Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Red Hat Software Businesses

Red Hat/Corel Takeover Rumors 200

Posted by CmdrTaco from the swallow-this dept.
zDooder writes "According to Yahoo Finance, rumors are flying on Wall Street about RedHat buying out Corel. " Corel's stock has been all over the place as a result (Discloser:I own some Corel stock). It's definitely an interesting match. Corel's distribution is based on Debian, and Word Perfect is a decidedly closed source product. I'm not putting a lot of weight in this one, but I've heard stranger rumors so who knows.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Red Hat/Corel Takeover Rumors More

Red Hat/Corel Takeover Rumors

Comments Filter:
  • Well, MS could steal it...but at the same time it would be open-sourced and open to all of us, as well. The result would not be surprising:

    A) MS would just mess it up and release an inferior product.

    B) The Open-Source Movement would provide a better product, assuming there's interest in Corel Draw and WP for non-Linux amongst Open-Source contributors out there. It's also possible it would be ported to other OS's like BeOS and help those OS's gain a foothold (we all know, painfully, that availability of apps make or break an OS).

    C) 90% of desktop computer users out there would buy the inferior product because they are chained to MS's OS and believe that they have the best there is to offer. Bill Gates is a genius, after all...right? (don't step in my dripping sarcasm)

    D) Us Nerds would continue on our merry way and nothing would be any different...we'd have good software...that, in some cases, is too difficult for the novice to configure...and continue to stick our noses up at the technologically-challenged and the MS-centric.

    I would hope that Red Hat (and other Open-Source co's/orgs out there) would see this as an opportunity to provide software that is user-friendly enough to appeal to the novice while maintaining its technological superiority...and seize this opportunity without falling into the same traps as MS.
  • Although all their products continue to be free (GPL), I don't see why RedHat wouldn't, at some point in the future, declare Sendmail and GCC to be some RHPL (RedHat Public License), which is almost, but not quite, compatible with the GPL and the Open Source spirit... then what will happen to Open Source as we know it today?

    Not to worry, my friend... Open Source will live happily ever after just by grabbing the last gpl distro and starting it's own Eyes Wide Open Linux, carrying all the previous benefits from the famous distro. Fewer people would buy Red Hat CD's, and ultimately they either will have been taught a lesson and become good boys again [but with a very low image], or go bankrupt.

    I am not afraid of any would-be-Microsfot-linux-distro... that is FUD thrown from the inside into opensource movement. It's not a monopoly which is bad, it's abusive monopolies (personal opinion, I simply agree with what's on the pulpit) we should care about.

    If buying Corel would mean its tools GPL'ed. well, as far as I see it, they can damned well be bought, for all I care :)

    hugs
  • The linux *kernel* has been, and always will be, free software. So will all other GPL'ed software. The inherent nature of GPL'ed software removes users from *any* ties to corporate monstrosities.

    No one is obligated to get linux from any one company, or ftp server, or whatever. That is the strength of linux. Successfull companies can package popular distributions of linux, but no one says that you have to use any particular distribution.

    It is impossible for a monopoly to form on the basis of free software. There will never be any "free software microsofts".

    And business should not have any major effect on linux's evolution. There are many people working on linux that 'believe in the holy Right Way' (myself being one of them). They will balk at any corporate attempts to 'pollute' the 'spirit' of linux.
  • I don't believe Starwriter or Wordperfect has any level of grammar checking. This feature of Word is not perfect of course, but hopefully it will keep evolving, and it is already somewhat useful. - dara
  • Um..., you forgot a ; after can_read_source()
    Yes, I can read the source.

    #include

    int main()
    {
    int retval;
    #ifdef __LINUX__
    printf("Yes!! A real operating system!\n");
    retval=0;
    #else
    printf("I puke at thee!!\n");
    retval=1;
    #endif
    do {
    ;;
    } while(1); /* Linux will do this in 10 seconds*/
    return(retval); /* remember -- 0 means success */
    }
  • Support. Corel already has a massive support base for Wordperfect Suite. RedHat has been struggling with support for awhile. Sure, their promises of fulltime tech support doesn't cut it. If RHAT were to buy Corel, then they would also gain a fully operational support center for all of their needs.

    Dyslexic.
  • I dunno about all these RH dealings lately.
    I guess I'm just paranoid, but RH thinking about buying up all these dists seems like they want to try and gain exclusive control.
    It just seems weird to me I guess, but what do I know about RHs corporate strategy?
  • Swap in filespace?? Yuk! But I guess 386s don't tend to have big hard drives....

    But seriously. Red Hat has brought a lot of new people to use Linux that simply wouldn't understand the screwy Debian or Slack install program, let alone know where to get it. Once they know what Linux is and does (learned on Red Hat) they'll likely move to something else like the Debian or Slack or SuSE. And if they don't switch? Who cares. We've another convert.... Isn't that the point?


  • Assuming that RedHat actually buys Corel (which I think is extremely unlikely), I doubt they'd ever open-source any of Corel's products such as WPOffice or Draw etc. The only reason I can see RH buying Corel is because they feel Corel is a good investment; open-sourcing the only things Corel is really making money from just wouldn't make good business sense for them.

    What I can see, though, is RedHat pushing further development of Corel's apps on the Linux desktop, including their integration into GNOME or possibly KDE. This will probably happen anyways, though, regardless of whether RedHat buys Corel or not. The only thing I am pretty sure of is that this would be the end of the Corel Linux distro.

    -cr

  • Re:I hope not (Score:3)

    by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @01:44PM (#1495524)
    If this is true, then it looks as if Redhat's strategy is the archetypal `buy up lots of small companies to boost the CEO's ego'.

