OSTalent writes "The Register has an article about Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik's recent remarks...'For all his enthusiasm about the community and sever-side Linux, Szulik provided something of a reality check on the much debated theme of a Linux desktop. According to Szulik, the huge presence of legacy infrastructure like Microsoft's Exchange and PowerPoint has prevented a lot of people making the move.'" From the article: "It's very difficult to shape the development agenda of the community... every day people comment to us on the quality of our products through Kerrnel.org. What's important is staying true to the premise of the GPL model ... It starts with the APIs now, then it moves into content. Try to put [Microsoft's] Windows Media Player into Firefox and see what it looks like. In a world where application-to-application interaction becomes the norm, where does that innovation come from and who owns it?"Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='linux';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; Red Hat CEO Decries Open Source Pretenders Log in/Create an Account | Top | 107 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 107 comments 0: 102 comments 1: 80 comments 2: 62 comments 3: 20 comments 4: 10 comments 5: 6 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Powerpoint?? (Score:3, Funny) by TheBrutalTruth (890948) <{My.Brutal.Truth} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday October 28, @08:44PM (#13901759) Powerpoint is holding me back from having Linux on my desktop? Damn - I knew powerpoint sucked, but that's just shocking.I don't know what I'd do without all those time wasting presentations. [ Reply to ThisRe:Powerpoint?? by matr0x_x (Score:1) Friday October 28, @08:59PMRe:Powerpoint?? by Mostly a lurker (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:56PM Re:Powerpoint?? (Score:4, Insightful) by Muhammar (659468) on Friday October 28, @09:07PM (#13901891) PowerPoint(TM) is an essential thought-prevention tool. Nothing else can extend a vapid piece of generalising self-important blather into 45 minutes of a dynamic + snappy prevarocation. PowerPoint helps our management to feel better about their mission, about their goals and comitment to the cutting-edge innovation. It helps them to highlight the synergies. It facilitates indentification of the go/no-go checkpoints on their flowcharts.http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html [wired.com] [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Powerpoint?? by dnoyeb (Score:3) Friday October 28, @09:21PMRe:Powerpoint?? by Lucractius (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:03PMRe:Powerpoint?? by rubycodez (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:09PMRe:Powerpoint?? by Radar|TGS (Score:1) Saturday October 29, @12:29AMRe:Powerpoint?? by slashname3 (Score:2) Saturday October 29, @12:13AMRe:Powerpoint?? by nkh (Score:3) Friday October 28, @09:24PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold. Quite the reverse, Matthew! (Score:2, Funny) by DonJoe (888954) on Friday October 28, @08:45PM (#13901765) "The desktop has become a lot like teenage sex: a lot of people are talking about it but not many people are doing it," Szulik said.Well, it's the reverse here on /.! [ Reply to ThisRe:Quite the reverse, Matthew! by ettlz (Score:2) Friday October 28, @08:58PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Quite the reverse, Matthew! by k12linux (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:30PM Powerpoint? (Score:5, Interesting) by Mateito (746185) on Friday October 28, @08:47PM (#13901782) (http://www.jwz.org/images/omgwtf.jpg) Powerpoint isn't the show-stopper. I've given presentations using OpenOffice and although the fonts can be a bit interesting when you change computers, it works.Nah - the killers for me at least are Excel, Visio and Project. The OpenOffice version of the first doesn't scale near to where I need it, and porting macros is way too much effort, and the second two still don't have any real equivalents in the Linux space. [ Reply to ThisLikewise for Visio by plierhead (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:01PM Re:Likewise for Visio (Score:5, Informative) by lar3ry (10905) on Friday October 28, @10:06PM (#13902168) In a word: BULLSHIT.OpenOffice's Present module can give a customer with PowerPoint software something they can use. Likewise, Visio can be replaced with any of a bunch of drawing programs (xfig with transfig can export to a number of formats).If you don't want to run Windows, you'll find that there's few business reasons really compelling you to do so.If your company runs Exchange, then Evolution (Linux) or Apple Mail (Mac OS X) can run as a client just fine.If your company requires Office, then OpenOffice is a great tool (Linux--try NeoOffice for Mac OS X).Your argument worked a few years ago, but the offerings for non-Windows systems have improved remarkably. Macintosh graphics software has always been great, and Linux has had a few of its own great programs as well. However, some great software is now available multi-platform, and the reason for sticking with Windows (or Linux or Mac) is no longer as compelling.You can now make a business justification for using any operating system nowadays. If you want to keep shoveling money to Microsoft, fine. If you want a great desktop experience, there's Apple ready to sell you some really sexy hardware and software. If you want to go dirt cheap, there's Linux. It's all a matter of taste... and saying that "your business requires you to use Windows" only works if your only customer is Microsoft. