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Enlightenment GUI

Raster on Leaving Red Hat 171

Posted by CmdrTaco from the from-the-horse's-mouth dept.
Raster emailed me to send some clarification about his recent announcement that he is leaving Red Hat. I've attached his email below so you can form your own opinions. But essentially he was unhappy with his manager at RH, and simply got fed up with it. I s'pose most of us have been there. Anyway, his email is attached below.
(CT: The following is from an email to me from Raster. He asked me to share this with everyone).

I need to make sure people know the following:

I have nothing against my Red Hat in general - it's all against one person in specific - they abused E's user base and fdinally broke the camels back with a last straw. the mailed to a mailing list I was on and effectively stated that E users are a crowd that "festers around me" (thats a literal quote) - that was the last straw - and seeing they were in management they directed development andthus made red hat policies as they were - I'm keeping the name of this person out of it - but Red Hat needs to know I will NOT stand for their management staff offedning me and the Enlightenment user base like that without repurcussions. I care about users very much and I can't take any more of this kind of stuff. I have mailed Red Hat themselves and higher management and told them to do something about it. I do not want this kind of attitude prevailing - my negative comments about Red Hat are specifically directed at this induvidual and he is a big reason I left.

I think the rest of Red Hat have their heads screwed on right... just one does not.

Anyway - if you can paraphrase this or something that'd be good. anyway .. now to get on wiht driving.. :)

CT : I decided not to paraphrase, so you've got the story (typos and all) right from Raster. And best of luck to ya man. And I guess I hafta forgive you now for the "Meat Pie" thing...
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Raster on Leaving Red Hat More

Raster on Leaving Red Hat

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  • On the contrary, it's seemed to me in the past that many of the best programmers I've known (myself being the obvious exception ;) have had some of the worst spelling and grammar. If his code works, who cares if he can't spell?

    --

  • I have to say E is one of the best pieces of software for X that I have ever put my hands on. And, if you look at the current stable release (0.15.5, which is pretty stable imo), you'll see the way E has to go yet, and the potencial it has. That's why I think all this Redhat thing about Linux becoming a better Windows is kind of wrong. On one hand, it brings users to Linux, that's right. But I think this takes creativity away, also. What do I care about a better Windows? I don't want Windows, I want something cool, something new. Not a good implementation of old ideas but the implementation of new, better ideas.

    I think E has that, and I think it detached from the Gnome project at the right time. I don't think Gnome is that much enlightened and maybe one of the reasons for that is that it's being funded by Redhat.

    An enlightened desktop... now that's a cool thought. Maybe the biggest problem they had with Raster at Redhat was because of them not being able to stop him having cool (maybe weird?) ideas. I guess I can live with that... :)

    Nothing personal against Redhat. I just use Debian because for me it's the best.

    As to the dektops, the usual way is having both gnome-libs and kde-libs installed, and letting E run the show.

    David
  • Uh. Isn't this why Red Hat is in business, instead of a bunch of guys in a garage with CD burners?

    Isn't the concept here to make money off the people willing to pay for said documentation?

    I don't have a big problem with this general concept. I DO have a problem with people like the individual described (I don't assume these are all the facts, however) who are unwilling to let common sense into the marketing and development process. But shouldn't Red Hat deserve to produce its own documentation?
  • Sell out? Do you want to know how much I paid for my copy of Redhat 6.0? $0.00. As long as you can download the distro for free, who cares what price they charge the suits? They also have a remarkable habit of GPL(ing) their customizations.

    This is nothing more than a disgruntled employee (raster) sounding off. In the computer industry we use the net to flame. In the Postal service they use .45 firearms.

    It's obvious that you're just ranting, and probably trolling, so i won't bother remarking on your other non-points.
  • yep, i've worked at a company where the pointy haired boss syndrome was everywhere. i started working at a smal start-up with 22 people that balloned to 80 after an ipo.

    the ipo forced the ipo forced the company to put in a middle layer of 'touchy-feely, non-technicals (or those with some tech skills had limited experience). the result, a death march nightmare. products released early because of screaming from marketing, then screaming from 'managers' leading to all-night programming sessions that delivered the compiled code. but have a guess what a small bug would be in it. this is called fire chasing management.

    i tried working within the system but ran into brick walls as the pointy haired boss would just nod and say yes to the work i had been doing but taking no action. so what did i do, flame at the boss, employees and the rest of the world?, na just left on good terms and found another job. no hysteria, no snarling.

    so for all you young slashdotters out there, if yr in a job where boss is a moron, try working the system. if this doesn't work, leave yr job on good terms and find another and let the company to it's own destiny.

    the pointy haired boss network can be yr downfall. a company i know had a 'programmer' who sat on their rear for months/weeks (phb's not doing their job) not doing their job properly, quit and leave them in the lurch before a big roll-out and his former boss happened to bump into his new boss. guess i wouldn't mind to be a fly on the wall :)
  • You also missed the fact that Rasterman didn't
    expect to be quoted literally. He asked Rob to
    paraphrase it, and instead, Rob just posted it.
    This was supposed to be a quickie note to Rob.