    I disagree. Cygnus made sense since they're the gcc maintainers and the kernel is definitely written in GNU C, not ANSI C! They also may help RedHat support embedded Linux. Given their (IMO) massively inflated stock price, any stock based aquisition of slightly more tangiable assets makes sense, really! The allure of Corel could be the applications and distribution network, with the shareholder bonus of eliminating a potential Linux stock market distraction.

    I hope it isn't true. Any ideas as to what started the rumour?

    Even if it might make some sense, I tend to think this is probably just an unfounded rumour. Rather than causing the Corel stock price run-up, it might well be a based in people looking for a reason for the run-up, which is more likely that they got caught up in RHAT's slipstream!

  • Bloody 'ell. (Score:3)

    by Ian Schmidt ( 6899 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @01:46PM (#1495525)
    "What if they declare Sendmail and GCC to be some RHPL"?

    Then those projects will fork from the last GPL version, likely with funding from SuSE/TurboLinux/VA Linux/other distros. This has already happened with SSH, and there's no reason it couldn't for other stuff too.

    Redhat still has the best record of any non-Debian distro on open source. *Every* component of a Redhat distro that Redhat develops themselves is GPL. Not any funny weird licence, real live RMS-tested-mother-approved GPL. I'll take a record like that over "but they COULD become evil" nonsense any day.

    "Why don't they just stick to providing services"

    Because big companies (and I work at one so I know how they think) will feel better about paying Redhat for service contracts if they know RH is associated with at least some key developer(s) of those programs. Let's face it, if you experience a kernel problem and you have a service contract with Redhat, they can have top kernel gurus like Alan Cox and Ingo Molnar take a look at it for you. That's powerful.

    Compare this with the Linux service contracts being offered by companies like SCO. Not only do they not have any Linux developers, their main business is a competing product! Given the choice between them and Redhat I know which company's service contract wouldn't make me fear losing my job.

  • I thought someone already addressed this, that redhat offered and corel flat out refused.

  • I'll wait to see (Score:4)

    by pos ( 59949 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @01:51PM (#1495527)
    I doubt they will buy Corel but it makes me think of a good thing coming from all of the Red Hoopla lately. Perhaps one of the bast ways to get lots of GPL code is simply to buy it. I know that perhaps WP isn't the best code in the world but i am sure that someone could benefit from at least seeing it. If you view code writing to be largely like a tree growing (code branching and such), then a GPL lisence takes over that whole branch. A purchase of code and a release under the GPL effectively makes the whole branch GPL. I tend to view the coding world as more linear than your average tree (rope-like perhaps) with new strands of code being woven in and out of the application. But, GPL code can't be woven in without a GPL lisence.

    Now I wonder, what if a large linux driven company could purchase/write a lot of code and GPL it. What would the computer industry look like/how would it work in an all/mostly GPL world. would there be more computer jobs available? less?

    I have my ideas but I would like to know what the rest of /. thinks too.

    perhaps it would start another "red" scare in the traditional business world ;)

    -pos


    The truth is more important than the facts.
  • Okay.. hopefully we have some programmers here who can deal with this many nested if statements, but here goes..

    If Redhat buys Corel
    and If Redhat releases a 18+ distribution
    and If it is the first blue moon of February
    which lands on a Tuesday (okay forget the
    last if) :)

    Then don't you agree that any Microsoft Windows product should be for ages infinity+. Since infinity is a theoretical mathematical statement and does not exist as a real number, we can infer that Windows is suited for no one. Quite right. Seriously, how frustrating is it to try and get work done when all you get is an invalid page fault here and a blue screen there? Hardly an environment for children, let alone anyone else in the free world.

    Robert J. Casey Jr.
  • Using your site to spread rumors about a company you own stock in? Have you no shame? :P
  • well, somehow i don't think this is very likely. corel [corel.com] has way too many "other" interests that would turn off red hat.

    a) windows software
    b) macintosh software
    c) old support contracts

    that said, there are some interesting aspects of a corel [corel.com] buy (namely the hardware connections, the expertise, and the two distribution questions). more important, though, is that corel [corel.com] doesn't even make as much sense as other companies for a possible office suite for linux. a company with more focus seems to be a much better option. what about abisource [abisource.com]? what about applix [applix.com]? seems that if red hat [redhat.com] bought applix, gpl'd it, gtk'd it, and gnome-ified it that would make much more sense.

    as for red hat [redhat.com] buying everyone and everything rumors, red hat is starting to have enough money to screw up. it was fine when they could only afford blunders. it seems now, though, that they can afford disasters as well. tread lightly mr. young (and don't even think about cray)!

  • Earlier today, this article on Slashdot [slashdot.org] talks about their financial involvment with Sendmail [sendmail.org] and the Mozilla Project [mozilla.org], and the previous rumors about the acquisition of Cygnus [slashdot.org] turned out to be true.

    Red Hat should save themselves a little bit of cash and make an investment into TrollTech and/or KDE instead. If Qt were GPL'd, there would no longer be any justification for using the less sophisticated GNOME over KDE for "philosophical reasons". KOffice would reign, and the savings could be applied toward the bottom line. "Red Hat in the black" (like SuSE) is a headline that has great appeal to serious stockholders.

    Steam wears off quickly -- Netscape^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAOL is now taking handouts from Red Hat to keep Mozilla going, just a few short years after that promising IPO. WordPerfect (on its own) has already proven to be an unwise move, and their Windows and Mac software is just excess baggage. Those users won't switch to Linux, they'll switch to Macromedia/Adobe/Microsoft/et al. Novell sure couldn't leverage the WordPerfect name, I don't think the fedora is gonna sell many more copies...