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Likewise for Visio by abigor (Score:3) Friday October 28, @10:18PMRe:Likewise for Visio by MichaelSmith (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:59PMRe:Likewise for Visio by silas_moeckel (Score:3) Friday October 28, @10:26PMRe:Likewise for Visio by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Friday October 28, @10:38PMRe:Likewise for Visio by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Friday October 28, @10:41PMRe:Likewise for Visio by cortana (Score:2) Friday October 28, @11:02PMRe:Likewise for Visio by chill (Score:3) Friday October 28, @11:20PMErr... AutoCAD? by digitect (Score:2) Saturday October 29, @12:57AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Likewise for Visio by lachlan76 (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:08PMRe:Likewise for Visio by empaler (Score:1) Friday October 28, @10:37PMRe:Powerpoint? by jhnphm (Score:1) Friday October 28, @09:02PMRe:Powerpoint? by Saeed al-Sahaf (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:14PMRe:Powerpoint? by bubulubugoth (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:06PMRe:Powerpoint? by AME (Score:2) Saturday October 29, @12:29AMRe:Powerpoint? by strcmp (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:28PMGrammar by strcmp (Score:1) Friday October 28, @09:31PMExcel?! by Noksagt (Score:1) Friday October 28, @09:30PM More evidence of excel errors (Score:4, Informative) by Noksagt (69097) on Friday October 28, @09:58PM (#13902146) (http://arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/) I assume I was modded troll by someone who didn't realize something from Redmond can contain mistakes. F/OSS also has errors, but one hopes they can get fixed. Which is what the first link said--Gnumeric replicated errors of Excel and, when statisticians complained, Gnumeric got fixed & Excel didn't.For those interested in Excel errors, here are other sources: Problems with Using Microsoft Excel for Statistics [uiowa.edu] Fixing Statistical Errors in Spreadsheet Software: The Cases of Gnumeric and Excel [csdassn.org] Using Excel for Data Analysis [umass.edu] Statistical Flaws in Excel [coventry.ac.uk] On the Accuracy of Statistical Distributions in Microsoft Excel 97 [uni-muenchen.de] On the Reliability of Microsoft Excel XP for Statistical Purposes [uni-muenchen.de] Use of Excel for Statistical Analysis [agresearch.cri.nz] Reliability of Statistical Procedures in Excel [orst.edu] Association of Statistics Specialists Using Microsoft Excel [jiscmail.ac.uk] Statistical Analysis Using Microsoft Excel [nyu.edu] [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Excel?! by Noksagt (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:38PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Visio by Noksagt (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:36PMRe:Visio by Pxtl (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:48PMRe:Visio by Noksagt (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:01PMRe:Visio by fimbulvetr (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:24PMRe:Powerpoint? by zoloto (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:57PMRe:Powerpoint? by Armadni General (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:05PMRe:Powerpoint? by zoloto (Score:2) Friday October 28, @11:25PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Powerpoint? by 51mon (Score:1) Friday October 28, @10:12PMRe:Powerpoint? by Mateito (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:47PMRe:Powerpoint? by WindBourne (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:02PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Embedded Windows Media in Firefox (Score:3, Interesting) by FredThompson (183335) <fredthompson.mindspring@com> on Friday October 28, @08:47PM (#13901786) I've struggled with this for a long time. Firefox has the wonderful ability to be put on a disc as a kiosk which is fantastic for setting a known baseline for presentations exported from PowerPoint. It would be a wonderful way to avoid all the security/configuration issues you run into with distributed presentations in the real world, especially if something more capable than MPEG1 can be used such as Flash.However, Windows Media and M$ Office embedded media use a lot of M$-specific stuff to make it work properly. It's not just windows media that