New CTO at Red Hat 57
kerskine writes "Seems that Red Hat has a new CTO . What happened to Mark Ewing? " There also an updated press release available as well, which gives significantly more information. It looks like Marc Ewing will be spending more time working with the Red Hat Center for Open Source now.Update: 01/12 05:04 by H :The new CTO they've named is Michael Tiemann, one of the Co-Founders of Cygnus. As you recall, Red Hat recently purchased Cygnus. The deal closed on Monday, which is probably why this announcement has finally been made official.
Re:Michael Tiemann wrote G++ (Score:1)
Re:Does the GPL prevent companies from enslaving u (Score:1)
As part of the GPL whoever distributes the binary has to distribute the source and there is no way for them to prevent anybody else from distributing the binaries or source. They also can't make an enhanced version unless they release the source and binaries equally unencumbered. Any GPL stuff that RedHat has is available from some variant of ftp.redhat.com for the effort of downloading.
Again you as the owner of the code in question can grant a waver to RedHat but you would have to explicitly do this. You could grant RedHat (or any other company) the rights to modify and release in a binary only format and restrict from redistribution OpenVerse Visual Chat+ or whatever. In this manner you could enable RedHat to dominate a package by allowing them to release a closed source fee base package that only works on RedHat linux and so on.
Redhat purchased Cygnus, or the other way around? (Score:1)
Who is the CEO of the "merged" company. Who now is the CTO?
And best of all, it is actually in their best interests to be perceived as the ones being bought out...
I Don't Get It (Score:1)
Are you looking for a clause in the GPL that says, "If you make lots of money distributing this software, you have to make it easier for people to get my software than I've already done"?
That's not likely to happen. Conversely, you might argue that that is precisely what they company is doing. Besides that, if you use the GPL, the company is obligated by the license to make the source code available to their customers. That's your source code. They're also not allowed to restrict distribution of your software (under the GPL, other licenses vary). If they do, well, then you might consider legal action.
If that doesn't answer your question, perhaps you could rephrase it -- I'm confused.
--
Re:Not according to Bob Young. (Score:1)
Now that the millennium is upon us, perhaps it would be timely to remind ourselves that the Antichrist is about due to turn up. Perhaps he isn't an individual at all, but a corporation! After all, corporations didn't exist in John the Revelator's day so if he had foreseen this he couldn't have understood it in his own terms. However...didn't he describe the Whore of Babylon as having several heads?
John also said that the Antichrist would be acclaimed as a saviour before his true evil nature was revealed. Hmmm. There's some kind of parallel here...
And Nostradamus warned us that we should recognise the Antichrist by his blue turban. We all know how he used to fudge the details though, eg "Hister" vs. "Hitler". Maybe it wasn't really a blue turban at all.
Maybe it was a Red Hat.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:Does the GPL prevent companies from enslaving u (Score:1)
But what happens when a company who distributes these applications we worked so hard on begins to dominate the market. What happens when their distro is no longer freely available to the masses via FTP, ISO images and restrictions on giving copies via cheapbytes.
When their distro is no longer freely available we repackage the freely distributable portions and forget them. They cease to dominate. The GPL doesn't guarantee that others may not charge for your product, but it does guarantee that those who buy it can give it away free, and that no restrictions can be placed on its redistribution by the distributor.
If RHAT creates some closed-source installer, or other nifty item, and stops making the source available to any-but-paying customers, that's their choice. We just do without the neat-o thing (or pay, your choice). But nothing stops you from generating an ISO image and putting it on your website.
(remember, you can't spell 'GNU' without 'GN' :)
Re:Useless news (Score:1)
I mean some guy got hired at RH...
I'd agree with you if they were talking about some tech support guy was hired or something, but this guy was hired as Chief Technical Officer and was the co-founder of the company that RH just bought. It definately qualifies as interesting.
I'm sick of hearing people complain about the postings and and the authors here. Take your flame elsewhere.
Keep up the good work
-Al-
Re:Michael Tiemann wrote G++ (Score:1)
Re: I don't get it.... some contrasts to this post (Score:1)
"What Red Hat now does will have a major influence on the future of the Open Source movement in more ways than can be counted."
True enough. So far (IMHO) the influence seems to be positive. To wit:
- Promotion of Linux certifications. This is important because it allows a wider array of CS support businesses to develop, similar to how Microsoft (MSCE, etc) and Novell (CNE,CNA) used to allow individuals such as myself (Novell CNA) to run profitable small businesses backing the technology.