  • This is just plain FUD. If the GPL were invalid, nobody but the original copyright holders of code released under the GPL would have the right to copy it. Most of GPL'd code in RedHat's distribution is (a) the Linux kernel, copyright by Linus and countless other individuals, and (b) the various GNU stuff, copyright by the FSF.

    So...how would RedHat come out as the "owners of the buildings after the neutron bomb"? Buy the FSF? I think not.

    People seem to associate RedHat and Microsoft because both have name recognition and money. However, they miss the crucial difference. RedHat owns well under 10% of the stuff in their distribution!

  • ADA Core Technologies and CYGNUS would make RedHat very stong in the embedded arena where costumers likes to pay big money for first grade service.

    In my opinion buying a GNAT company looks like the next logical step for RedHat. Together with Cygnus a Gnat company could develop and support ADA for the military and aviation business more efficiently.

    This would make real money and also make Linux the platform for developing all kind of embedded systems from TV sets to FLIGHT CONTROL systems in commercial airliners.

    In such a scenario RedHat would get virtually no competition at all. This niche are allready filled with Linux friendly techies that have zero buying resistance.


  • Are there any rumors about who Red Hat isn't buying?
  • So much for UNIX fragmenting, eh?
  • Maybe we now get a redhat-kids edition and a redhat 18+ edition..
  • How about redhat-hotwheels and redhat-barbie?

    We can call the 18+ version "pornhat". Oh wait, that's what most redhat distributions are already..
  • If this is true, then it looks as if Redhat's strategy is the
    archetypal `buy up lots of small companies to boost the CEO's ego'.

    I hope it isn't true. Any ideas as to what started the rumour?

  • There's nothing inherently evil in one company buying another, you know. It generally makes the owners of the buyee very rich and happy, and it saves the buyer the expense of creating an identical product and bringing it to market.

    Would you believe that microsoft didn't invent the concept? That companies do it all the time today, and it makes good business sense, and it's not monopolistic?

    If redhat can buy other companies to help them boost revenue, then I say more power to 'em.
  • Most of Cygnus's business was in embedded operating systems, and compilers.

    Red Hat's business was in packaging, and support, of 3rd party software.

    Most of Corel's business is in proprietary software sales.

    However, given proper management, this kind of acquisition mania is good for the RHAT shareholders, as it protects them from a slowdown in any one field, because the other fields will help keep Red Hat in the black (or from further losses).

    Whether this is good for consumers, or a good strategy given Red Hat's management, I personally can't say.
  • Redhat is buying Debian but the Debian constitution requires three motions to vote from four separate mailing lists followed by a period of discussion on the wording of the proposal to consider a proposal. The results are then tabulated using two thirds of the proof from Fermat's last theorem. Given the average life span of a human and the rate of admission to Debian all the developers will be dead by then.

    For the humor impaired, none of the above is true.
  • Since when have linux advocates been in to "satisfying 90% of the people is good enough"? Do you guys consider yourselves part of that 90%, or are you the 10% that always wants more more more out of your kernel, USB, SMP, WINE, more features more functionality more stability?
  • Wow, and I thought Pac Man was Dead! Wonder how many distros are in Redhat's path...
  • maybe if redhat bought corel then they could finally get corel's licensing straight for once...

    "The importance of using technology in the right way has never been more clear." [microsoft.com]

  • Maybe not a bad thing. (Score:5)

    by Cacophony ( 16125 ) <ajd@ajdtech.net> on Monday November 29, 1999 @01:21PM (#1495551) Homepage
    If RedHat buys Corel we should get Open Source WordPerfect Suite. This could really kill MS Office. A good well known office suite that's free! Why would anyone buy MS Office for some $500 or so.

    I have one question then. Which distribution do you keep or do you distribute both? Two distrubutions from one company sounds dumb to me.

    Another good thing... RH and Corel and have been two of the biggest helps to get linux to the masses, putting there heads together couldn't be a bad thing.

    -Al-
  • could be interesting if wordperfect is open-sourced... it used to be one of the *major* word processors in the age of dos. I think that the linux version of it now sucks, but with a little bit of work and perhaps a cute, talking stapler that pops up at all the right moments to aid you in all of your word processing needs, and you have a spifftacular word processor to kill MS Office with!

    --
    David
    supreme commander of the anti-authority club
  • Incidentally (and a little off-topic), Corels Linux site [corel.com] got the /. effect only a few minutes after the story "broke" here.
    * Paul Madley ...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
  • Seriously -

    Is there anything that individual developers could do 2 years ago with Linux that they can't do now?

    Yes, money will flow, and suits will get what they want, but how does that change the fundamental development environment for Linux? I'd argue that it's a superset of what it once was. Everything that used to be there still is, and there's a bunch of extra business stuff getting tacked on - take it or leave it.
    ----
  • CNBC ran the rumor earlier today. They later said both corl and rhat denied there are any talks. Put this one under urban legend.

    -taj-

  • SGI (Score:4)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @02:03PM (#1495556) Homepage
    Not a rumor, more of a suggestion -- Red Hat should buy SGI, not Corel. It'd fit better with the operating-system-technology thing. SGI has a lot of cool stuff (even if they haven't been doing so well as a company lately) and they're already putting a lot into Linux. Red Hat buying them would complete the transformation.

