Red Hat CEO Szulik on Linux Distro Consolidation 197
Rob writes "Red Hat's CEO has rejected the idea that a reduction in the number of Linux
distributions would be good for the industry, and described Novell's acquisition of SUSE
Linux as "theatre". There are over 300 distributions listed on DistroWatch.com,
but Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat's CEO, Matthew Szulik, maintained that choice and
specialization outweighed any advantage that might be gained by focusing customer
attention on a smaller number of offerings. He was particularly disdainful of acquiring
other distributions for the sake of protecting or expanding market share. "We have
zero ambition to do that," he said. "I think when
people approach the problem with an eye on consolidation it destroys the idea of natural
selection.""
Natural Selection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Natural Selection (Score:4, Insightful)
Methinks Mr. Szulik is jealous that a high-profile rival found a sugar daddy. I don't recall if Novell had their own distro before acquiring SuSE, but if it was that unmemorable, it was probably no great loss.
Re:Natural Selection (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Natural Selection (Score:2)
Re:Natural Selection (Score:5, Informative)
Sort of. From what I remember, Caldera OpenLinux was originally a research project in Novell. In those days there was talk about porting WABI (a comercial product like WINE but for Win16) and the commericial equivalent of DOSEMU (I forget it's name) to Linux. This would allow Novell to use Linux as a high powered replacement for Win 3.1. Those plans appeared to be mostly hype or were abandoned when Win95 introduced Win32 and Win16 became irrelevant. Anyway, Novell Founder, Ray Noorda left Novell with several Novell employees to start Caldera. At least according to the press releases at the time, the excuse was that he was frustrated with Novell's lack of interest in Linux.
Unfortunately most press was not online during the 1994 era so I can't find many online references to back this up (anyone?). Here are a few I could google:
http://www.ftlinuxcourse.com/FTLinuxCourse_Comple
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/1996/11/msg01
Re:Natural Selection (Score:2)
Re:Natural Selection (Score:2)
Re:Natural Selection (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Natural Selection (Score:2, Insightful)
No, here Redhat has it right! Consolidation means making a decision of what is good or not good for other people. That is not what we want! While I find it silly to wear pants that hang off your butts and show off your underw
Re:Natural Selection (Score:2)
In fact, I could easily see one master Linux repository that houses all the packages in some ubiquitious format, and t
Oh no... (Score:5, Funny)
The debate rages on...
Re:Oh no... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh no... (Score:2)
Natural selection in cases where people are involved? NO!!!
Have you ever seen 600lb geek (and even if you have, he still has to know how not to punch like a girl!! Lazy, overfat and living in moms basement geeks do not count here)???
New race of people would be mostly consisting people that have their body and brain constitution similiar to gorillas (mostly from boxer, kungfu or club bouncer tribes or warrior casts with machine guns, with common fact: "pu
Re:Oh no... (Score:3, Insightful)
Often quoted are the blind spot of the human eye (which is not present in the octopus eye, although otherwise the 2 versions are very similar), or the fact that the birth canal runs right through the only bone ring in the human body that can not expand.
Other examples revolve around the fact that the human is bipedal, and many
Re:Oh no... (Score:2)
Re:Oh no... (Score:3, Funny)
Personally, I like to think the connection here is Richard Stallman: I have been touched by his GNU-dly appendage. hallelujah and pass the soap.
rules of the game (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:rules of the game (Score:2)
Redhat is nowhere in Europe (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Redhat is nowhere in Europe (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What we buy is more interesting (Score:2)
Re:Redhat is nowhere in Europe (Score:2)
Re:Redhat is nowhere in Europe (Score:4, Informative)
In fact... (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone has converged to the Red Hat family, the Debian/Ubuntu family, SuSe, Mandrake and Gentoo. The fact that Distrowatch has a zillion microdistros is irrelevant. (Please, do not pester me with Distrowatch popularity stats.)
Re:In fact... (Score:5, Interesting)
Although Debian and Ubuntu are kind of two separate codebases now. Oh yeah, and can't forget Slackware. And of course, the source based distros. And Crux and Arch, they each have some unique stuff. Plus, Xandros is kind of its own thing now, based on Corel. Yeah, some things are based on, say, Knoppix, which is an offshoot from Debian, but I don't see how that is the "same" once they are binary incompatible.
That makes almost 10 trees from which to branch. How is that converging?
