Red Hat - selfish corporate wallet liners?

[Calum]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/05 ... print.html

Ultimately, all the vendors involved celebrate RHX as a way of boosting the sale of open source software to small and mid-sized businesses.


The rub is that many of the applications may fail to meet the meaning of open source software as put down by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) - the self-proclaimed steward of the Open Source Definition. That's a problem when you consider that Red Hat bills RHX as a spot to "compare buy and manage open source business applications - all in one place and backed by the open source leader."

Interesting to read that Ubuntu aren't the only vendor to be spotted with treacle on their metaphorical faces when the proverbial pantry light switch gets turned on.

[Void Main]

Hmmm, I read the article and at best I don't understand it. To me it seems as if it's poorly written and the author doesn't understand the difference between "open source" and "free software" which of course as you know there is a HUGE difference and it also seems that they are trying to equate OSI with "GNU which again there is a HUGE difference. I really don't understand what the issue is that they are trying to make in the article. I could understand an issue if they had used "Free Software" in place of "Open Source" and GNU in place of OSI but you can't do that because that appears to not be the issue. Maybe they interviewed people who "thought" they knew the difference between open source and Free software but it would appear the people they refer to think they are the same thing. They are not. Heck BSD is "open source" and you can do whatever you want with it. There are many similar OSI approved licenses. They even appear to slam them for including MySQL. I don't know of a single distribution of anything that doesn't include MySQL. I guess I am just confused as to what the actual beef is. The article looks like just a bunch of random, disconnected, and uninformed thoughts to me but maybe I need to read it a second time.

It's not like I am trying to defend Red Hat because they do a lot of things that I think push the line. They also do give a LOT back but that doesn't excuse them from certain responsibilities and ethics when handling other peoples software.

EDIT: Nope, I've read it a second time and I still have no clue as to what the issue is.

[Calum]

i agree that virtually or literally everybody mentioned in the article seems not to know the proper definition of terms, but i suppose that's the issue. With a whole paradigm containing terms that people think they understand, it's inevitable that people and organisations are going to do tons of dodgy stuff without themselves, or possibly others knowing about it.

I don't know if red hat really are selfish wallet liners, but i do advocate finding out about things before embarking on projects. The article's main/sole complaint seems to be that customer's do not get what they think they are getting when red hat says it is providing an "open source" service. As you say, that's still confusing because the articler themselves seems a bit vague on terminology. Still, if the reg thinks there's some issue, then it's something i might look out for in other, possibly more comprehensively written, news.

[Void Main]

But what should you expect from them when they say "open source"? I haven't seen mention of anything that *wasn't* open source in the article. One of the biggest examples of their beef was MySQL and according to *my* definition of open source MySQL is 100% most definitely open source.

I personally can't think of any other "company" that has contributed more to open source (and more specifically open source software licensed under the GPL which deserves bonus points in my book) than Red Hat. So far I haven't seen anything to get upset about. Again, maybe I'm just dense but I don't see anything in the article.

[Calum]

no, fair comment. i am just naturally sceptical about any company that has a business model of making money supporting open and free entities and ideas. I am sure red hat have done nothing wrong, now you mention it. Still, the article seems to claim some customers believe they have been misled, but then that's customers for you.