  • I really hate storys like this...
    this guy screwed you over, and he deserves what he gets, no it woudln't have done you any good, but it wouldn't have done you any harm ether... you should have done it!
    ---------------
    Chad Okere
  • I wish there were a few more facts to go along with this. First, I still have no idea what piece of hardware this person is talking about. Second, I can't search my mail to find out because no name is attached. Third, I'd like to know what document this person is talking about.

    This is certainly something very old and most likely references documentation that I haven't maintained in several years now, and have removed from the RH web and FTP servers long ago. The fact that this info is mirrored somewhere is something I can do very little about. If I'm wrong and this stuff is still alive @redhat.com then I need to know what we're talking about so I can fix it.

    I'm sorry you didn't care for my responses, but this story doesn't remind me of any real circumstances as *I* know them.


    --Donnie
  • Why don't you mail him directly and ask?

    Sheesh, this is turning into Enquirer.

    /mill
  • 10 to 1 this someone has the initials CG. This whole thing brings up a point that many people seem to miss quite a bit. Not everyone speaks English as their native tongue.

    Many people who have to translate between their native tongue and English either make many spelling/grammatical mistakes or come off sounding very mean and "flamish" in their messages.

    If you, or anyone, are a person who makes such snap decisions without any understanding or wisdom you shouldn't be running Red Hat or any Linux distribution. Go back to the dark side where you belong.

    ---

  • Don't bother searching the mailing list archives on enlightenment.org to find the culprit. I jaunted over there to do a search on "festering" and got:

    This mail archive is currently broken

  • Red Hat has good ideas.
    I was surprised myself that RH6.0 shipped with the Enlightenment window manager. However, if this is really true, I think that we should just let it go.
    I mean, so he left Red Hat. It's not the end of the world or anything. RH will still be around, he will still be around, so I don't see what all the hoopla is about.
  • For months Fud Hat has been selling out and this is evidence of it. The raise in prices are more evidence. In an effort to go public and make gobs of dough, they've forgotten whose gotten to where they are.

    Dude, get a grip. Red Hat Linux doesn't cost anything. I mean, yeah, if you want the official CD with all the extra stuff on it, you'll have to cough up some cash, but the main parts of the system - the GNU/Linux parts and the RPM parts, and the GNOME parts that Red Hat has spent lots of money on developing are all GPL'd.

  • sucks to be redhat (Score:5)

    by unc_onnected ( 6084 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @03:23PM (#1872063)
    i feel sorry for redhat. here you are, trying to be an idealistic company selling an unambiguously morally acceptable product, hiring people when you could very well have taken their work for nothing and charged the same price. on one side you have the empire just waiting to crush you and mobilizing their stormtroopers to kill you off before you can get powerful enough to really challenge their authority.

    but on the other side, you have the rebel alliance who hates you because youre a corporation, because you actually require money to live (as do all companies) and because you have to pay for all those people you hire that write software that everyone downloads from your ftp site. because you have to support their gospel with your advertising dollars. because you have to pay technical support to help further their Cause.

    and you have to listen to them all bitch about how expensive it is when nearly all of them got it for free.

    redhat can never win.

    if they ever can triumph over microsoft, every GPL freak, 3l337 h4xx0r, and libertarian psycho will ditch them because theyve "sold out".

    A corporation's number one job is to make money. But there are a LOT of different ways to make money. Why can't people understand that? The idea that Redhat will "become the next Microsoft" is ridiculous. The instant they piss you off, you download their stuff FOR FREE. And there's NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT. Redhat doesn't know any more about Linux than any of us can, they can't hide any API's, they don't own any standards. Even the things they invent they have to put out for public inspection and usage, even in competing products.

    People seem to think that Linux can get there on its own merits. But we all know thats not true. Tucker. Betamax. Amiga. (i hesitate here) Macintosh. Lets face it, money talks. Only big companies and the government have money, and, more importantly, power.