Re:In fact... (Score:3, Insightful)
No
Re:In fact... (Score:2)
3 to 1 odds that you get modded flamebait for that. However, it really deserves an insightful, if anything, because I truly believe, FWIW, that Ubuntu is really what Debian should be. Red Hat may be right that we will not see a massive fold in of distros, but we likely are going to see more and more distros building on Ubuntu instead of Debian, because Debia
Re:In fact... (Score:3, Insightful)
I run Ubuntu on my laptop, and my desktop will switch from Sarge/Sid to Ubuntu too, at the next reinstall (a reinstall is the best way for me to get rid of old cruft).
But for a server installation, I'd prefer the "dog-slow", conservative, well-tested standard Debian distros over Ubuntu. "Exc
Re:In fact... (Score:2)
It it my understanding that Ubuntu resyncs with the Debian
unstable codebase every 6 months, so your comment is
misleading. It is true that the Ubuntu development happens
independantly of the Debian development, but the Ubuntu
changes are fed back into Debian and the Ubuntu code tree
will always be no more than 6 months off from the Debian
tree.
If I've said something materially wrong, I'm sure someone
will jump in to correct me.
Re:In fact... (Score:2)
You don't hear about people using Lindows/Linspire because the kind of people who end up with it installed on their box probably don't even have a clue they're running Linux, and certainly aren't going to post in forums that you or I are likely to read, if they post in any forums online at all.
Re:In fact... (Score:4, Interesting)
Red Hat didn't work on my laptop. Ubuntu worked but ran into libc dependency problems when upgrading my system. Suse I actually didn't try but assumed it was the same as Red Hat. Mandrake was nice but didn't really work with all the packages I wanted and for the life of me could not get sound or video to work on my laptop. Gentoo was awesome. Everything worked, hand configed by yours truly now becoming non-noobish. Until I tried to upgrade gcc because I needed some iPod tools and they in turn needed the new gcc. Then all went to shit.
BUT get this, I'm still usin Linux and it's one of the distros you forgot. You guessed it: Slackware. WHY? Because it just works. Handle all dependencies on your own as easily as it is to install something in windows. That's what distros should aspire to. Oh god, no, not being LIKE windows, but having the apparent EASE OF USE of windows.
So in conclusion, Slackware rocks, all the others rock less to none. FlameWAAAAR
Free beer! (Score:2)
Clickable distrowatch link (Score:3, Informative)
Anti-whoring AC mode enabled for this post.
Counter-intuitive (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like having to be hazed to get in a fraternity. No one really likes it, but you don't get in without it. I can just hear him squirming as his natural business executive instinct is to consolidate, but he's selling a product whose culture won't let him do it (yet). So for now, he smiles and yells, "Thank you, sir! May I have another (distribution)?!"
Re:Counter-intuitive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Counter-intuitive (Score:4, Insightful)
Regards,
Steve
Incumbent disparages competitor's products (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, does anybody expect Redhat's CEO to announce that "Novell is a serious contender, and Redhat is about to lose market advantage"?
Re:Incumbent disparages competitor's products (Score:3, Interesting)
It's just FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth is that the number of distros is good for the industry. Sure, it sets back Red Hat's bottom line, but a lot of people use Linux because it is free as in beer. The Debian distros in particular come very close to rivalling the "products" that Red Hat, et. al, distribute, and as far as support, "Google is your friend."
Szulik and company actually hurt their own sales when they decided to focus solely on the enterprise market and leave the smaller potatoes out to fend with Fedora. SuSe still offers a nice packages distro for those that want one, and they took a lot of the folks who had used Red Hat's products previous to their being abandoned. Others went with Debian, and some Fedora. None of these choices generate profits for Red Hat.
Sorry the little guys weren't big enough for you to worry about, Matt, but there are other choices in the Linux world to use. That may be bad for you, but it is good for us. And Matt, let's tell it like it is: you need us more than we need you. That's how FOSS works, so get used to it.
Re:Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:5, Informative)
WRONG.
Look at how many FOSS pies Red Hat has their fingers in (gcc and the kernel are two that immediately spring to mind; I know there's quite a few more. Don't they also sponsor glibc development too?).
If Redhat stopped sponsoring the OSS projects they do, gcc alone would grind to a halt, and a good number of other projects would be impaired as well.
Re:Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:3, Insightful)
No it wouldn't. It would slow, stumble, trip, but it would keep going. Red Hat's disappearance would be an enormous blow to the OSS community. It would take us years to recover. But OSS disappearing would destroy Red Hat entirely.
Re:Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:2)
Let me give you a little hint at who can do it as well: Leave Red Hat's headquarters, turn left on Avent Ferry Road, go to I-440. Continue on to the I-40 intersection and go west until you reach Davis Drive. Turn right at the top of the exit to the end of Davis Drive.
You've just arrived at IBM in Research Triangle Park.