    --

  • Ok, slashdot posts news that's relevant to what we discuss here (Linux, Star Wars, whatever). I seriously don't think that there are enough investors reading slashdot to raise Rob's shares more than a few cents. Don't forget that this story was a Reuters news article first, which is a far larger venue than slashdot. Do you question whether anyone who is affiliated with Reuters and/or any site that carries Reuters news owns Corel stock?

    -mike kania
  • It is still a Windows desktop world, so why shouldn't they capitalize on it to the benefit
    Linux developemnt? And if the sales of Windows software will help fund development and/or make RH profitable, I think its a good move. And there are several Linux developed packages that will now run on Windows NT. No matter your views on NT, it is a virtually untapped market. RH would make a good single point of contact to represent this to the corporate world simply because they DO have their foot in the door as few others do at this time.

    If RH doesn't move sharp, they'll fall on their face. They should use their market capitalization to full advantage while they can. Wall Street honeymoons are starting to sync on Internet time....

    We must also consider the PR fallout that Linux and the Linux community would get if Red Hat does fail. It would not leave a good impression on Wall Street or on the Corporations that are considering Linux solutions.

    If Linux is going to make a go of enticing the corporate world, someone has to think like the corporate world. Something I'm not sure the community is ready for, and something that will make or break Linux's success in the arena.

    I think RH is doing the best they can in uncharted waters. We should give them the benefit of the doubt.
  • Ok maybe this is off topic but there seems to be much discussion of what RedHat (read: Linux) neads to do to improve there package (read: Operating Syatem) Sevral posters have advocated buying Corel in order to try to provide an Office Suit for linux. The SGI suggests (I think) that they could provide better "operating-system-technology" Many of the posts in responce to this one sugested other companies.

    I confess I use windows98 for most of my day to day operations. And ocasionaly log into my Linux box. (The poor Linux server doesn't even have a screen) For me to switch I think I would need the following:
    1) Better (read: easier) printer support
    2) An Office suit which read (at least to start) all my/everyone elses old .doc files
    3) More programs! esp. Vidio Games (don't tell the profs)
    4) Better Documentation. (HOWTO style) I didn't even know Un*x existed until I got to college so I still don't know the lingo very well. To get people who are used to Win98 to switch successfully may take some doing.

    But this is just me. I would like to know what /.ers think Linux needs to be accepted "By The Masses"? Are these the same types of things that /.ers themselves want?

    I will be intersed to see the responce.

    JFMiller (Member in good standing of The Unwashed Masses)
  • if WordPerfect Suite were FREE, then all the people who started with good old WordPerfect in the 80's would (hopefully) convert,

    This assumes MS Office is the premier office suite because of price pressure. Since it's the most expensive office suite, and still the best selling, I don't see why making WP free would help all that much (although assuredly it would help a little).

  • By spreading these lies and absurd paranoid ramblings, you're hurting the free software movement. Think about those people who came to slashdot to learn more about Linux and free software; they will read articles like yours and think:

    They're nuts!

    --

  • I am starting to wonder if comments like yours aren't from some heavy Micro$oft PR people out there banking on ...

    --

  • If RedHat buys Corel we should get Open Source WordPerfect Suite. This could really kill MS Office. A good well known office suite that's free! Why would anyone buy MS Office for some $500 or so.
    Sadly, for the same reason WPOffice sales are a mere fraction of M$Office: the network effect. If you friends, neighbors, colleagues, clients, etc all have M$ OfficePark, then you will too if only for reasons of being able to easily exchange files. Sad, but true.

    Castles used to be largely effective at keeping out barbarians. Let's call that the "castle effect". Then gunpowder was invented. Wow! Look at all that rubble! That's the "gunpowder effect" :-)

    My take on it is that, while Microsoft still has a mighty fine castle, we've got a lot more gunpowder - freeness, reliably, flexibility, constant improvements - and unlike Microsoft, our powder isn't wet.

    As somebody else said, we have to play and win the game of file format tag. We also have to take the high ground: do all our own native formats in zipped XML. I think Abiword [abisource.com] already does this. Make sure it's good, intelligent XML, and Corel will adopt it too. Work towards the goal of complete file format interoperability across all "open" word processors. Pretty soon, Joe Average will be pressuring Microsoft to support our format. Then we've won, please pass the grog.
  • well corel used debian with their approval so i guess there are exceptions to every rule

  • Re:KDE sucks (not a flame). (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry to spoil your party, but GNOME's feel isn't at all themable. The way menus are handled is far too rigid (so you can't for example, have them displayed NeXT, MacOS or Win98 style without modifying apps). (not that KDE can either -- both have a long way to go...)
  • From a stock board: "KDE isn't a ticker symbol. What company makes it? Is it public yet?"

    Is this for real? If so where did you hear/read that?

    Chris

  • Moderate this down!

    Just buying Sendmail & Cygnus does not give Redhat the copyright to the work, becuase it has contributions from other (non-employee) people. If the don't own the work, they can't change the copyright.

    It's as simple as that.

    --Donate food by clicking: www.thehungersite.com [thehungersite.com]

  • on the topic of Corel's 18+ distro..I thought I'd throw this link out for you all (if you haven't seen it already)..

    last sunday's user friendly [userfriendly.org]
  • the number 1 critical criterion necessary for any challenger to unseat MS Office as the #1 Office Suite is going to have to be, playing and beating Microsoft at "file-format tag".

    I don't care if you're Office Suite is 5k, you pay each customer $1000 to load it on their machine, and it has a telepathic user interface. If it can't open and save in .doc and .xls, it will not win.