    People should stop fearing Redhat because they are trying to get powerful. The judicious exercise of power by someone friendly to us (for once) is why everyone should support Redhat. Who can deny that they have already had a huge influence? Besides, we all know that if they ever do anything to piss us (the linux community) off enough, we'll kick their ass. This whole Raster thing makes my point, I think.

    So give them a fscking break will ya?

    unc_
  • I don't think he meant for it to get this big. His original letter was to a mailing list I believe, and one of the people there submitted it to Slashdot.

    If I were in a crappy situation that had something to do with a product I was working on, I can totally see putting a message on a list for it to say things were bad and I was leaving. However he didn't ask anyone to spread the word, and he didn't send it to Rob as a news story. So in that case, it hardly sounds like publicity.

  • It doesn't matter how difficult these people are to manage - Red Hat must maintain GNOME development staff. Red Hat chose to make E part of GNOME; no better resource on E is available.

    You can't buck the GUI trend of the rest of the Linux distributions and dispose of the developers at the same time.

    The GNOME in RH6 is very much a work in progress. Substantial integration issues remain. The timing on this is catastrophic.

    This is a suicidial move by Red Hat. They might as well drop back to fvwm95.

  • This is looking more like a lesson in "How NOT to manage your Geek." Perhaps his managers missed those last few /. discussions on the subject.

    This pretty much invalidates most of the 400+ messages to the previous info.

    It still sounds to me like Red Hat is doing right by us. I mean, they are STILL releasing everything as GPL.

    Careful folks, or we might give Paranoia a new definition: see /.

    Andrew Gilmore

    (gotta do something while my home directory gets restored from tape!)

  • @redhat.com (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Interesting Raster said that he had trouble with a certain individual in Redhat. Recently, I had a run-in with an individual from the @redhat.com domain who has essentially convinced me to boycott Redhat and find another distribution for myself and for the company I work for.

    I won't name names either, but the attitude I got from this @redhat.com person was enough to convince me of Redhat's growing arrogance. The 5.X series was more than enough to convince me of their slipshod QA.

  • I hope Red Hat learn from this that although attracting big business is important they shouldn't forget their roots. Projects like Enlightenment are the heart and soul of Linux, and help to keep it alive and improving. Diversity is good!

    I'm sure Linux could be turned into a better Windows than Windows, and maybe that would be a good thing in a lot of cases, but we don't have to lose the ability to configure the look and feel of system. Just because I use Linux for serious work, there's no reason my desktop should look bland and corporate (yes, I use Linux and Enlightenment at work).

    Actually, I'm not too happy with the way Gnome tries to hide the fact that Enlightenment is running as the WM and maybe a little separation of the two will be good for both. I like the Gnome apps, but I want Enlightenment to control the way my sceen and windows look, and the trend seemed to be towards Gnome taking over the whole show...

    Yes, I definitely thing the split will turn out to be a Good Thing for all parties.

  • As was discussed ad infinitum after the last Raster-related story, the article Slashdot put up last time is completely unrelated to the one that was faked (from ages ago). Although it is pretty ironic given what he said that time round...

    --

  • It happens everywhere. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I had this problem at the last company I worked at. My first boss redefined the term "f#$&ing a$$hole," to the point where I almost punched him out on the production floor for lying about me to my co-workers (who knew better) with me standing right there.

    Anyway, he "left the company by mutual agreement" (read: Quit or you're fired) when new owners took over. I had 2 more bosses before the place went belly-up and they were both very easy to work for.

    What you're saying is absolutely true, although you can extend that to your boss' boss and the VP of your organization (usually a PHB even in engineering).
  • Call me skeptical, but do you have proof that this actually was from Raster? (A pgp signature or something?) According to his website he denies having written the article /. mentioned last time and said that anything else he had to say would be on his own website.
    This could still just be some jerk fucking us (and him) around.
    Not that it's our business anyway. It's between him and Red Hat.

    axolotl
  • Okay, so, Raster leaves RedHat with the intention of spending more time on E and making it the God of all window managers. E is *still* open source. Redhat no longer has to pay someone to develop E, and no longer has to deal with a engineer who doesn't fit into a corporate environment. They still get E, now they just don't have to pay for it.
  • Its not for kids or something...

    I don't know what you consider "kids", but as an 8th grader, I happily use E (unfortunately with GNOME).

    Personally, I think that E is a work of art, and kicks ass. But GNOME needs help in that Bloatware area.

