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Slashdot talks with Red Hat
from the we-got-donnie-no-not-osmond dept.
One of our first and most pressing questions for Donnie was, "What the heck are they going to do with all of this fresh money?" The answer, as one would expect, was some mumbo-jumbo, with some hints of future plans. Barnes said, "We will certainly grow development, marketing, sales, etc." And to whet the appetite of users, "You can certainly expect the 'grow development' part to include some neat new toys for Linux, though we don't preannounce new features. ;-)."
So the company itself will be growing, as we would expect, and the staff will be growing as well. However, what's interesting is the comments on where it will grow.
According to Barnes, "International expansion is a key area for us," which is "very expensive." It is partly due to the sheer expense that they have not really pursued this area before. Some of the shifting in this direction can be seen already, in actions like the severing of the relationship with their former Japanese distributor. In that case Red Hat "basically chose to enter the Japanese market in a bigger way and bring our products and services into that area directly." At the current time, they plan to focus on a European expansion first, to be followed by an Asian expansion soon after.
Waidaminute! Europe? Isn't there already a certain Germanic company established over there? Well, yes. We pressed Barnes about moving into what's considered to be S.u.S.E. Territory, and, on a broader scale, what's going to happen with the expansion of Linux-based companies and competition that will happen between them.
Barnes's response is one that Bob Young has been giving for quite some time; that rather then trying to play a zero-sum game, taking users away from each other, the aim of the Linux companies is to make the entire pie bigger so that /every/ company can grow. Well, every company but Microsoft, I guess, but the point is still there. Both CT and I find this to be a bit idealistic, but given the current atmosphere of change, maybe it will be how things fall out - we'll see how things shape up over the next six months to a year.
So with all this money: International Expansion, more developers, marketing and saleses staff. And, for the record, "...no, there are no big ticket surprises like Lear Jets..."
However, Marc might be purchasing a Porsche dealership. (Note: Joke! Don't sue me, Marc. Please).
The question that everyone had, whether they got the letter, didn't get the letter or just watched the fireworks was the E*Trade/Red Hat stock situation.
In summary, the numbers broke down as following:
5000 open source developers were invited to participate
1300 responded, indicating interest
1150 of those were ultimately able to participate
Looks pretty good, right? It'd be interesting to know how many of those 1150 had to go back and try again, but c'est la vie. When asked about RH's feelings on the stock offering, Barnes said, "We feel that an over 88% participation rate was very good for the community at large." We talked about the people angry about the situation, whether or not a lot of the people originally banned were able to get in. His response: "Most of the angry people were [able to get in], but the bumps we had in the way caused them to be confused as to where they were and what level of participation they could expect. But at the end, most of the angry people were able to participate and I think came away happy."
What I thought was interesting was what precipitated the whole meltdown: Bad Information? Clash of Cultures? Red Hat's answer: "Mostly lack of information, and some bad information from E*TRADE's 'systems.'"
Additionally, "Sure, the open source community meeting big business and high finance was part of it too. Both sides needed education about the other, and I think lots of education happened. :)" I'm sure many of the companes looking at similar situations watched the RH IPO closely, trying to figure out what they did right, and what they can do differently. Barnes recommends examining what happened with them, and also shopping around. The latter part to that comment is the interesting part: Not dissing E*Trade, and Barnes does say they would at least shop them against other brokerage houses, but I think that the lesson learned here is to make sure of the house you use, especially after watching the Red Hat fiasco.
And given the recent hoopla over Unisys's perceived attempt to charge for GIFs that use the LZW patent, and Red Hat's closeness with major patent holders like IBM and Hewlett-Packard it seemed appropriate to talk about software patents. Red Hat's take on software patents: "Well, I think it should be fairly obvious that software patents are a bad idea in general and we are not in favor of them." Additionally, when it comes to big-boys like IBM, HP and others they "...will be working to try to lobby in the proper areas to help this issue. Yes, we do care about that stuff and have already begun talking to folks." (Note: I envisioned Bob Young with a flamethrower in the IBM Corporate Lobby)
Despite this, Barnes allowed for the fact that "Given current regulations you may see RH own patents one day. That may be unavoidable until the current way they are handled is changed." RMS would be displeased, but Barnes said that "What folks do with these patents, otoh, can be vasty different." That's an odd world, but I think it's just a further sign of how messed up the US Patent Office is, regarding software patents.