Think that IBM could manage this?
Or, for that matter, Novell?
Re:Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:2)
For Redhat, it's the core of their Business Model; for IBM, (an OSS expendature that intense) would be throwing money down a well.
OT Question: when the hell did IBM become the 'good guys' anyways? Does no one remember the reasons that they were so reviled through the 70's, 80's and 90
Re:Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:2)
See: the fees they pay their lawyers in the SCO lawsuit.
See: IBM opening their patent suite to FOSS
See: IBM's own work in the kernel, etc.
Anyone who thinks IBM is not serious about open source needs to look closer.
Re:Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:2)
Someone else brought up the example of what happened to the XFree86 project. While I'm not sure how much corporate sponsorshi
True dat (Score:2)
Re:True dat (Score:2)
Re:True dat (Score:5, Insightful)
[sarcasm off]
Re:Natural Selection Naturally Includes Them Too (Score:2, Interesting)
B) Red Hat's management is open source to the core, if you've ever followed their blogs, or speeches then its pretty evident this isn't just a sham.
C) Red Hat manages GCC, glibc, commits more kernel code than any other entity, is now the core entity behind Gnome, has committed large portions of code to Apache. They've given us Cygwin, GFS,
Of course he says that... (Score:3)
Theatre? He says that because Novell isn't fragmented and redundant and that's his competition, especially since SuSE Enterprise is undercutting RHEL in server deployments because of Redhat's absurd costs for it.
Competition is a wonderful thing, but in the real world the elephant doesn't have anything to worry about from the ant.
Choice is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
But like everything in life moderation is key.
Of course RedHat don't mind fragmentation it helps them. By encouraging fragmentation they can sit at the top and say to people "look, we offer stability". That's why Debian does so well (although I have to say I believe stable is a little to stable - 18 month update cycles please :) they offer some stability. It's important to try now ideas out but it's just as important that the OSS community tries to pull together.
While it is great that I can choose from 300 different distributions I have to ask the question: how many of them don't suck? About 5 to 10 would probably be the answer. I just want to cry when I look at the amount of time and effort that has gone into some of these projects that get maybe a hand full of users and then die a slow death as the idologues that started the project realize they aren't going to caputre the market.
It's great that people want to help it's just a shame there are a lot of people that feel the only wheel they can use is the one they built themselves.
I'm sure this post will get moded as a troll in two seconds flat so I am going to stop wasting my time.
Re:Choice is a good thing (Score:2)
I'm sure if you and I tried to figure out separately which 5 to 10 of an agreed list of 300 (or so) distros don't suck, we'd have different lists - because we have different needs. I want something I can turn on and run - with minimal effort. I know how to configure Samba and NFS and all the other fun stuff, but I don't want to have to
Natural selection (Score:4, Interesting)
Very good point he makes, but it only works with OSS. If he needed to acquire functional IP through business acquisitions, then the Red Hat development plan would begin looking like the MS development plan of the early 90s.
The problem with applying natural selection to Liux distros is that the distros will evolve to fill niches. If mass adoption of Linux to compete with Windows is the goal, then the natural selection model fails... people will choose what works best for them, not what is best for everyone in the long run.
In addition, natural selection does not necessarily lead to what is best for the consumer in general. It sounds nice in theory, but a species on top will do its best to hold down the up-and-comers, thus inhibiting the "natural" part of the selection process.
Consolidation thru package management (Score:4, Interesting)
In RPM land, things are not so clear, as is a bit more rare than an RPM for a distribution works in another, but opening distributions also generate a lot of subdistributions that aggrupates a bit a lot of distros, like all fedora-based ones or the future ones that could be based in opensuse.
I think that is ok that we have a lot of distributions with its own view on how to be installed and somewhat administrated, but could be confusing to have a separate packages for all and each distribution.
Elimination is part of Natural Selection (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate mergers, buyouts, and bancrupties are part of natrual selection. Consumers migrating to one company's offering can lead to 'natural selection'. One company having a big bank roll and buying out weaker competitors is also a form of selection.
In the 1930's there were hundreds of car companies. By the 1980's there were the big three and a few non-US companies. Over those 50 years a lot of 'natural selection' occured, and companies merging was just one option. General Motor's many brands of automobiles are not due to GM's internal innovation, but really are due to GM buying weaker competitors.
Let's watch to see what company will be the GM of Linux distros.
Re:Elimination is part of Natural Selection (Score:2)
One company buying out a weaker competitor and destroying their product isn't natural selection, and doesn't lead to an increase in adaptation. The environment isn't "selecting" for any trait---it just so happens that the first company on the scene has more m
Consolidation = eugenics ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a similar effort should be done regarding linux distros. "Accelerate evolution", so to speak.