    Some early Calculus stuff:
    Let rh(t) be RedHat's similarity to M$ at time t. (rh(t)=1 means that RH=M$)
    Then we can conclude that:

    lim rh(t) = 1
    t->Infinity
  • I thought this whole movement was based on the wants of the users, not what the management thinks the users want. This is what we're all escaping from by using Linux.

    If Rasterman's feedback indicates that this is good, then it's good for the users. Even if this goes against what management thinks.

  • "Redhat's growing arrogance."

    Oups... say that to somebody else. This year I did a report about RedHat for my economy course and I had interesting feedback from them. At first I tried to e-mail at redhat.com and to browse their website but when i needed some information that weren't provided here I tried to e-mail to Bob Young himself. Not only did he respond, but he responded in French (oups... i forgot to say that i'm French ;))...ok, not a very good french but he made the effort and gave me more appropriate person to contact.

    I want to thanks Redhat for faciliting the access of Linux to newbie and for the good job (thanks to the other distros too).

    Maybe you've got some bad manager at Redhat but I really don't think the company is evil and won't think that until they begin to release some of their own code on a non-open license.

    BTW: don't go and e-mail Bob without need.
  • How soon you will burn in hell and die
    like the sniviling, iconoclastic worm that you are
    (I had to include some words I might misspell, I don't really know what 'iconoclastic' means)
    BURN BURN BURN YOU SPELL-CRAZED NAZI!
    ---------------
    Chad Okere
  • The early developers of Unix and the standard C library can't spell worth beans:

    creat()
    strcmp()
    ...



  • This is not true!

    They only display the last two articles posted.

    I checked this earlier today myself, the article was there.

  • It isn't ALL of Red Hat (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm glad raster gave us one sentence telling us his beef isn't actually with ALL of Red Hat, just one person in particular.

    This whole thing kind of strikes me as a semi-publicitiy stunt. People shouldn't write publicly about their former employers unless it's really, really bad. And in this case, it was just a minor personality conflict.

    Kind of ridiculous. If you don't like it, just quit. It's that simple.
  • if they ever can triumph over microsoft, every GPL freak, 3l337 h4xx0r, and libertarian psycho will ditch them because theyve "sold out".

    I have to laugh here... Why would a libertarian shun a company engaged in a lawful, non-coercive capalistic activity? Especially when it came to Linux, where there are no less than 4 mature distributions, countless minor ones, and the option of completely rolling your own.

    Other than that quip, I essentially agree with what you've stated.

    RedHat will never be in a position to restrict your choices when it comes to Linux. Ask any Debian, Slackware, or SuSE user. They can't co-opt the kernel, nor any of the other GNU software upon which they depend. Even if they developed the next "killer app," and decided not to release it's source, as a means of distinguishing themselves from the other distributions, what's the harm in that?

    There is nothing inherently evil about making money. There is nothing inherently evil about selling something that's free, providing you can find a willing buyer.

    There's certainly value in what RedHat does, bundling together an entire Linux distribution, producing useful documentation for it, and distributing it in a convienient format. It's admirable that they have been willing to pay developers to write code that will benefit not only themselves, but the Linux community at large.

    No harm, no foul.

  • I had to include some words I might misspell

    Mission complete: sniveling

    also, Iconoclast \I*con"o*clast\, n. [Gr. e'ikw`n image + ? to break: cf. F. iconoclaste.] 1. A breaker or destroyer of images or idols; a determined enemy of idol worship. 2. One who exposes or destroys impositions or shams; one who attacks cherished beliefs; a radical.

    HTH ;)

    --neil

  • Celebrity Worship (Score:5)

    by gavinhall ( 33 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @08:56AM (#1872089)
    Posted by d106ene5:

    All this seems much ado about nothing. Some guy out there wanted to quit his job so he did. Who really cares? Let the man make his personal decisions in peace.

    This celebrity obsession is really tacky and inconsiderate to "Raster".

  • Strike the Jesus pose (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think what most people are missing here is that Raster's first post was to the Enlightenment mailing list. It wasn't to slashdot. Him leaving RH is important to Enlightenment development. Therefore, people saying that this is all a big publicity stunt are ignoring that Raster did not directly submit the first article to Slashdot. The second article, however, seems to be more of a response to public questions, and thus has been submitted to slashdot.

  • Re:Raster and hubris (Score:3)

    by NullPointer ( 6898 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @03:41PM (#1872092) Homepage
    Guess I don't agree. RedHat hired him knowing who he was and where his passions were directed. If they had wanted someone who would bend in the wind, they might not have found someone with his talent. My experience has been that the people with the most talent are typically excessively passionate about their code/projects. 'E' and its users are apparently more important to Raster than his manager's ideas about what might be best for the company. What someone at RedHat failed to realize is that this kind of passion is/was a GoodThing(TM) for RedHat.