    I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
  • According to the Red-Hat Wealth Monitor [prosthetic-monkey.com], there are few companies RedHat can't afford to buy these days.
  • heh, that WordPerfect feather was a LOT more expensive when Novell bought them.

    I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
  • Hi,


    There was that ambitious hardware project of a Linux-only computer by Corel. I recall that it was later made an independent company from Corel.

    Anyway, what happened to the device? Is it successful?

    ------------------
  • Yeah.

    Until then, all that is needed is for Red Hat to start acting remotely like Microsoft. As it is, they've been 100% positive to the open-source community (barring buggy software, but even that is subjective).

    Without Red Hat, open-source software wouldn't have ever grown past the dippy hippy free sex and code image it has had in the past. Because of Red Hat (and others who make Linux viable for the average person), Linux can and will thrive.

    If you have a problem with it, well, let us know what exactly Red Hat has done other than be successful.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • Take a look at the November 28th User Friendly [userfriendly.org]. It's hilarious...obviously the creator reads /.
  • We need Corel because we need diversity in the market. On their own, Corel will provide us with a useful and different product. If Red hat buy them out, why would they bother to fund two competing but essentially similar development efforts?

    I'd much rather see Corel and Red Hat competing against each other. This looks like a monopoly in the making.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • What feature do you want in StarOffice or WordPerfect suite that isn't there?

    Dunno about Star but the only thing WP laks is a "track changes" feature a la ms word.

    OTOH i think wp needs (for it to succeed in ms strongholds i.e. the windows platform) to be able to read/write ms word .doc files. I know it does some but lets be frank it need to be alot better at it.
  • Wordperfect has Grammar as you go and Grammatik. Find it in the tools menu
  • you don't need the legal edition. Standard WP 8 has it too.
  • Now wouldn't that be funny. If you thought AOL and Netscape were bad, can you imagine the culture clash if Microsoft and Red Hat were to merge?
  • First off, I doubt very much that RedHat+Corel would open source all of Corel's software which brings in about $70Mil in profit a year. I do not think they would even open source Corel Office to hurt Microsoft with a free office suite, because StarOffice is already doing that, and IMHO is a better product. RedHat would want Corel to improve its distribution channel, have a better product for the average users desktop, and "buy" some enterprise experience.
  • It's now owned by rebel.com [rebel.com], which is now one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the Ottawa area... which is actually saying quite a lot. It really hasn't been widely marketed yet though, I don't think they have the manufacturing capacity. It's pretty much going to be stagnant until the company issues an IPO, which is highly anticipated. The NetWinder LC, though, which was a desktop verion, hasn't been released, which is disappointing for me... they've all been servers.
  • I don't honestly care if the Suite goes open source, though it'd be nice. I just want it to work.

    But wouldn't it be poetic justice to use $$ from the sale of the Windows version to fund the opensource or atleast free, Linux version? What a way to drive people to Linux (from Windows) and to RH's support phone lines (instead of MS's).


  • I am starting to wonder if there aren't some heavy RedHat investors out there banking on the GPL crumbling under the scrutiny of the courts.

    You're forgetting something. If that did happen, Redhat (and Linux in general) would suddenly be playing squarely under Microsoft's rules. We all know what happens to companies that do that. It's not an exaggeration to say that RH's entire business plan depends on the legal viability of the GPL, and indeed their S-1 filing prior to their IPO says as much. I greatly doubt that typical investors, if cognizent of licensing issues at all, have any such thoughts.
  • Everyone here seems to forget the old Adobe takeover rumor of Corel - their solution to it was to use a "poison pill" strategy (rearranging stock stuff, etc. to make it very expensive to buy them out). Undoubtedly RedHat is aware of this. Here's [cnet.com] an article which discusses it in greater detail.
  • Every time a Red Hat corporate takeover rumor comes along, it stirs up this big discussion about Red Hat, Linux, commercialism, etc., etc. Why?

    I can see why people might debate the pros and cons of this or that company as a prospective choice, but I don't see why the fact that Red Hat is looking at potential purchaces is such a hot discussion.

    This is what companies do. They aim to make money, generally by providing quality products and services. One excellent way to do that is to buy companies which mesh well with your own. The resulting whole is often greater then the sum of its parts.

    Red Hat is a company. Way back from the start, one of their slogans has been "Red Hat -- The Commercial Linux People". Since their IPO, they've had wads of cash, so now is the time to do it. It makes perfect sense.

    I cannot see why this is so often debated. Cause for discussion would be if Red Hat just sat there pumping out CDs without doing anything new.

    /SOAPBOX

  • Re:Maybe not a bad thing. (Score:3)

    by SoftwareJanitor ( 15983 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @04:25PM (#1495607)
    What feature do you want in StarOffice or WordPerfect suite that isn't there? Frankly for probably 95% of the people I know, they are more than feature packed enough. I keep hearing complaints that StarOffice or WordPerfect aren't full featured enough, but I never hear anyone give any details as to what they think is missing. MS-Office is just plain bloated overkill for most people, and too expensive to boot ($169 for the upgrade version of MS-Office versus $99 for WordPerfect Suite outright was the advertised CompUSA price in the paper this weekend).

  • There have also been rumors that Red Hat may try to buy out SCO. I never took them that seriously, because I don't think SCO's corporate culture is OpenSource compatible and I don't think that SCO has all that much to offer to Red Hat, but it could be possible. Probably the biggest obstacle would be the chunks of SCO owned by the Michels', Microsoft, and Novell.

  • They'll cancel everything except for the Windows port of Linux. :)
  • Maybe the mad hatters were upset about Corel choosing debian as a foundation rather than theirs. Maybe they wish to due very unkind things to Corel :-)

  • RH, Corel, and markets (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Normally I'm very calm about such rumors or events, since I believe that it's a normal, healthy part of the evolution of markets.