The issue of software patents led to talk about the other software licenses that have come out, like the APSL and Sun Community Source License. As you would expect, Red Hat would like to see fewer open source licenses, but "...at the end of the day, as long as they are truly open source and companies are *using* them, I don't really care." Barnes is pleased to see that Sun is taking steps to making good software more widely availible. I asked if Sun was viewed as being a competitor. Barnes says that perhaps, but that RH is trying to make fundamental changes to the way software is built. "Perhaps Sun will join. They have taken steps in that direction so far, so they could be an ally."
Oh, and again for the record, Hurricane Dennis got Barnes "personally quite wet."
The last question sparked a lot of back-and-forth, regarding the whole Red Hat trademark issue.
(Note: To get background on this, read the original article, and the subsequent follow-up with a letter from Bob Young.)
The following, according to Barnes, is what's going on: "We have to protect our trademark. People were selling hand-burned CDs and using our name, box image, and logo to do it. We had customers complain vehemently to us directly about that as they felt burned. We had to take action to keep that from happening." This was what sparked the original issue with Amazon, and how it appeared that Red Hat was banning anyone from using their name in any way unlicensed by them. The issue, then, is, how do people know what they're getting? For example, people want to know what they're getting when they buy Cheapbytes/LinuxMall/Bob's1$LinuxEmporium/LinuxCentral Linux. Are they getting Debian, Suse, Red Hat, Caldera etc.? Recognizing that Red Hat has a valid brand they must protect, where does that leave the manufacturers? RH's answer: "If they ship "Red Hat Linux" as their own "Cheapbytes Linux", then it must *be* Red Hat Linux. We can verify that with PGP signatures and the like. They can say it contains Red Hat Linux, but they can't explicitely *call* it that." For example, under this scheme, they could "call it `Foo Linux which contains Red Hat Linux 6.0' or something similar." What they can't do, however, would be to release a CD with a PGP signature that checks out, but call it Red Hat Linux. Only Red Hat can explicity title their distribution "Red Hat Linux". And if a company puts out a CD saying it "Contains Red Hat" and the PGP doesn't check out (e.g. modified from original or something, then "they can't say that and we'd have cause to have the product sales stopped."
Phew. So, how do you handle something like Mandrake-Linux? Can you call say "Derived from Red Hat Linux?" Barnes points out that he's not a trademark lawyer, so don't hold him to be a legal litmus test, but that, yes, that will be possible. (Note:More guidelines on this will be coming out soon. Keep an eye on Red Hat's site for details.)
But when it comes to recognition, of course Red Hat appreciates being recognized for having contributed, e.g. Mandrake putting "Derived from Red Hat" on the CD. As Barnes says, "Acknowledgment of one's hard work is always welcome. We just want it done properly... they can take Internet bits and build their own name. You don't see us claiming the name of every other distribution that contributed some code to RH, do you? But they can take our code and use it. That's what this is all about."
Wrap-up:: Interesting to talk with Donnie, and you can see that the quiet period has been hard on them - being unable to respond to comments would be, I suppose. It seems that the basic direction of Red Hat remains unchanged; that is, commitment to the GPL, working with the industry on software patent issues, and trying to get people to join the "movement." The greatest concern that CT and I is how all of this money will affect them as an organization, but I suppose that's an issue for the greater Linux universe as well. Only time will tell. And, on that platitudianal note..
disclaimer:Hemos owns shares in Red Hat
Where are rest of the shares? (Score:3)
Re:Trust, Red Hat CDs, etc. (Score:3)
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Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)
Mistake (Score:3)
The Unix companies all thought that their main competition was each other, so they messed things up and did their best to break source-compatibility between the different Unix flavors. Meanwhile people were tossing out their Unix systems and putting in NT.
It would be a disaster for Linux if the vendors start thinking of each other as the primary competition -- because it means they will be motivated to break compatibility.
SuSE is certainly competing with Red Hat, but each company can do far better by taking away users from Microsoft than either can by trying to take users away from each other.