I've also noticed that the discrepancies between distros can be classified in the following categories:
* Installer
* Windows manager (GNOME,KDE)
* Configuration tools
* Bundled software
In some distros, i.e. ubuntu hoary, the configuration tools depend on GNOME. If I switch to KDE or other WM, they're no longer available (or maybe they are, but not automatically and transparently).
So, if we make these independent from each other, the distro evolution might get a boost, so we could end up with a "meta-distro" where you can only change some parameters in the installation, and everything will still work as planned.
But then again, i'm no Linux expert, these are just my 2c.
Well, why would he be worried? (Score:2)
If the competition gets too hot, he - or the future owners of the intellectual property - can just renege on Redhat's non-binding, non-perpetual patent "promise" [redhat.com] to "refrain from enforcing the infringed patent" [my bold] against FOSS competitors.
Remember when SCO was FOSS's best buddy? Companies change hands, good intentions blow away in the wind, but patents sit there for 14 or 20 years, hissing and spitting venom at all who stray too near.
Article somewhat misquoted (Score:2, Insightful)
That aside, of course, Red Hat would hope that the number of non-Red Hat distros would stay high, since that tends to increase the gap between Red Hat, the only Linux distro that most ITers know about, and the rest of the pack. In addition, the confusion, or per
supporting odd distros (Score:2)
The costs of replicating the environment mean that you probably cannot do it for more than a few distros, which leaves the end users to fend for themselves. Bad news for RedHat: SuSE is enough of a mainstream distro to merit the effort.
One mistake of redhat is that by giving "amateurs" nothing but fedora is that it has pushe
Linux shouldn't be just about choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Linux shouldn't be just about choice (Score:3, Informative)
300 distros but... (Score:2)
What About the Money? (Score:2)
Perpetual #2 is a very tough spot though and:
1. opens the door to MS adopting redhat and sucking all the money out of linux.
2. keeping Novell and any other commercial Linux distros as MS competitors in name only. Which would be the point for Microsoft.
At the PHB/consumer market level where RedHat/Suse/Lindows
I can't help but believe... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think he is right for more than one reason. (Score:2, Informative)
In
Ask Shadowman (Score:3, Insightful)
Novell/SUSE have an increasingly strong product and it's very, very far from "theater". And besides, the ultimo, leading Linux distro may not even have been launched yet. A major corporation could enter the Linux world tomorrow with a brand-new distro and turn the entire place upside down.
I guess Red Hat had better keep running because there could be some really hungry bears after them.
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
Think of it this way - fewer worms and zombies clogging up the networks (I may not be infected, but I do feel the bandwidth hit), better security in general, lower operating costs, and
a game company could (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides that, yep, even the big hardware vendors are sorta screwed, as releasing "linux" just means WAY too many different things, so mostly except for professionally administe
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
Having the greatest solution in the world doesn't do you or anyone else any good if it gets lost in the noise of "look at my distro!"
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to be labouring under the misconception that the free software/open source communities see world domination or the destruction of Microsoft as an ultimate goal.
"you Linux people" are a disparate group of loosely connected individuals, pursuing their own goals and agendas. The only people interested in world domination in my experience are disgruntled Windows users and a fringe minority - not the software developers.
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
> free software/open source communities see world domination
> or the destruction of Microsoft as an ultimate goal.
Not necessarily, maybe he just thinks that trying NOT to have one single company dominate the market of operating systems is a goal worth pursuing.
Maybe he just feels that de facto standards and interoperability are a good thing for the user no matter what OS one is using, and he thinks that having just a few "standard" distribu
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
I was just pointing out that the free software community is a label applied to a very large group of people pulling in different directions and not everyone is bent on destroying Microsoft at any cost and forming the "one true distro" - who is anyone to say what millions of developers sh
the Highlander method (Score:3, Insightful)
Good idea, but even if you talked the distros into doing it, 10 people would fork it after each duel off, resulting in 3,000 distros.
-everphilski-
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
There ar
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
How many versions of Windows XP are there? Really just two, Home Edition and Professional Edition. How many versions of Linux 2.6 are there? According to that article, around 300.
You're comparing apples with pears. You should compare Windows with Linux distributions.
And since my posts always seem to get modded as trolls no matter what I say, if you Linux people don't get off your mighty high horse and look at what could get people to migrate from Windows to Linux, it will never happen.
Because you are trolling.
I don't care if it is Ubuntu, or Suze, or Red Hat, or whatever.