- Reinvesting code/coder support to the Linux OS community: RPMs, support of Gnome, etc.
- the assistance in opening the IPO to more than just the large investors, etc.
- Providing a smart face to the Linux movement. Bob Young has the ability to explain (i.e., market) Linux to the masses better than say, Linus Torvalds or Alan Cox.
- Corporate support: I do not thing that Corel, Caldera, or Suse would have as much market share as they do if RedHat had not led the way. Look at Slackware, Debian, and Stampede, and the various BSD's -- all of these are good distributions (I'm trying to avoid sparking a flame war here), but the for-profit, company backed distributions have far more market share. This translates to more eyeballs seeing and report problems / bugs / security holes to the rest of the community.
- Support (all though not 100% yet) for the Linux Standards Board (?)(LSB), which is (IIRC) is trying to achieve a cross-distribution threshhold so that if I release app "X" under my favorite distro "A", you'll be able to use it on your favorite distro "B".
"Since Red Hat's IPO was announced, of the two founders Bob Young gave up the CEO's seat to Matthew Szulik... and now Mark Ewing has been pushed out of the CTO's chair in favour of tech-head Michael Tiemann...'xuse me? I didn't see anything that says "push out". Having two hard working, hard headed, savvy businessmen who understand how to achieve corporate market penetration for RH (which again, helps Linux in general) is good for the company especially now that IBM is backing Linux, and Tiemann has already proven a friend to the community via all of the GNU tools originated under his leadership at Cygnus.
Probably true. However, even given Linus Torvalds' joke about "total world domination", RedHat is helping deliver it. Joking aside, however, RH Linux is still more about is "total world liberation", because every RH CD I've owned also includes the source code so that if I want to roll my own distro, I can go ahead and do so. I just can't lock up the code afterward.
"They are now motivated by profit. That is why the two tech-heads who founded the company have been sidelined."
I question your choice of words. Bob Young and Marc Ewing are still central to different elements of RH's success. If RH becomes too corporate, developers will abandon them, so Mark Ewing is critical to keeping the doors to the OS community open. So it seems to me that these two "tech-heads" have moved within the structure of the company to where they really want to playe.
For the company to be taken seriously by the big boys, "wiser" heads must be seen to prevail.
Not wiser necessarily. More experienced in addressing the issues that the "big boys" (aka large corporate IT departments) bring to the table. I know -- I've worked in the IT or Network Engineering department at four Fortune 1000 companies (not sure if they were in the top 100 or 500 at the time)
I on the other hand, naive fool that I am, entertain hopes that Red Hat will stay true to its roots....
Hear hear!!!
I will probably get flamed for this, but I hope RH actually gets into the patent thing in certain areas that do make sense, similar to how Mercedes Benz did with unibody construction, and several other examples I am aware of in other technology areas where I company patented the techniques, etc. so that no-one else could, then proceeded to essentially give away the rights to use the technnology "because some things are too important to keep inside" (At least, that's how I remember the quote from Mercedes -- forgive me if I quoted badly). I would hope that RH will look at using some of its resources to develop and patent -- then proceed to open the code to the community. That way no-one else can try to lock those techniques/technologies behind closed corporate doors.
Anyway, while I have attempted to provide some contrasts to the thoughts expressed in your post, I agree with the general concerns. Keep up the good work.
Re:Redhat moving away from OpenSource? (Score:1)
Proprietary? On what planet?
Remember that Cygnus is a recursive acronym for Cygnus-Your GNU [Source|Solution].
Not according to Bob Young. (Score:1)
Here's the Real Audio link: http://www.wamu.org/ram/2000/p2000111.ram
His one-song Open Source repetoire from yesterday doesn't square with them taking the company proprietary.
Re:Redhat moving away from OpenSource? (Score:1)
Give it a chance - using an OSS model Redhat did make some impressive losses, but not as astounding as they could have been, and certainly not too great to overcome...
Re:Corporate Musical Chairs (Score:1)
I certainly didn't suggest that there was anything wrong with Mike Tiemann or Mark Ewing. I'm sure that MT will bring all sorts of good stuff to Red Hat.
As I don't know how Mark Ewing feels about the move, I certainly wouldn't even hazard an explanation of how he feels. Who knows, maybe the Center was his brainchild. I certainly don't know.
