Exit Rasterman
The originator and co-developer of the Englightenment window manager, Carsten Haitzler (aka Rasterman), left Red Hat Labs a while back. He called it quits with his employer who is the most prominent Linux distributor in the US. So, what happend?
Of course, I only have Carsten's letter which was posted to Slashdot (http://slashdot.org) to go by. But regardless of what the whole story is and what the personal circumstances are, Rasterman (aka Haitzler) echos the thoughts of many when he tonguelashes Red Hat.
They want a windows clone distribution and OS. I do not. They don't believe users really count - corporates and "partners" count and what they percieve as the "business world that wants an exact windows clone" count.http://slashdot.org/articles/99/05/31/1917240.shtml
This story raises an emotionally charged issue: What happens to the Linux community when Linux businesses focus on business?
There are other questions. What happens when you see someone else making a lot of money off of your software? Do you resent the prosperity of Red Hat or applaud their risking all in their untested business venture? Is the Linux community threatened or benefited by the burgeoning Open Source business models that increasingly abound? Is Red Hat a new Microsoft of Free Software? Will Open Source software lose its purity now that lots of money has entered into the equation? Will the entire Linux and OSS community become tainted, jaded, and crumble under the weight of individual greed?
I wish I had the answers. But some basic observations may provide some light.
First, just because some people make some money with OSS doesn't mean many will, or that everyone who contributes software and time will suddenly change why they do what they do. Dollars will not necessarily be a large part of the equation for everyone. The OSS community is fundamentally different from the commercial software community. Even though money tends to gravitate toward individuals, motives remain as unique as each individual. Even if Young and Ewing et al at Red Hat become multi-millionaires with Red Hat and other Linux companies going public, the volunteers around the globe who have no hope of financial remuneration will largely be unaffected and will contribute as before.
Second, Red Hat represents only one economically successful Linux distribution. Other distributions such as Debian are non-commercial, and they will still cater to their targeted audience (more experienced Linux users) and do what they do regardless of Red Hat. There's no direct competition in the economic sense as between two for-profit enterprises. Red Hat, along with more commercially oriented Linux distributions, aims more for a no muss, no fuss Linux distributions that is palatable to non-Unix users. The non-commercial Linux distributions and organizations will continue in their ways regardless.
Third, the ultimate risk that presents itself before the Linux community is the same one that befell the Unix community of years past: internecine competition leading to fragmentation. It's probable that some Linux distributions may feel compelled to distinguish their individual products at the expense of compatibility and interoperability with other Linux implementations. This is a known and recognized risk, however. This risk can be offset by keeping better mousetraps free and open. Thus, when one distribution makes a better mouse trap, all distributions benefit.
Fourth, at this point in time, the Open Source community is very young, and there are still many niches to be filled. Some narrowing of business focus is okay at this point. Pacific Hi-Tech is targeting the Asian market. SuSE already has succeeded well with the European market. Debian is a favorite among consultants and power users. Slackware is popular among Unix geezers who come from a BSD background and among ambitious students. Red Hat and Caldera zero in on corporate and newer users. There is still room for differentiation to exist and for it to be productive rather than destructive.
Fifth, while standards are a double-edged sword, their advocates are attempting to protect interoperability in the Linux community from potential market-driven fragmentation in the future. Hopefully technical experts will triumph over accountants where strategic decisions are to be made here.
How this will all play out in the future is anyone's guess. But having witnessed the Unix fragmentation of the last decade or two, the Linux community will not want to repeat that mistake.
Exeunt Rasterman. I believe Carsten's departure from Red Hat is symptomatic of young and talented people who need space in which to be creative. I believe it's Red Hat's loss that they could not find a prominent place in their distribution for the Enlightenment window manager and environment. Given Red Hat's investment in GTK and E's commitment to GNOME/GTK, something should have been resolvable. E truly is very different and original.
Still, the ship has sailed and Rasterman is working for VA Research now, along with the co-developer of Enlightenment, Mandrake (aka Geof Harrison). Change is the universal constant, and Linux and the rest of Open Source can't stop changing just to make any single individual comfortable. ``Good'' has to be collective, not private, for this whole movement to succeed.
But Red Hat also has had to set its priorities. The primary audience Red Hat must attract today consists of individuals and businesses. Those are dominated currently by Windows. So, if Red Hat tries to be too different, they risk appearing to be aliens from a distant planet. And Unix already has that reputation. But if they can position Linux as a superior substitute for would-be Windows users who are frustrated with its instability and with Microsoft's shenanigans, there is a rich harvest awaiting them. The Linux newcomers can discover their own misguided preconceptions while they acclimate themselves to a familiar-looking desktop. Later, when their minds can expand without being blown away, they can taste Enlightenment and GNOME/GTK or Window Maker/GNUstep or Black Box or whatever. For now, Red Hat will have to take business one day at a time.
Open Source and the Future. The leading edge development in Linux will probably not be market-driven. It will probably continue to come from people like Haitzler and Geof Harrison who don't think like others. People who work alone in their spare bedrooms. Who do appear to be aliens from a different planet, endowing ours with hidden mysteries.
The challenge facing entrepreneurs who would harness this immense creativity is to nurture it without allowing it to consume their day-to-day business regimen. If history is any indication, the minds that discover and mold the invention rarely benefit the first company who sponsor them. The Parc Lab discoveries (ethernet, graphical user interfaces, desktop workstations, etc) were burried by Xerox. Xerox hadn't a clue of what golden eggs their people had uncovered.
So far, the great creativity in the Free Unix and OSS world has happened outside the company workplace. It seems to thrive best when it is apart from the day-to-day concerns of business, and perhaps Carsten simply realizes this. Perhaps OSS entrepreneurs must agree to remain separate, offering only the occasional support to private genius when and where it is required, in return for the privilege profiting off what it sells.
Finally, lambasting Red Hat or SuSE or Caldera or whoever for being ``too commercial'' is completely beside the point. In the end, OSS will not tolerate self-indulgence on the part of any Linux distributor or business, and smart OSS business people realize this. OSS has a built-in safeguard against greed: when an OSS company becomes too greedy, it will self-destruct. The community will see to that.