So you say, that you know only two - the third is called SuSE - of the mentioned 300 distributions? You just don't have to care about the other 298 distributions, they're made for special purposes. A few of them (Familiar [handhelds.org]) are made for PDAs, just like Windows CE (yes, another Windows).
Just have one damn version and make the damn thing work for the latest technology, make it fast, and make it easy to understand for even the dumbest american.
What do you mean when you say "latest technology"? There are more cases of Windows not supporting the latest technology.
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
The closest you can get to compare Windows to Linux is to compare Kernel versions. You could look at it as Win XP Pro/Home==2.4.x/2.6.
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
How many versions of Vista are there going to be? Something like 6. M$ is moving the opposite direction that you are saying Linux should. They are going to create market confusion with their own products, JOY.
Maybe Linux needs to start following the Highlander quote: "There can be only one" and start having all of these competitors duel off
This is always happening. Look at the number of distro's that have totally disappeared. Also rem
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
And WRT to "desktop users", they just don't care if there's one, two, or two thousands of windows versions. They just want something that works regardless of what it is.
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Completely impossible. For example, the ingredients that make a great rescue distro (like Damn Small Linux -- live distro w/ gui and important apps: 50 mb) are not necessarily the ones that make a great desktop system
Re:Consolidation is a good thing (Score:2)
[sarcasm]
Way to go, genius! However, why don't you begin your rants with the state of the vehicular system? There are just way too many types of vehicles in use today! SUVs, coupes, sports cars, dump trucks, vans, motorcycles, the variety just boggles the mind.
Why don't all these v
Windows Distros (Score:2)
Re:When will RedHat address the "rpm hell" problem (Score:2)
I was also under the impression that the main reason there isn't
Re:When will RedHat address the "rpm hell" problem (Score:2)
Now if I could get a decent driver for my wireless card, I'd probably boot FC4 exclusively.
Re:When will RedHat address the "rpm hell" problem (Score:2)
For everything else, there is Autopackage (http://autopackage.org/ [autopackage.org])
Re:When will RedHat address the "rpm hell" problem (Score:3, Insightful)
It is very slow and hogs memory like only beta versions of mozilla. It sets its pace at the time it takes to check to see if any of the repositories have changed, even if it checked 30 seconds ago.
A "yum search" not only hits the network, but it takes over 50MB of ram to do that.
Yum is only tolerable when called from cron IMO.
Re:When will RedHat address the "rpm hell" problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The ONE showstopper which makes impossible to make software installable between different distros is the per-distro "package namespace". In redhat X.org is called "xorg-foo", in debian it's called "xserver-xorg". No matter how good your packing system and how good your "dependency solver" is, if every distro names every package differently THINGS ARE NOT GOING TO WORK.
There's no point in redhat adopting deb. Fedora X.org package would not work in debian because fedora's x.org package "provides" xorg not xserver-xorg. Now apply this same logic to all the 15000 libraries in debian.
The one way to solve that compatibility problem is to make programmers to package things instead of distros. If every project would package things and tell distros how the package is named and set the dependencies (builds with libc x.y.z, optional feature depends on libfoobar, etc) AND all distros would use the work provided by the programmers instead of redoing everything, renaming the package etc. The format (deb, rpm) would be irrelevant
Re:When will RedHat address the "rpm hell" problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Care to expound on the "rpm hell" problem? (Score:2)
Are you complaining that managing RPMs is difficult? Perhaps so, but if you've got enough servers (remember Red Hat is targeting the so-called "enterprise" customer, with thousands of servers) it's a hell of a lot easier than managing source.
Re:distro watch survivor (Score:2)
Re:Gentoo! (Score:2)
B
Re:Pronunciation guide (Score:2)
Ubuntu, which is spelled with a "u," not an "a" is pronounced "oo-BOON-too." [source [ubuntu.com]]
SUSE is not "confusing," but it is German. It's typically pronounced "Soo-sah," or "Soo-zah" depending on your dialect, but is often massacred by those who think that proper names are subject to the rules of their own language. Either way, it is most definitely NOT "Sooz" or "Susie." [source [suse.com]]
Re:Pronunciation guide (Score:2)
Re:Pronunciation guide (Score:2)
Re:Going Mainstream (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux doesn't hope anything. Linux is kernel; a bundle of software. It lacks hopes, dreams, fears. Moreover, Linux is not developed by a single company with a (supposedly) single purpose. It is developed by a community of independent developers, eash with their own goals, hopes, dreams and fears. "Gaining a fat chunk of market share" is way down on the list of interests of many (probably most) Linux developers. Making a good, reliable, fl