Red Hat, please just shut up about the desktop [LWN.net]

Red Hat, please just shut up about the desktop

Posted Apr 18, 2008 1:26 UTC (Fri) by grouch (subscriber, #27289)
Parent article: Red Hat: no desktop products coming

Generally, Red Hat is a refreshingly clueful company, but they have a collective brain blockage where personal use of GNU/Linux is concerned. From Szulik's infamous, clueless recommendation to the trademarking of an existing software project's name to the current blurb, Red Hat changes from an example of a corporation which values its supporting community to a bumbling, damaging idiot every time it upchucks something in the news about "desktop linux".

"[T]echnically savvy users" do not need Red Hat's interference. Lots of un-savvy users become savvy exactly through the use of GNU/Linux, which frees them from the monopoly which depends upon keeping them uninformed and dependent. There is no show-stopper technical requirement which prevents even those who have at best a partial understanding from using GNU/Linux. Even the most "technically savvy users" are ill-equipped to deal with the monopoly's product, but kids love Linux. (Strange, the kids in that last article love Fedora. Please don't try to tell them they're wrong, Red Hat. Just stay out of their way).

Please, Red Hat, continue your good work saving companies money, which saves me money as a customer, and make your profits, but just shut up about the use of GNU/Linux on the desktop. You obviously haven't gained a clue about it in all these years and you're just embarassing yourself by revealing your ignorance of the subject, plus interfering with the rescue of trapped 'newbies', each time you spout about the subject to a reporter.

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Red Hat, please just shut up about the desktop

Posted Apr 18, 2008 2:54 UTC (Fri) by motk (subscriber, #51120) [Link]

Just a point - the Fedora had been Red Hat's trademark since, what, 1997?
Also, it's in a completely different field - cf: the whole Firebird nonsense.

Red Hat, please just shut up about the desktop

Posted Apr 18, 2008 5:39 UTC (Fri) by grouch (subscriber, #27289) [Link]

Just a point - the Fedora had been Red Hat's trademark since, what, 1997? Also, it's in a completely different field - cf: the whole Firebird nonsense.

Sorry, I think your memory is playing tricks on you:

Warren Togami founded the original Fedora Project as a school project during 2002 while studying Computer Science at the University of Hawaii. That project has since merged with Red Hat to become the Fedora Project of today, which is at the forefront of Research & Development for Red Hat.
-- Fedora wiki

Note the date.

The Flexible Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture (Fedora) began as a DARPA and NSF-funded research project of Carl Lagoze and Sandy Payette at Cornell University's Digital Library Research Group in 1997, where the first reference implementation and a CORBA-based technical implementation were built. Fedora was designed on the principle that interoperability and extensibility is best achieved by architecting a clean and modular separation of data, interfaces, and mechanisms (i.e., executable programs).
-- Fedora Project History

Again, note the date. Old documents are available concerning the trademark dispute, but I've seen nothing new (including a resolution) since 2003.

"the Fedora" (picture) vs. the word "Fedora"

Posted Apr 28, 2008 4:45 UTC (Mon) by kevinbsmith (subscriber, #4778) [Link]

The earlier poster said "the Fedora", which I believe was referring to the little picture of a
fedora hat, not to the word "Fedora".

I'm not justifying what Red Hat did (nor am I prepared to condemn it based on what little
information I have). Just trying to clarify a miscommunication.