is a problem, it's also scaling graphics.Here is a sample with IE and Firefox screenshots showing both image scaling problems and embedded media problems. This is from a few months ago but the problems persist with Firefox.http://home.mindspring.com/~fredthompson/PowerPoin tHTMLTest.zip [mindspring.com] [ Reply to ThisRe:Embedded Windows Media in Firefox by slavemowgli (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:35PMRe:Embedded Windows Media in Firefox by FredThompson (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:59PMRe:Embedded Windows Media in Firefox by johansalk (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:40PMRe:Embedded Windows Media in Firefox by FredThompson (Score:2) Friday October 28, @11:13PMRe:Embedded Windows Media in Firefox by FredThompson (Score:2) Friday October 28, @11:15PM obligatory spelling gripe (Score:5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28, @08:48PM (#13901791) Kerrnel.orgTalk Like A Pirate Day was last month. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Kerrnel.org. (Score:4, Funny) by RDosage (694318) on Friday October 28, @08:55PM (#13901832) We've already /.'ed Kerrnel.org?I think a mirror is at http://kernel.org./ [kernel.org.] [ Reply to This Bitching doesn't help, action does. (Score:5, Insightful) by Trigun (685027) <evil.evilempire@ath@cx> on Friday October 28, @08:59PM (#13901850) (http://evilempire.ath.cx/) Hurry up and release the Netscape-LDAP 100% free and unencumbered.Pick an open project for calendaring/mail and make Outlook work with it.Create better tools for identity management.The problem with people not embracing open source is not with open source, its that nobody knows what they're looking for with open source. Focus on what small business needs, and what open source can offer. Create small, turn-key packages. Create an LDAP authentication server. Create an LDAP mail server that operates as a drop-in replacement that works with the identity server. Create a Document Management System that works with OpenOffice, so that you have it part of the file-save dialog. Give business the tools it needs to work, and work efficiently!The tools are better. Everyone keeps saying that they are. The design is sound, the pieces are there, but nobody has stepped up to the plate and sewn it all together. Stop the development of new tools. Take the tools that we have already and put them together. Industry needs more than Google and a Howto posted on an undergrads website.Everybody knows that there are a million ways to authenticate a bunch of workstations to one or more server. LDAP, LDAP and Kerberos. GSSAPI, Radius, whatever, but for the love of all things sane and holy, pick one! Pick one, and build the turnkey solution to do it. /phew. [ Reply to ThisRe:Bitching doesn't help, action does. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Friday October 28, @09:30PMRe:Bitching doesn't help, action does. by Trigun (Score:1) Friday October 28, @09:47PMRe:Bitching doesn't help, action does. by Dan_Bercell (Score:1) Friday October 28, @10:45PMRe:Bitching doesn't help, action does. by Trigun (Score:2) Friday October 28, @11:06PMRe:Bitching doesn't help, action does. by Dan_Bercell (Score:1) Friday October 28, @11:26PM New Virtualization HW may be key (Score:3, Insightful) by cpu_fusion (705735) on Friday October 28, @09:20PM (#13901959) Linux Desktop may make huge inroads when CPUs that support "Pacifica" and "Vanderpol" virtualization technology go mainstream. The choice won't be "Windows vs. Linux" anymore; it can be both. And you can bet companies will quickly be asking their employees to do all the INTERNET related activity on the Linux "side". Heck, they could probably sandbox the Windows half very heavily, if all its going to do is run Office.Mark my words: the biggest threat to Microsoft is having the "either-or" argument disappear. (And I acknowledge that VMWare and others can do this today, but they 1) aren't free, 2) are already growing in use.) [ Reply to ThisRe:New Virtualization HW may be key by slashflood (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:38PMRe:New Virtualization HW may be key by slavemowgli (Score:2) Friday October 28, @10:40PMWhy wait for hardware? by waferhead (Score:2) Friday October 28, @11:58PM non-sequitur (Score:1, Flamebait) by SuperBanana (662181) on Friday October 28, @09:33PM (#13902033) (Last Journal: Thursday September 23, @03:18PM) Red Hat CEO Decries Open Source PretendersFunny. This from a company which releases software like GFS, but then seems to almost actively dissuade other distributions from using it.I'm hard-pressed to come up with other examples right at the moment, but it seems like I've run across several "open-sourced" stuff from Redhat which had virtually zero documentation- not even so much as what they actually DO, how to set them up, etc.So I'm going to flip it back at RedHat's CEO- buddy:releasing an Open Source package and giving it nothing more than a nearly blank page on the Redhat site doesn't quite