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Red Hat Summit: Overview and Reflections

Jun 08, 2005  By Russell Dyer
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The topics from last week's Red Hat Summit, and what they might mean for the future of the open-source revolution.
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Drinking the water

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 06/13/2005 - 14:46.

Come to a Novell conference or a IBM conference and you will simply see things from another perspective. You "drank the Red water" at this conference. Linux is 90% religion.
I've used many Linux distributions since Linus first released a working kernel and the only reason that it's moving the direction it's moving is due to the corporate world pulling it in that direction.
RH is desperate now that there are real companies behind real distributions...they want you to continue drinking their water...which you are. Welcome to Microsoft's world where water is already a commodity that they "make better" all the time and when you want to believe that M$ is not behind RH...you'll wake up.

Why are folks always attacking Red Hat?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 06/10/2005 - 09:15.

Folks,

Too many people, including the author of this article, are out here launching both subtle and not-so-subtle attacks against a company that has done BOATLOADS for Free Software. This recent announcement regarding the Netscape Directory Server code is but one example. I think it's great that they're hiring Free Software hackers and releasing all this code under the GPL. They're a part of our community, not its owner.

Mr. Dyer, you say, above, "For instance, frustrated with the haphazard progress of the various GUI desktops, Red Hat scooped up some of the volunteer developers of the GNOME desktop and gave them full-time jobs developing GNOME based on the needs of Red Hat's target markets and on its schedule. Admittedly, this has produced some great results. However, one has to wonder how much the herding and corralling of open-source developers helps and hurts the future of open source."

I don't see it as hurting FOSS at all. On the contrary, I see it as helping it greatly. RMS spoke of this back in the day when he spoke of how Free Software can indeed feed programmers when people need maintenance done on said Free Software. Guess what? Red Hat, Inc. is one of the "people who need maintenance" on that Free Software. By paying the programmers to hack on that code, they are directly furthering its continued improvement. Red Hat has itself become "that programmer" in that its entire business model is on servicing and maintaining Free Software, just like RMS himself did with Emacs back in the day. Just recently, my firm (a school district) funded a PERL hacker to modify the NMIS network management tool to include authentication and authorization, and I was the driving "management" force behind it. I submit that my doing this does not mean that I "hurt the future of open source."

Additionally, Red Hat is about as much for software patents as the Pope is for worshiping golden calves. They are fighting software patents rather loudly. This, too, is a Good Thing.

Firms like Red Hat that release their code under the GPL like they do are great--wonderful--for us. It is this act that we should continue to encourage. If you're going to knock someone, then knock firms like Microsoft, Sun, and Apple who lobby for software patents and restrictive EULAs. But not Red Hat.

I agree

Dave's picture
Submitted by Dave (not verified) on Mon, 06/13/2005 - 13:30.

They say you have to take the good with the bad. RedHat did as noted "Boatloads" for FOSS. Sure, I don't always agree with things they do/want to do, but I wouldn't kill them off if I could as RMS surely would. It seems to be that some people can't comprehend the meaning compromise for the overall betterment of FOSS. Like RMS's, "It's my way or the highway" crap. If it weren't for companies like RedHat Linux wouldn't be what it is today. Linus would have a real job and would only be working on Linux part-time. Today's Linux wouldn't have the support of the companies that gave Linux RCU and other things. IBM wouldn't be protecting what Linux has become today because it would be SCO verus RedHat and RedHat wouldn't be able to compete with the power house lawyers the Canopy Group brought onboard. Thank you RedHat, IBM, HP, etc, but I still reserve the right to criticize you, but rest assured. I have no intention of trying to kick you out of this game.

I agree!

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/09/2005 - 03:50.

If you dance with wolves it's likely that you will be eaten! My feeling is that the whole open software community nurish a secret dream of being commercially accepted. I believe that the slogan on the RedHat bottles we got at the summit "free as in water" is a big lie!

Brgds!

You need to come to OLS, it's

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/08/2005 - 22:13.

You need to come to OLS, it's the geeky conference

Red Hat Summit, not Linux Summit

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/08/2005 - 18:40.

This is the Red Hat Summit, not the Linux Summit. Of course it's going to reflect the corporate agenda of Red Hat (and if RHAT management is doing its job, the company's customers). Want a vendor-neutral Linux summit that's not run by a corporation, go to linux.conf.au or Linux Symposium in Ottawa.

*boggle* GNOME is a "commerci

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/08/2005 - 15:31.

*boggle* GNOME is a "commercialisation of Linux and GNU" software? Dude, GNOME is the GNU desktop!

Linus' Goals

James Reardon's picture
Submitted by James Reardon (not verified) on Wed, 06/08/2005 - 14:14.

> If the big software companies are to take over the revolution--as
> implied in Szulik's keynote comments--what will be the results? Will
> they be what Linus Torvalds set out to achieve 14 years ago?

14 years ago Linus set out to have a unix-like operating system on his 386. Nothing more. He accomplished his task.

You're right.

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/08/2005 - 18:37.

You're right. Linus is a good programmer and a great distributed project manager, but not a "master planner". That's why everybody else used Linux, because YOU supply the master plan. Kind of like how kids would rather play with a a cardboard box than a fancy toy. With the box you make up what it is.

Chris DiBona on wireless at conferences

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/08/2005 - 12:09.

Conference Wireless Backlash Begins!

GPL

Patrick Hallinan's picture
Submitted by Patrick Hallinan (not verified) on Thu, 06/09/2005 - 23:36.

As long as Red Hat is releasing code under the GPL their contributions are contributions that (whether driven by business goal or not) belong to everyone. They are making real contributions.

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