Mergers and acquisions are certainly sensitive times for all employees involved. I recently worked for a company where once we were acquired, there was no merging of personnel. Redundant positions fell to the parent company employees without exception. Management told us that there would be room for all to keep us from quiting while they were busy writing our "your services are no longer required" letters. It's totally a judgement call for management.
Being a founder of a company is a little different than just being a peon though. You invest your life when you work for a startup and if the rest of your business partners take an action that puts you in a situation in which you're not happy, then you've got a lot more at stake than Joe Employee. Again, I don't know what Mark Ewing thinks about this so it's all speculative and my humble opinion.
I didn't suggest that this move would harm open source. I don't think that it will make a single bit more difference in Open Source than any other butterfly in a rainforest. Of course if this does bring about the end of life as we know it, I didn't say this.
I realize after re-reading my post that I might have sounded a bit lawsuit crazy but I owe that to being burned by working for a startup a few years ago that got big, fast and started discarding the people that built the company by "offering" them "promotions" and then acting surprised when the folks pointed out that they realized that it was neither an offer nor a promotion.
YMMV, I know mine does.
-chaosgrrl
Re:Redhat moving away from OpenSource? (Score:1)
Re:Redhat moving away from OpenSource? (Score:1)
Does the GPL prevent companies from enslaving us? (Score:1)
We, as programmers, have put a lot of work into providing applications, drivers, kernels, extensiosn to existing apps, etc all for the good of all to share. I do as well. OpenVerse Visual Chat [openverse.org]
But what happens when a company who distributes these applications we worked so hard on begins to dominate the market. What happens when their distro is no longer freely available to the masses via FTP, ISO images and restrictions on giving copies via cheapbytes.
The masses still get our products, the fruit of our hard earned labour but now, they cannot share it as easily as before (no ISO to download, a new RPM format is introduced that only extracts on new RPM $120 distro cds) etc. What if the required inclusion of the license information and gpl.tx were obscurely placed away somewhere on the system?
If this were to happen, would the GPL protect us? Would we be, as a group, be able to say HAY YOU BIG CORPORATION! we know you're not breaking any rules but you've made it nearly impossible for people to share our information which is included on your product (at little or no cost to you) which was not our intent.
I'm not looking to be paid for my efforts. I'm only looking for others to be able to enjoy my efforts, modify it to their needs and share it with everyone who wants it. These big corps have a responsibility to advance this concept using the money they ear off of our work. If the GPL does not encompass this, perhaps it's time to rework the GPL... IANAL - I really don't understand all the implications of the GPL.
They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen
Re:What is your problem? (Score:1)
Munky_v2
"Life is tough, it's even tougher running Windows."
Munky_v2
Re:So you get off installing FreeBSD... (Score:1)
Finally, you do realize that getting laid involves more than just downloadig porn?
kwsNI
Linux: Because rebooting is for adding new hardware.
kwsNI
Re:Change your license then, dope. (Score:1)
Remember:Linux was started as a free project and will continue on - at a profit if possible, but it will continue on.
kwsNI
Whatever. (Score:1)
A.) Capitalize
B.) If you have a complaint, state it. Saying I hate Microsoft doesn't work. Saying "I hate Microsoft because their products are large, buggy, overpiced, undersupported, poorly patched, and hard to use." I mean, come on. How could we take you seriously when you're post looks like a 2-year old wrote it?
kwsNI
Good Luck... (Score:1)
Does anyone know what the Red Hat Center for Open Source is actually doing?
Re:Any y'all laughed when I said this would happen (Score:2)
I've not see it from Redhat. Also note that Young, Ewing and the other initial founders still control a large percentage of the stock. And as long as they can make the performace numbers that they have set they can more or less do what they want.
In short your seeing things that are not there.
Michael Tiemann wrote G++ (Score:2)
Re:Red Hat Center for Open Source (Score:2)
Re:Michael Tiemann wrote G++ (Score:2)
Mike Tiemann also did the gcc port to the Sparc and the Motorola 88K, plus much of the work to make gcc efficient on RISC architectures (the first instruction scheduler and delayed branch support).
He does a lot less gcc/g++ development than he used to, though.
Re:Corporate Musical Chairs (Score:2)
Oh, come on. Mike Tiemann has done more for free software than Mark Ewing (that's not to say anything against Mark, who's done tons). And he was the person who first proved that free software/open source could work in business, by founding Cygnus.