count.making a distribution, not providing it in binary form, and making it virtually impossible to compile from source, doesn't quite count.Using lawyers to chase down with a vengance (ie engaging in a thinly veiled attempt to crush) a distribution which (god forbid) exercises its right to use the GPL to build a FREE copy of what you're forced to provide source for...not only doesn't count, it's not very nice, either. Just because something is within your legal right, doesn't mean you have to be an ass about it, and from what I recall, RedHat skipped directly from "hey guys, RedHat is a trademark and we kinda have to control how it is used, so could you please remove it from Whitebox" to nasty-gram- from-the-lawyers.Using the community to help you develop/test your product, doesn't count. Especially when it's so poorly tested internally, v1 ends up hosing people's machines. I still don't recall anyone at RedHat apologizing for the fiasco that was Fedora 1.Sorry, folks. I'm just plumb unimpressed with RedHat. They seem very much for taking from the GPL/OSS community, but even more for protecting the hell out of their revenue stream to the absolute line the GPL allows them to. Hell, I can't even get a non-commercial license for RedHat's commercial distribution to learn it, and has anyone SEEN how much the damn certification costs!? [ Reply to This Re:non-sequitur (Score:4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28, @09:58PM (#13902149) Hmm...Redhat. Lets think about this.Oh yah. They do large amounts of development work and stabilization for the 2.4 and 2.6 series kernel.Hrm. I don't seem to be remembing anything abotu rewriting stack smashing protection and getting it actually incorporated into the GCC 4.x series.Oh, and making SELinux usable. Na. That couldn't be Redhat. Could it?Getting OO.org 2 ported to work with the gcj compiler instead of requiring a java runtime for many of it's features. THat couldn't be Redhat, eh?Or how about GCC? Redhat couldn't be putting developers and resources into that project either, right?And open sourcing GFS.. or netscape directory services, or developing and improving the ext3 file system.Or how about Cygwin? I bet Gentoo did a lot of work on that one. Didn't they? That couldn't be Redhat could it?I guess that doesn't amount to jack shit compared to your massive contributions to F/OSS software.This couldn't be the company that allows projects like CentOS and Whitebox to download source code to their entire operating system and build 100% compatable clones either. Gee since they don't do that I would expect that Redhat would be big hypocrites.Hey, how about this. Maybe Redhat has a business, and has employees and stockholders that they are responsable for. Hrm. Seems to me that each peice of software they buy or develope ends up being open source, isn't that funny for a company that doesn't give a shit?Seems that they would behave more like original Suse did and rely on closed source management tools like Yast, or be like Gentoo, whose founder now works for Microsoft.Give me a break. All Redhat does is:1. Charge money for support2. Protect their trademarks (which if you don't protect you loose unlike copyrights and patents. It takes a active effort to protect trademarks or they are invalid and anybody could use Redhat icons and call themselves redhat; including MS or IBM)3. Don't provide binary downloads for free, except thru Fedora and Rawhide.But they do provide the source code for everything they use... which is pretty open source, isn't it? [ Reply to This | ParentYast is GPL by drewness (Score:2) Saturday October 29, @12:51AMRe:non-sequitur by drinkypoo (Score:2) Friday October 28, @09:59PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold. Many teenagers are doing a lot more than talking (Score:3, Interesting) by NZheretic (23872) on Friday October 28, @09:56PM (#13902136) (Last Journal: Wednesday April 28, @01:06AM) If the results are anything to go by [unicef-icdc.org], many teenagers are doing a lot more than just talking.Anyhow, Szulik tends to hang around many of the more larger conservative kids, I mean companies, and even then in the backrooms a lot of it is going on that the CEOs and CIOs would like to admit ( I'm talking about messing around with Linux desktops, geez you guys have dirty minds ).If Szulik were to hang around with more of the leaner mid sized less well off young companies he would find a lot more physical experimenting going on, especially with thin client Linux ( what else would they be doing ).And as for local, state and federal governmental bodies around the world, they are begging for it, which at least is better than them always doing it to the tax payers. [ Reply to This that's easy... (Score:5, Funny) by kavau (554682) on Friday October 28, @09:57PM (#13902138) (http://slashdot.org/) where does that innovation come from and who owns it?That's easy:Where does it come from? Apple.Who owns it? Microsoft. [ Reply to This2 replies beneath your current threshold. Heck (Score:1) by linforcer (923749) on Friday October 28, @10:15PM (#13902210) Exchange is even keeping my dad from using firefox on his company laptop let alone Linux. (Yes it works in firefox, but half-assed) [ Reply to ThisRe:Heck by Dan_Bercell (Score:1) Friday October 28, @10:53PM Mixing oil and water (Score:3, Interesting) by argoff (142580) on Friday October 28, @10:27PM (#13902251) Mixing free and closed software is like mixing oil and water. For example, you can copy share, do business with, and distribute Linux all you want. Stick a proprietary piece of software or media on the same CD, and now you are dead in the water.Free markets are about freedom. When people have it, they tend to use it to create wealth and prosperity where none ever existed before. Closed software is not about freedom, copy it and you can be sued or go to jail. Some people call that an "intellecutal property" right, but just because someone calls something a property right doesn't mean that it is.True property rights don't derive from incentive, they derive from just allocation of things that have limited supply and demand. Just property rights lead to strong incentives, but coerced incentives do not lead to just property rights. [ Reply to This Enthusiasm for sever-side Linux. (Score:2, Funny) by RoverDaddy (869116) on Friday October 28, @10:53PM (#13902371) (http://www.roverdaddy.com/) Sorry, but I have no enthusiasm for sever-side anything. Cuts too close to home. [ Reply to This It boils down to Gninertia (Score:2) by postbigbang (761081) on Friday October 28, @11:00PM (#13902422) Who wants to relearn something when they don't want to. Toolmakers make the mistake of building great new tools and expect everyone to see the merits of them. But tool users just need to get work done. They care not one whit about the geegaws that go into them, so long as they don't have to learn too much, RTFM, and use their old data that took them years to make.It doesn't matter if it's a holy GnuWidget. People don't know (F)OSS from dog poop. They know Microsoft because that's what came on their machine. There are people that swear by Microsoft Works, perhaps the most awful 'office suite' ever written, because they finally figured out how to make it work. There's a lesson in that for the community.FOSS has no marketing department, and will always battle those with budgets that can spread the word, or make it part of a bundle on a newbie's PC. Fight that, and you'll win, if winning is important. [ Reply to This All I know is (Score:1) by suezz (804747) on Friday October 28, @11:07PM (#13902451) Outlook is a big security hole masquerading as an email client. It just sucks. Ya and I mean Office outlook - don't even talk to me about outlook express. [ Reply to ThisRe:All I know is by Baricom (Score:2) Saturday October 29, @12:03AM Serious Point.. and well made (Score:2) by tetrahedrassface (675645) on Saturday October 29, @12:34AM (#13902825) (http://www.foxcheck.org/) Yep the title says it all.... [ Reply to This Haha (Score:2) by andreyw (798182) on Saturday October 29, @12:44AM (#13902870) With a last name like that, I find it hard to believe someone takes this guy seriously!(If you feel confused, Look up wat Szulik means in Russian (?????).) [ Reply to This Re:PowerPoint (Score:5, Insightful) by Hiro Antagonist (310179) on Friday October 28, @10:46PM (#13902342) (Last Journal: Thursday October 10, @11:56AM) This is actually a really good point; I have yet to see a *single* PowerPoint presentation that I would in any way consider useful, informative, or basically anything other than a complete waste of time. Reasons for this are twofold:1. Speakers use the PowerPoint as a substitute for actually knowing the topic; they just go over whatever it says on the screen, rather than being able to articulate the topic.2. PowerPoint is a one-way communications mechanism; you can't readily make drastic changes to a PowerPoint presentation on-the-fly, the way that you can with a whiteboard. When I hold team meetings, I generally just write down the key points on a whiteboard, and as ideas get brought up, they get written down. Sure, it's low-tech, but it works a hell of a lot better than PowerPoint. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:legacy products (Score:1) by Dan_Bercell (826965) on Friday October 28, @10:51PM (#13902358) Exchange keeps rising in market share because its: (just to name a few)1. A solid product that is easy to manage.2. Lot of different software solutions integrate with it.3. Its one of Microsofts main server platform.. therefore it gets alot of attention and money.4. Outlook is a solid easy to use email client, that has been around for years.5. Works nicely with Windows Mobile6. Part of Small Business server... This helps small businesses to get a Enterprise class email server.Just at the feature enhancements since Exchange 5.5 to 2003... There is no reason why it should have grown in market share. [ Reply to This | Parent11 replies beneath your current threshold.