    But this one has me concerned. Not because it's RH, but because Corel is doing a very good job with their product in reaching a market (newcomers and the mainstream desktop in general) that RH hasn't done as well with. If RH buys Corel I think a big part of the rationale would be elimination of competition, not expansion of RH's capabilities. And reducing competition is almost always a Bad Thing.

  • satisfying 90% of the people is good enough

    That isn't what I was saying. What I should have said was that 95% of the people I know use less than 50% of the functionality of MS-Office, therefore it is overkill for most people.

    At any rate, the important thing is that the developers of StarOffice and WordPerfect Suite could do a better job of improving their product if people like you would just tell them some specific functionality items you want rather than vague, unspecific gripes.

    Do you guys consider yourselves part of that 90%, or are you the 10% that always wants more more more

    I don't want gratuitous features (bloat), better functionality is more important than more functionality (and there is a difference -- something Microsoft doesn't seem to grasp). More stability is indeed good, but not something that seems to be a problem with the Linux kernel.

    I personally don't have much of a need for Wine (because I don't have a commitment to legacy Windows API apps or developing for Windows), but I recognize its importance to other people. Corel, the makers of WordPerfect, not Microsoft have been the ones helping with Wine. If Microsoft wants to help with Wine, they are free to do so, but I will be shocked if that ever happens because protecting their monopoly seems to be more important to them than growing the acceptance of Win32.

  • I woke up this morning to turn on City TV (Toronto) to hear one of their news reporters's mentioned the rumors.

    "Its rumored that Red Hat may attempt a hostile take over of Corel. Corel made the first Linux operating system for laptop Computers"

    Ignorance is funny some mornings :P

    Fr05t
  • Then you don't need MS Office.

    You are correct, and I haven't and won't buy it.

    Buy MS-Works which is a lot cheapier.

    No thanks, even if it ran on Linux, StarOffice is still much cheaper than MS-Works.

    Or simply use Wordpad.

    Again, it doesn't run under Linux, and there are plenty of free alternatives with similar or better feature sets. Also Wordpad doesn't include a spreadsheet or the other tools in something like StarOffice.

  • This won't happen.
    Many people at Red Hat (especially developers) hate Microsoft, and wouldn't work with them.
    If Microsoft managed to buy all Red Hat stock (which is purely theoretical, since only a small part of Red Hat was IPO'd) and take control of Red Hat, we'd see a number of (all?) developers leaving and founding their own company, building a new distribution based on the latest Red Hat Linux.
  • Somewhere down the road these companies need to make some coin. WP is a product that can do that. RH could still give out the stripped down version for free but continue to charge for the full blown kit. Enough people are sick of windowsX crashing while they are in the middle of their work that they will try anything.

    Thanksgiving dinner: Cousin Linda sits across the table from me. I tell her about Linux. She complains about Windows 98 crashing on her while trying to edit some graphics. I offer her a Free copy of Linux-Mandrake and assistance installing it. She gets excited and starts to beg for help - pulling out her business card faster than I can wipe the dressing off my lip. I mailed the disk yesterday with a note pointing to the web page and suggesting some books (McMillan et al). When she calls me I will help her get it installed and connected to the web. And she will be just as happy the rest of my New Linux Converts (NLCs) (tm).

    Cheers to the new millenium and the new technology order!
    Dan
  • Can someone pls tell me what the hell RH is doing? I'm not saying it is a bad move or not (if the rumours turn out true), but does anyone know what road RH is following? Don't they earn enough? Do they wanna compete with MS on their own front? Do they plan to take over the world? Or could it be that they just want to let us all guessing what RH is up to (that seems to work allright!).
  • Office is more than just a suite of business tools now days, it's also a development tool, there's a hell of a lot of office developers out there now, whether it's writing Access databases or word/outlook plugins.
  • Is there going to be any money left after Redhat buys up the rights of Mozilla from AOL?
  • ...it's disclosure not discloser! But I hope you make a ton of money :-)
  • I started those Rumors myself. Check out this posting [slashdot.org] from a while ago.

    I didn't mean to and as you can see from the way I state it I had no information at all.

  • It's kinda funny, at least to me anyway. When I got my first computer in 1992, I picked up a copy of WordPerfect 5.x for Windows 3.1, which was put out by the Wordperfect Corporation (as I recall).

    I later upgraded to version 6.0, which had Novell written all over disks - Wordperfect Corp. had been bought out.

    Later, when I upgraded to to Windows 95, I picked up Wordperfect 7, which had "Corel" printed all over the CD-ROM.

    Next, I switched over to Linux and now have Wordperfect 8 installed on it.

    And now maybe when I get Wordperfect 2000 (or whatever) it may be from RedHat's download site?

    How times change...

    --Cycon

    "The Human Genome Project: Open Sourcing the Human Race since 1990" --Steve Castellotti
  • If it isn't rumours that Novell, IBM, or Sun is going to buy Corel, then it is vaporware promises of WordPerfect Office for Java. Bottom line: Read the financial statements, not the press releases.
    Not to nitpick, but there was at least a beta of WordPerfect Office for Java. My friend was testing the German version. I didn't get to see a lot of it, but it did look complete and relatively fast.
  • >thing I am pretty sure of is that this would be the end of the Corel Linux distro.