Closed Source Installer ? (Score:3)
that story from, not assume it was ever closed..
Trademark Issues (Score:3)
If you remember, the whole point of the GPL vs BSD licence was that people *know* who did it, i.e. you put your mark on it!
Red Hat only gets money if people are willing to pay more for their distro 'cause they know what they're getting.
If RedHat doesn't protect that, then what do they get from Open Source? They're a company, not a cool individual who does neat stuff fro fun. They must have a bottom line or they're out of the game.
No, I can't spell!
-"Run to that wall until I tell you to stop"
(tagadum,tagadum,tagadum
-"stop...."
Fate of possible Red Hat patents? (Score:4)
What will happen in the event that Red Hat does decide to file patents? Will they be donated to the FSF?
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
Credit (Score:4)
The current system appears to be either give people credit inline with the contributed source code, put their names under the authors/contributors section, or create a dedicated CREDITS file to list contributions in more detail. None of these systems is ideal.
How is redhat (and obviously the larger free software community) dealing with this problem?
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International Expansion (Score:4)
I would be interested to know more about how they plan to reach the market here (Europe). Obviously getting RH into the stores is the main thing, but are we likely to see country customised websites, advertising campaigns and the like over here? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
In my experience, European marketing is often very different to US marketing. I have frequently criticised Netscape in the past for concentrating on the end-user server market here, when leased line costs are so expensive, that the vast majority of companies host with ISP's. If Netscape had focussed on selling to ISP's first and cooperating in helping them deliver new services, they could have a way bigger market share. As it is, most ISP's here offer IIS for database driven sites.
My point is that Red Hat will need people with local experience and be prepared to listen to them if they want to crack the local markets (you guys listening? Drop me a mail
Re:Ahhh..... (Score:4)
Here are some made-up numbers: Say Linux has 10% of the total OS market. Of that RedHat has 30%, or 3% of total, and the other distributions have 70%.
Who has the other 90% of the OS market? Microsoft of course! So RedHat can either fight the other Linux distributions to get at the other 7% or they can target the remaining 90% that Microsoft has.
Instead of a big slice of a small pie, give me a smaller slice of a much bigger pie.
Re:Trademark Issues (Score:5)
1) Tell them it is not _really_ RedHat, and they don't support it. (Incidentally hurting there image as providing good customer support), or
2) Provide the support for something they are not making revenues off of, which makes costs them money.
The reason for the trademark issue is not with experienced users, it is with company image and support costs. I understand RedHat's reasoning on this issue, and I think they are taking the correct approach to solving the problem. All they are saying is that they only want to have to deal with support issues for sales that they actually make.
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Actually, MSFT is the near timeframe competition (Score:5)
So, yeah, around 2002-2005 we'll see the Linux Wars (TM) between Red Hat, S.u.S.e., and whatever distros are doing ok then, but for the next few years the big boy on the block is Microsoft.
If I was Red Hat (wait, I own shares - guess I am), I would offer an O2K disaster relief program. For anyone who installed W2K and O2K, offer to give them a $24.95 upgrade to RH 6.2 with StarOffice with full docs and support, so they can get their servers back running in production mode.
Cheap, effective, and gets MSFT where it hurts.
Red Hat, Microsoft (Score:5)
What RH is doing is successfully bringing Linux into the corporate world, by showing it can be neatly supported, that it can be marketed successfully and that it is a viable business solution with a company front. Unfortunately, no amount of good-willed hacker PR can achieve that. The market is a place for suits and ties.
Even if RH turns into a Microsoft for the year 2000, they still won't dictate the core, only affect the public's perception of Linux by altering its distribution. What you end up with, once the fluff is over, is still the same old GPL apps.
Imagine if DOS has been Open Sourced from the get-go, and Microsoft then built their own distribution of it, including a custom-built GUI called Windows. You could download the DOS kernel for free, try other GUI's if you wanted, and Microsoft would be busy trying to enhance the user-friendliness of Windows, not trying to pass it off as a decent OS.
And as long as I could hack the OS and decide which GUI I want with it, I'd be fine if Microsoft was in that position. So I don't fear about Red Hat.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."