Cygnus probably has more revenue than the old Red Hat. Do you think that all of the talented people from Cygnus should be driven away, by letting all of the old Red Hat people keep the top jobs?
It's amazingly ignorant to suggest that replacing Ewing with Tiemann will harm open source, or, to be even more ridiculous, that Ewing should talk to a lawyer.
Re:Not according to Bob Young. (Score:2)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re: I don't get it.... some contrasts to this post (Score:2)
'xuse me? I didn't see anything that says "push out"...
...Bob Young and Marc Ewing are still central to different elements of RH's success.
Admittedly I'm being cynical. Perhaps you're right and they both went, gee that's great, now I can dump the boring business stuff and get back to playing with tech stuff. But I doubt it was as clean as that. Even if they went willingly I'd bet they had reservations, particularly about loss of control. I think the child has outgrown the parents rather too quickly for this to have been completely painless.
Not wiser necessarily...
I agree, that's why I put "wiser" in quotes. That's how the old farts (and the wannabee old farts) of Wall Street will see it even though we might take a more balanced view.
I hope RH actually gets into the patent thing in certain areas that do make sense...
A nice idea. In fact the issue of patents is the biggest remaining threat to the whole Open Source movement.
*IF* Red Hat - or some other sponsor and benefactor with a deep wallet - were to accumulate a portfolio of useful patents to be licensed freely to Open Source developers then we'd have a fighting chance of surviving the coming legal war.
Because there's no doubt at all in my mind that once the dinosaurs who've continued to fight the Open Source trend realise that their days are numbered, they will most certainly use their patent portfolios to ensure that no useful software can developed and distributed without paying royalties to *someone*.
If we don't find such a sponsor then our only hope is for a radical change in US (and global) patent laws. There's no sign of this happening as yet since most people don't even realise that there's a problem.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:So you get off installing FreeBSD... (Score:2)
And since it only took me 45 minutes, how do you know I didn't also get laid in the hours before or after? I don't know what you guys do in the Windows world, but here in the free Unix world, 45 minutes is considered a cheap quickie!
Besides, it was a TUESDAY night. Tuesday is not the most romantic day of the week. I think Fridays and Saturdays are much better days for romance.
"Hey big boy, how 'bout we go back to my place?"
"I can't. I have to reinstall Windows again."
"But you did that last week."
[sob] "I know..."
Re:What is your problem? (Score:2)
ps. I blew away my Windows drive last night and replaced it with FreeBSD.
Corporate Musical Chairs (Score:2)
As to whether Marc Ewing is going to be happy with the situation can only be answered by him. If I were in the situation I'd probably be quite ticked off by it and would start looking for a better situation... as well as a lawyer to look over my contracts VERY carfully to look at for my interests.
I certainly wouldn't attribute to this the death of open source at Red Hat. While that certainly may be somewhere in the future, I really don't see this single action as being that significant in the grand scheme of things.
-chaosgrrl
Red Hat Center for Open Source (Score:2)
http://www.redhat.com/community/rh_center.html
It doesn't say allot, but it's something.
This seems to be good news (Score:2)
recent Tiemann interview (Score:2)
I don't get it (Score:2)
Why all this corporate news on
Hey wait... I think I figured it out: Since Red Hat went public and gave shares to all the geeks, the
Well I didn't get any shares, I don't care.
Re:Redhat moving away from OpenSource? (Score:3)
I will argue, however, that RH is moving away from a system for the expert user and into the hands of corporate users, a good thing, but meaning that less and less RH is a good choice for your home box compared to other distros.
Change your license then, dope. (Score:3)
Re:I don't get it (Score:3)
The reason Red Hat's corporate movements are of interest is because Red Hat was the first open source company to acquire wealth, size and influence. They are in the process of converting from a startup to a fully-fledged corporation. What Red Hat now does will have a major influence on the future of the Open Source movement in more ways than can be counted.
Since Red Hat's IPO was announced, of the two founders Bob Young gave up the CEO's seat to Matthew Szulik, an old-guard and hard headed IT businessman from the pre-open source world; and now Mark Ewing has been pushed out of the CTO's chair in favour of tech-head Michael Tiemann who used to head Cygnus. Tiemann is a famous name in open source, though one with a reputation for commercial success too.