    Not necessarily, they could leverage the market for people who want RedHat/Gnome and/or Debian/KDE. No matter what kind of Linux distro you are looking for they make money off it. It would be a good insurance policy. If any one of those components becomes unpopular they could shift development to annother, already completed component.
  • I would think the Mozilla debacle would have put this kind of wishful thinking to rest.
    Since when does Mozilla constitute a "debacle"? Looks to me like it's on track to produce a fine product. Particularly it it gets the extra backing alluded to here [zdnet.com].

    (Spo iler: Red Hat is apparently planning to invest in both the Mozilla project and Sendmail.)

    Zontar The Mindless,

  • If RedHat buys Corel we should get Open Source WordPerfect Suite. This could really kill MS Office. A good well known office suite that's free! Why would anyone buy MS Office for some $500 or so.

    Sadly, for the same reason WPOffice sales are a mere fraction of M$Office: the network effect. If you friends, neighbors, colleagues, clients, etc all have M$ OfficePark, then you will too if only for reasons of being able to easily exchange files. Sad, but true.



  • Re:Corel Takeover - And Bob's Your Uncle! (Score:3)

    by Zoltar ( 24850 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @05:12PM (#1495637)
    Ha! The voice of reason finally shines through.

    My broker calls this the old "Pump and dump." People start rumors to inflate the stock then unload after it peaks. The internet has been a great tool for that. Remember the big run on Iomega a few years ago. The whole motley fool crowd had fun with that and a bunch of people lost money; while a bunch of the early adopters made a ton. Be very very carefull when you hear rumors like this with no foudation.

  • #include <stdio.h>
    main()
    {
    if can_read_source()
    printf("I can!!\n");
    }

    I can!!
  • I hear from very good sources that RedHat will not be buying the following companies:

    Sears, Roebuck and Co.
    McDonalds
    Pfizer
    General Electric
    General Motors
    Commonwealth Edison
    National Semiconductor


    Well, you asked for it...
  • I think this is highly unlikely. Corel's business in about 2% Linux and 98% software for Windows. There is no fit here at all.


  • It looks to me that Rob is using Slashdot raise his stock's value. Corel has been stuck with such rumors since the day Microsoft has monopolised the Office software space. It used to be rumors about Adobe buying Corel and now Red Hat. I personnaly think it would be foolish for Corel to sell out to Red Hat. They own a LOT of the kind of applications that Linux users (especially the new generation) have been drooling over.

    Without music, life would be an error.
  • You are unethical to make such unsubstantiated accusations.

    These rumours are being bandied about on various USENET groups and other forums read by people who trade this and other stocks in lots of tens of thousands. Rob's reporting it on slashdot, in comparison, will have virtually no appreciable effect on the value of the stock (how many day traders and brokers do you think read this forum?), and it does qualify as "news for nerds" more than several stories posted here in the last few days, as CORL is not only a venerable software company, but one with an aggressive Linux strategy as well.

    The price climbed, fell, will climb again, will fall again, ad nauseum. The short term, intraday price is driven much more by day traders trying to make a quick buck than by technically savvy folks reading rumours on slashdot and running out to buy the stock at $27.00. In fact, those of us savvy enough to see the direction of the technology tide (toward open source OSes) got in on this early enough to not care what the day traders do to the intra-day stock price.

    Those wise enough to hang onto [insert favorite Linux stock here] over the long haul will make a killing. Yes, probably even those unfortunate enough to now own $27 shares of CORL. Of course, they are the most likely ones to panic and sell at $17, locking in a $10 loss, but then they have only themselves to blame. Trying to be Mr/Ms Day Trader Extrodinair is foolish even for the professionals -- the rest of us should stick with what we know, invest in companies we feel are viable for whatever underlying reasons we understand, and not gawk at the stock price every two minutes trying to outguess the professionals on when to buy and when to sell. Leave that to the professional traders -- at least they have a 50% chance of coming out winners, whcih is alot better than the rest of us do when we start trying to go up against them day trading.
  • Witb all the ipo money they have, Red Hat is going to buy up a couple more companies before they're done; normally, companies use ipo money to invest in fab plants or advertising, and neither is particularly relevant to linux at the moment, so they have to pour the money somewhere, and there's only so much money that can be burned internally. Corel, however, isn't the best choice, for reasons stated elsewhere.

    As for buying out Troll Tech and QT, Red Hat had better want to maintain QT under its current liscense or under a more open liscense, because of that certain clause [troll.no] that allows the KDE Free QT Foundation to release QT under a BSD liscense given the correct conditions.
  • Even when you consider the millions raised in the RedHat IPO, buying Corel just doesn't make that much sense. Red Hat can't make money by Open Sourcing Corel's products, and if RHAT didn't open source, then their reputation flies out the window. RHAT has a responsibility to the open source community as well as to its shareholders. Corel might fall to RHAT sometime in the future, but a buyout now would either be a huge financial mistake or a sellout for RHAT.

    And those who mentioned that RHAT may want Corel's install wizard... I have confidence that the boys down at Red Hat could conjure up something similar themselves, without shelling out millions to buy it.

    One final thought... buying out competitors sure doesn't leave much room for "Freedom to Innovate," pardon the phrase. If Red Hat buys Corel, I'm running Slackware.

    Socra.Meth.
  • I don't think that Corel would sell, (I lived in Ottawa for a decade and the owner's mansion is familiar on sight, it REALLY stick out in the neighborhood, thank God for spruce trees. They keep their foliage in the snow :-) There's too much ego involved with Corel, but if, IF this can be engineered, how long do you think WordPerfect Suite 8+ would stay closed source?

