order to edge out the opposition. This helps linux grow as both suse and rh will develop new things for linux. MS stifles innovation by eliminating competition. We don't want to go down that road.

    -Dan
  • Who told you? ;) Seriously, my mother *was* in the Army in WWII (journalist for Stars & Stripes) and she always claimed she once smoked a cigar with Gen. G.S. Patton Jr. in Sicily "to be polite" while she was interviewing him.

    Now everybody moderate this into oblivion, okay? ;-0

    - robin

  • IF SuSE would get off their duff and include the "freely available source code into the distrib"

    I don't understand. Which source code don't they include (aside from the commercial stuff, where they're not allowed to)? The sources for every program in the distribution are in Series zq.

    Chris
  • Actually, this is story is outdated by a few weeks, (don't remember the url though) but IMHO this is a good thing. First off, I personally run SuSE at home, but at work we do the RH thing, mainly due to our Raid controllers. IF SuSE would get off their duff and include the "freely available source code into the distrib" then I wouldn't have a problem. Email response yet to come after 1.5 months, btw. Security patches for SuSE seem to lack, and definately package updates are WAY behind RH.

    Possibly SuSE will read this and fix these minor, but yet important issues. (along with RH btw)

  • At least in Sweden, it isnt cheaper than an ordinary modem

    An ISDN card/adaptor is not a modem, ordinary or otherwise. Since the whole communication path is digital there's no need to modulate and demodulate.

    and its not even significantly faster.

    I suspect this is an issue with your ISP. When I switched, I noticed a drastic decrease in the time to establish a connection, as well as a far larger number of connections established on the first try. This led me to lower the idle timeout to a couple of minutes, since I don't have to wait through a sometimes 5-second modem handshake (of course, this might be an issue with my ISP) to get back online. This saves me money.

    As for throughput, It's hard for me to judge, since I had a 33.6 Modem before; nevertheless, my subjective impression is that the speed is more constant than with a modem (fewer dropped packets?).

    No thankyou. Ill go for ADSL or cable or something that may actually make a difference on both.

    Still waiting for either of those to be available here (Munich, Germany).

    Chris
  • Do you really want to keep a 70 year old technology, with mediocre performance, when you can get faster speed, instant connection time (1.5 sec), caller ID, and a spare line for incoming calls for nearly the same price ? What is your point ?

    Sure, I would love to have an ASDL connection, but that is not an option where I live. And sure, ISDN is not revolutionary in performance, but it is significantly better at nearly the same price. The choice between an ordinary telephone line and an ISDN connection is a nobrainer.

    Just my 1 kr

  • Turbo Linux started as a fork of the Red Hat distribution, much as Mandrake and so many others have done since. In other words, Red Hat do not 'assimilate' like the Borg, they *disseminate* to any and all who want to make use of their work.

    Those who would promote their preferred distribution by ineptly riduculing another do a disservice to both.
    ---------------------
  • This is an interesting point, and perhaps it was a motivating factor behind Red Hat's pre-IPO offers to Linux developers. The more 'owners' they could gather who were knowledgable and sympathetic to Free/Open software, the less likely they could be subject to 'owners' who would demand a maximum-growth-and-profit-or-we'll-sue-you-to-deat h approach.

    I'm more optimistic about SuSE, though, I think they'll survive this little "invasion" just fine... :-)
    ---------------------
  • rhat needs the asian market more than the europe market. check out the size of the asian population! this is where I want rhat, SuSE rules and is doing a great job in europe as of now, I hope rhat doesn't try in any form to strangle SuSE, because they are on the same team, not competitors but rather teammates, the competitor is microsoft, I hope they don't forget this.


  • In my experience there's no point in talking
    about 'Europe'. There isn't a single market
    here at all. In Germany (where ISDN is massive) SuSe is the lead distro. But I'd say RH are in
    1st place in Ireland(where I'm from) and in Holland (where I work).

    different cultures = different distros

    my 0.02 euros
    -Ciaran

  • this link here : http://www.theregister.co.uk/991006-000024.html shows that they may be trying to venture out into becoming a web portal.

    Portals are without a doubt a good way to generate revenue (aka www.linux.com -- my fav 'portal' so far if slashdot is not a portal ;) ), yet they also seem to be a sort of 'old school' vision (as far as internet time goes).

    One would hope that Redhat will find some new and insightful ways of using its new found wealth, that helps us feel confident of their new found power. For example, yesterday there was a buzz here with regards to the microsoft linux myth debunking, that RedHat should be fighting back for the community. I agree with that, and would hope that any portal plans RedHat has can be used to offset the FUD spinners attacks at the same level that Microsoft can.

    They have the power now...

    --spare karma anyone?

  • Well of course RedHat is expanding into Europe. This is something Bob Young explicity said he wanted to do with the IPO bucks: expand into the international market.

    Frankly, this just makes sense. Linux has had a strong history of being an international effort. Linus, Alan Cox, etc etc etc. There's lots of users in Europe (and lots in Japan too, I might add.) Look for Redhat to expand there in the coming months.

    So what does this mean for RedHat? Look for an increased prescence in Europe (read: ads, offices, new hires), as well as increased international features in the distribution. Support packages worldwide will also be stepped up and enhanced if RedHat is sensible. Their current support model is terrible, IMO. Perhaps moving to new markets will lead them to streamline and refine it.

    What does it mean for Linux? Obviously, more users, and thus more bugs get fixed, more apps get written, and the usual benefits of increased market share will result. Increased acceptance in Europe can only be good for Linux on the whole.

    In short, I applaud RedHat for moving forward. This is what commercialization of Linux is good for: moving things forward in ways the community alone cannot, or not at least not rapidly enough. The next few months will be exciting indeed.
  • Europe is known for nobody wanting to pay for software. If Mandrake does any decent advertising, they will blow Red Hat away by a bigger margin than in the US, due to pricing.

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