We have a lot to be thankful for in Red Hat's support for the open source movement. But at the same time we need to maintain a healthy level of scepticism with regard to everything they say and do because they are no longer simply motivated by the thrill of making a business model out of new, exciting open source. They are now motivated by profit. That is why the two tech-heads who founded the company have been sidelined. For the company to be taken seriously by the big boys, "wiser" heads must be seen to prevail.
It behooves us to watch these events carefully in case Red Hat should show signs of growing into the type of corporation that we all love to hate. Plenty of people fell out of love with Red Hat long before we got to this stage - just as soon as Red Hat started talking like a business, really.
I on the other hand, naive fool that I am, entertain hopes that Red Hat will stay true to its roots, forever champion the cause of open source and steer clear of nonsensical patents etc.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Info on the Red Hat Center for Open Source (Score:3)
Red Hat, Inc. has announced the formation of a new non-profit organization, the Red Hat Center for Open Source (RHCOS), that will sponsor, support, promote and engage in a wide range of scientific and educational projects intended to advance the social principles of open source for the greater good of the general public. RHCOS will foster projects that advance the philosophy of open source, through which collaborative intellectual pursuits produce results to be freely shared and enhanced throughout society. Red Hat, Inc. co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Marc Ewing will devote considerable time and effort to the new organization as a Founding Director.
In addition to Ewing and Young, the Board of Directors for RHCOS includes well-known innovators and thought leaders. Board members include:
John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). His personal research interests include digital culture, ubiquitous computing, user-centering design and organizational and individual learning. A major focus of Brown's research over the years has been in human learning and the management of radical innovation.
John Gilmore, entrepreneur and free software pioneer. The architect of the first Sun workstations, Gilmore is a co-founder of Cygnus Solutions, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a leading advocate for intellectual freedom.
Lawrence Lessig, Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, comparative constitutional law and the law of cyberspace.
Sim B. Sitkin, PhD, Associate Professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Professor Sitkin's teaching interests include managerial effectiveness, organizational behavior, organization design, organizational control and the management of organizational change.
RHCOS will initially be funded with $8 million in a combination of cash and Red Hat common stock donated by Red Hat, Inc. and three founding investors of Red Hat: Young; Ewing; and Frank Batten, Chief Executive Officer of Landmark Communications. Details regarding grant criteria and the application process are currently being determined by the Board of Directors and will be released at a later date.
I STILL laugh when you say this would happen... (Score:3)
It isn't happening. So, why do you think this piece of news has anything to do with going proprietary? It doesn't.
And in case you haven't noticed, Red Hat doesn't ship MetroX, and hasn't for quite a while. And even the versions of Red Hat Linux that came with MetroX still had XFree86 as a fallback for people who needed to make copies.
Red Hat isn't stupid. We DEPEND on those OSS zealots, so why would we want to "FIX" them (including ourselves)???
Re:Redhat moving away from OpenSource? (Score:3)
Red Hat is not moving away from Open Source, and we don't have that intention. I've explained a couple of times why this would even be bad for someone who only cares about money.
So, once again:
Red Hat Linux will NOT go closed or proprietary.
Cygnus is not about going proprietary either - ever seen sourceware.cygnus.com?
Cygnus purchase VERY smart move.. (Score:4)
I've dealt with Cygnus, they are a professional group of people and I've never felt that they've compromised OSS principles by their contributions to GCC.
This purchase, more than anything else, leads me to believe that RedHat just might make it in the long run.
Re:Redhat moving away from OpenSource? (Score:4)
While I can't agree with the suggestion that RedHat Linux will become a 'closed proprietary solution', I do wonder if Cygnus' history seems to indicated that the OSS model is not a business model that can be profitable.
If this is not the case, why does Cygnus sell closed source products when their original charter was support of Open Source (more specifically, GPL'd) software?
Cygnus tried the OSS business model before anyone, and seems to have backed away from it, at least to some extent. What does this say to others considering this model?
Perhaps the OSS business model will always be one of leveraging other profitable business. An IBM can afford to support OSS insofar as it hurts competitors more than them and it supports hardware sales. Companies like Cygnus can do OSS to help market their support/consulting business as long as they hold back some of their most valuable gems for more standard commercial licensing.
I know of one small business that uses the OSS product that they produce to generate consulting work for the author and a few associates. That's the purist OSS business model and it seems to work for them, but they appear to have very low overheads.
-Jordan Henderson