Bob Young and the Rise of Red Hat Software

This guy's take is that Red Hat became dominant because it gave away its software, which is what is described earlier as a hopeless business model. Red Hat became dominant because of its package manager, which facilitated updates and upgrades. And it started to make real money when it started to sell expensive technical support. Bob Young played an important role when Red Hat started but he didn't write the package manager and I think he'd left the company when Red Hat Enterprise started up.

I've heard Bob Young speak. I even got the chance to shake his hand and poke some fun at him being a Canadian.

He's not what most FOSS advocates would hope for. He's not really a geek and more business man than promoter of software freedom. However, he's a brilliant business man and he understands that a successful business can do more good for people than just about any other earthly thing. I have the greatest respect for the man.

Bob took great financial risks to build Red Hat, and his contributions to the company and to the free open source software community should be neither dismissed nor minimized. He left the company to break down another barrier to freedom. He started http://www.LuLu.com to allow people to publish their written works when the powerhouse publishing companies wouldn't give them a second glance.

If we must object to this article (and I think we must) then let's object to that which which deserves our objection. To wit, "In the 1980s, a movement had taken shape to develop software based on UNIX, an operating system invented in the 1970s at AT&T Bell Labs, and made available at no cost to anyone who requested a copy. In 1991, programmer Linus Torvalds posted a message on a UNIX users' bulletin board to announce he'd developed an operating system from the UNIX code."

The last sentence quoted is grossly inaccurate and borders on liable.

Let's be honest here, the article is no gem. Many others have explained it better.

He skipped a lot of points between Unix being distributed on tapes for free and the early development of Linux and the eventual rise of Red Hat. Looks like he also forgot to mention that the secret to Red Hat's success, besides being a great distribution, is its commitment to providing support -- and charging for it.

Quoting:Looks like he also forgot to mention that the secret to Red Hat's success, besides being a great distribution, is its commitment to providing support -- and charging for it.

The unsaid part of that statement is that their support is so good that people, and companies willingly pay good money for it. Very few if any, other companies can make that claim.

I've gotta tell you, servers -- their configuration, maintenance and use -- completely baffle me. Especially when it comes to security, it sounds like being good at servers means you have to really know what you're doing ... or call Red Hat a lot.