    I LOVE WP's file format. I was able to write stuff in Smalltalk/V (deceased now...) to parse WP files to extract information a long time ago, as opposed to the mess from Redmond which isn't compatible with itself. I'd love to write stuff like that again.

    -Charles-A.

  • [crap about RH & gcc/sendmail]

    Not possible, unless RedHat somehow becomes the sole copyright holder of those programs. Which isn't bloody likely.

    Do you have any actual behaviour on the part of redhat to back up these suppositions, or is it just 'I don't like RH because they *could* do this if they wanted to'?.

    It's kind of scary... why don't they just stick to providing services, instead of buying out open source companies?

    A single linux distribtution does not an open source company make. Corel provides things like WP and CorelDraw for Windows, which is hardly an open source line of buisness.
  • I completely disagree.

    You've got a right to your opinion, but I will stick to mine.

    You can't do the automation and development and integration of MSOffice, with SO or WP-Suite. Really.

    How much do you actually know about PerfectOffice? WordPerfect had automation features way back in the MS-DOS days. StarOffice includes something called StarBasic. I think that the integration, development and automation features of the other products are not only not as bad as you might think, they are probably good enough for most people, especially since I think you overestimate the number of people who actually use them.

    The (abused) Macro / VB implementation was a god-send.

    Uh, whatever. Macro viruses are enough of a scourge that it almost outweighs any usefulness a macro facility might have. As for VB, all I can say is yuck.

    That "95%" don't do anything other than type a letter is just your opinion.

    True enough, there is really no way to get an exact figure. However, I personally think that I am being generous with the 95% figure given what I see in the typical office environment. I see lots of people using MS-Word who don't even use the paragraph styles, bulleting, etc. features correctly (I see lots of documents where people have inserted bullets manually or even use 'o' for bullets and fill them in with a marker.

    Even my mother managed to set up Word so that it took some figures from an XL spread sheet once per week, and put them into a Word report.

    Just because your mother is one of the 5%, doesn't mean that the number of people at that level is as big as you might suggest.

    Sure, MS products are bloated, becuase of the way the programming is done at MS, and sure, they are massively over priced. But many (more than that "5%") do need some, or many, of the features...

    You still aren't really giving me any real examples of features that are missing
    You got a "3" score because you were anti-MS,

    Perhaps. Or maybe because the moderator thought I did a better job of presenting my argument.


    I stayed firmly at "1" because I dared to say that something (while not good) wasn't bad.

    Or maybe because you really didn't add anything constructive to the discussion, like some solid examples.

    Sometimes, Slashdot really sucks.

    If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. You can help make Slashdot better. Being bitter because you didn't get moderated the way you would like isn't going to do any good. Slashdot is really what the users make it.

    P.S. I'm running WM inside eXceed from Win98 - becuase it's the best soloution for me, not becuase I need to grow up and stop hating MS.

    I don't really hate MS. I hate some of the things that they do. If they would grow up and learn to play nicely with others, then I wouldn't feel a need to criticize them.

    I'm having a bad day already :(

    That is too bad, but you don't have to take it out on the rest of us.

  • Since when do stock valuations have any relation to book value? This is the "new" stock market, wherein valuation is inversely proportional to earnings. NS produces something, and occasionally earns a profit. Thus their valuation will remain low. Red Hat (and Yahoo and Excite and every other hot company) has never made a profit, has little hope of doing so soon, and thus will remain in the stock stratosphere. The Man's stock tip: buy what's hot, especially if the company is losing a lot of money. The bigger the company's losses, the bigger your profits will be!

  • National Semiconductor (Score:3)

    by bafful ( 27467 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @01:36PM (#1495706) Homepage
    Just a quick note on the side:
    Did you know that Red Hat's market capitalization [yahoo.com] is twice that of National Semiconductor? [yahoo.com]

  • Corel Takeover - And Bob's Your Uncle! (Score:5)

    by ggoebel ( 1760 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @01:39PM (#1495710)

    Corel Takeover rumours are a dime a dozen.

    I've owned Corel stock from time to time, and if I've learned one thing, it is that Corel has a talent for using rumours, false promises, shady accounting, and insider trading to manipulate the value of their stock.

    But it is hard to cover up what Corel really is. -Namely, a lackluster under-performing Software Development Company who is trying to go head to head with Microsoft, and is both financially and technologically on the ropes.

    If it isn't rumours that Novell, IBM, or Sun is going to buy Corel, then it is vaporware promises of WordPerfect Office for Java. Bottom line: Read the financial statements, not the press releases.


    Linux is good for Corel, but is Corel good for Linux?

    Selling WordPerfect and Office Suites for Linux is a good market direction for Corel to be going. It'll make them some good money. -Especially since their products aren't doing to well in the WinTel market, better to reposition for a less competive one (Linux). But how long will it last?


    Why a Corel Linux Distribution?

    Does Corel really have what it takes to become a major player in Linux Distributions? Is it technically superior? Maybe on a couple points. Is it more user-friendly? Maybe, maybe not. Is it likely to stay ahead of the curve for long? No. Linux distributions require staying power. The ability to consistently deliver a more value-added distribution than the competitors.

    We all benefit for Corel's effort to improve Linux... I hope that they do become a major player, but I just don't think they've got it in them. I hope I get to eat my words.


    What value would Corel add to RedHat?

    Little to none. Unless Redhat is looking to put the rather expensive WordPerfect(TM) feather in their hat, they little to gain from an aquisition of Corel. Gnome and KDE are already churning out Office Suites of their own. And I'll bet given a year or two, those Office Suites will be technically superior and more user friendly than anything Corel will have to offer.


Slashdot Top Deals

"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne

Close