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Education Businesses Red Hat Software

Questions for Red Hat Co-Founder? 32

Posted by Cliff from the got-query dept.
ConceptDog asks: "Co-Founder and current Director of Red Hat, Bob Young, is going to be conducting a presentation at my school. In addition to his presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Considering that my school is rather small (less than 3000 students at my campus), there is a good chance that I might be able to ask a question of Mr. Young. So I'd really like the Slashdot community's help in coming up with a good question to ask. If I get an answer, I'll post what it is, here."
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Questions for Red Hat Co-Founder? More

Questions for Red Hat Co-Founder?

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  • A small omission (Score:3, Informative)

    by ConceptDog ( 705650 ) on Friday September 26, 2003 @03:54PM (#7066512)
    Forgot to mention that he'll be speaking at my College on Oct. 8 So any response I get will be posted then.

  • my question (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Are you willing to kick Darl right in the _________?"

    (I'll let an asking student in the blank)

  • What Would You Do Different and More (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday September 26, 2003 @03:59PM (#7066571) Homepage
    If you had it all to do over again, what would you do different?

    What do you think of the emmese popularity of Gentoo?

    What's Linux's greatest failing, how do you intend to fix it?

    How hard is it to get your product bundled with PCs (like from Dell, who does sell RH, IIRC)?

    What do you think of the Athlon 64?

    Can Superman beat the Flash? (*woot monorail*)

    OK, so that last one is a little irrelevent, but I was just watching the Simpsons and I couldn't help it.

  • Unless someone gets tossed down a ravine by answering incorrectly, it's just not interesting.

    "Blue...no, green! AHHHHHHHH!"

  • Red Hat's Future/ SMBs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Friday September 26, 2003 @04:18PM (#7066767) Journal
    Currently there's no plans to support older versions of Fedora core with errata and security updates, longer than 3 months or so after the next release is out. By the time a Fedora core is stable, the new one will be out, and you either upgrade or start patching everything by hand. It's deliberately not suitable for production use.

    Many of us don't need "support" in the sense of calling someone to help me do something. We are the support. Any company with in-house sysadmins that are competent is in the same position.

    What is of some value is errata and security backports and patches. That's what my company pays a good deal of money to Red Hat for several RHN seats for the standard Red Hat Linux. We can afford to have lots of servers, because the seats are a reasonable price.

    RHEL is not an option. My company is not going to pay $350 per year per server, and be subject to an EULA that is as bad as Microsoft's, that gives Red Hat the right to audit us for license compliance, to make sure we purchased support seats for every server/desktop, just to get security errata, something every other operating system (including most other Linux distros) give for free.

    Our other option is to consolidate servers, which presents technical compromises, and reduces the value of running Linux in the first place. One of the key benefits to free software is that we were free to pop it on a server without the license hassle, and fear of audit. If that server became a permanant addition, we could buy another seat for it.

    So it looks like we will be slowly moving to Debian on all Red Hat servers. After April, we'll have no reason to subscribe to RHN any longer. I really didn't want to do this. I really like a lot of things Red Hat has done. They have been a big help to the open source community, and with the Fedora project, it looks like they will continue to support the community. I admire them for that.

    Red Hat has just left people like me, who work for and consult for small to medium businesses, with no other viable options.

    Red Hat has made a liar out of me when I told consulting clients and my employer that a Red Hat 7.3 server would not need to be upgraded for at least a couple years. I do resent that also.

    Microsoft doesn't even treat their customers quite this bad. They at least have an EOL cycle that works for businesses, and don't stop providing security updates suddenly on a OS versions that are less than 2 years old with a huge install bases. TCO for Red Hat just shot through the roof.

    It's a testament to the value of open source, that I can drop in a replacement from Debian with very few issues. At least free software still beats the pants off MS, even if RH can't anymore.

    What are Red Hat's plans here? Why is Red Hat leaving small to medium businesses with so few option?
    • That's why we have started moving all our server applications (email web server, etc.) to FreeBSD, we're using Linux only on our development server. In our view, the GPL leaves too many holes for companies to slide through and do stuff like this.

      That being said, have you tried the Ximian Connector? It will keep your Red Hat servers up to date without you haing to pay Red Hat exorbitant amounts of $$$.
  • The GPL prohibits placing any other restrictions on the distribution of GPLed software. Thus, the GPL'ed components that come with your most expensive product can be copied and distributed freely to whoever wants it, correct? Isn't there absolutely nothing stopping someone from subscribing to RHN with an ES or AS system, and then distributing a derivative work based on ES or AS, without Red Hat trademarks or non-free code? The GPL overrides any EULA, if it didn't, then Red Hat would be violating the GPL a

  • Bob, could you... (Score:3, Funny)

    by s88 ( 255181 ) on Friday September 26, 2003 @04:36PM (#7066942) Homepage
    explain why I care to ask a question not of my own design solely for the purpose of posting the answer to my favorite nerd site?
  • ConceptDog,

    Any chance that non seneca college students can attend??? I live in the area and wouldnt mind attending. Do you have any more details.

    Much appreciated.
  • When and how do you think Red Hat will overtake Wintel on the desktop?

    What types of alliances will Red Hat be making to bring Red Hat to a PC sold in Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc ?

    How has the move to Fedora Linux aided your work on Red Hat Enterprise Linux ?

    What changes shall we (the Linux community) expect in the near and long term from Red Hat?

    Thanks much!

    Andrew Schott

  • Oh! I know! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ask him if he reads Slashdot.
  • What's keeping Red Hat from trying to market its brand in the mass media? Are you relying on your relationship with companies like IBM to do that marketing for you? Is there a Super Bowl ad in the cards?

  • Personal story... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tm2b ( 42473 ) on Friday September 26, 2003 @07:28PM (#7068494) Journal
    Ask him to tell you about the time he stole a car.

    No, really. It's a hilarious story. I used to work at Red Hat and he told it at a company gathering.

  • Dear Bob:

    I was in Boston at the time and missed a chance to meet you at your talk at Brookhaven Lab in New York, a year or two before the Red Hat IPO. Now RedHat seems to be well on its way to be what Wall Street identifies with as a dominant Linux company. This took about four years to accomplish, which is pretty impressive in the grand scheme of things. A lot has changed since then. If you were now in your late twenties or early thirties and wanting to bootstrap a long-term business, what would you b
  • Have you ever been down to the gymnasium? Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
  • What Happens When a Linux Geek Takes Over a Canadian Football Team [canada.com]?

    * Bob Young [mcmaster.ca], founder of Red Hat [redhat.com] and Lulu.com [lulu.com] buys Canadian football team the Hamilton Ticats [tigercats.on.ca].
    * Ticats playbook submitted to SourceForge [sourceforge.net] for development. Fans of the Canadian Football League [www.cfl.ca] are invited to submit revisions.
    * Initially puzzled by open source [netc.org] strategy, other CFL teams begin using the plays.
    * Ticats [tigercats.on.ca] adopt open-channel Wi-Fi for communications between coaches and quarterbacks using new helmet developed under the GPL, k
    • Yes, in the US Mircrosoft [microsoft.com] would be the NFL, but would Apple [apple.com] fit the soccer analogy, or would soccer actually be more applicable to the grass-roots open source movement? It's definitely got the worldwide market share. And maybe the CFL would better be suited for Apple- fighting for survival? Better yet, maybe Apple is Arena football [arenafootball.com]...

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