    On the other hand, some project managers have become managers either because they've lost their passion for the work or never had it in the first place. I've worked for good and bad managers, the bad type is always more concerned with corporate "vision" than the creative talent in his team. Good managers realize that their best coders will always produce something amazing that will benefit the company. Give them everything they need and get out of the way...great things will follow.

  • How did RedHat make a big mistake? It was Raster who quit...RedHat didn't fire him. Is it a loss for RedHat? Most assuredly...but, unless Raster himself comes forward to outline the steps he took to address his problem with his superior (ie. private meeting, greivence procedures..etc, etc), how do we know that this manager and Raster simply did not get along and the moment the manager made a stupid comment, or slipped up (newflash folks, otherwise decent people can and will make mistakes), Raster just used it as an excuse to bolt?

    We are seeing one side of the story here people, and while one can laud Raster for standing up for the E users, he was playing in a completely different world than the grade school sandbox where one can pick up their toys and leave if Johnny doesn't play nice, and he should have acted like it. It would have been far better if there was at least an attempt at a understanding of the situation...and maybe there was, it's just no one who knows is talking about it.


  • While I am probably one of the worst spellers around, I always make sure my writing is in good form before pushing the "submit" or "print" button.

    An ability to communicate is incredibly important in all walks of life, whether that be office politics or a simple note. It may seem anal, but it smooths the gears in our society. Imagine life if everyone understood *exactly* what everyone else was saying.

    As an example, my favorite computer science professor has a bunch of degrees pertianing to computer science (Math, comp. engineering, comp. sci.) and and a BA in English. His lectures and his writings are crisp and they are what make him an effective teacher.

    Good communication skills makes an effective leader.

    -John
  • hi Bruce,
    I think you've missed the mark a little with
    your superstar description. I believe that one
    of the main reasons Linus is so successful is that
    he doesn't fall into the trap of thinking he's a
    superstar. Anyone who reads linux-kernel knows
    what his reaction to a comment like that from
    management would be, simply "go away".
    Basically, if you employ someone who's really
    good, they will manage you where you fall short.

    cheers
    Greg

    P.S. You Americans just don't get vegemite, it's
    a concentrate. So next time try just a little bit.
  • yep that's a cool idea, but rh is aiming at business and phb's (point haired bosses in business) that are looking for the 'm$' equivalent in unix 'rh' so they may not ever get to hear about 'debian'. even if they do debian is free. business cant handle free software, they want to pay for it.
  • It seems to me that if you like the company you work for, but don't get along with a single person, you don't quit but you work it out. You talk to higher management, make it known that you have some sort of conflict and you work it out... Arange to be on different projects, whatever. Did Raster try this approach? If he really liked working for RedHat you would think he would have. This doesn't jive with what he said before about having ideological differences with Redhat's wanting to make a "windows" clone. Whatever the reason, the West is the best... welcome Raster... lets get drunk sometime :)
  • Debian?
    Hell im moving to Suse and for the following reasons.
    1. Suse input into Local UK magazines.
    2. Less Lib issues ( from experience)
    3. Too much RH sidling upto Blue Chips ...

    as For E well I tried to get Gnome working as E was required to install I discovered E worked. Sorry Miguel but E worked. first come first served. Still Gnome applets are cute and Raster keep on truckin
  • You forgot the third, which is someone who is just terrible at typing, and is also in a hurry to get their message across.

    I proofread everything I write just because I'm anal about my own spelling. However, if someone doesn't live up to my own personal standard I'm not going to hold it against them and say they're a moron. UNLESS THEY TYPE IN ALL CAPS AT THE SAME TIME. In that case they can go to hell.
  • I find E very usable personally. I've also used AfterStep, KDE on occasion, although I dislike it, and some of the others out there, and E is (for me) the most usable. I like the way it works, and glitz can be nice sometimes - I don't like the idea of working using twm when I can have a desktop that makes me want to work.

    I think raster has contributed a lot to gtk, particurly the themes stuff that he worked on - this is considered highly by several people and is useful, despite it's current rather weak uses, could come in very useful in a mixed environment.

    There's no reason that a desktop should be ugly - I'ld find that very offputting (personally) ;)

  • Oh, I know... (Score:3)

    by gavinhall ( 33 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @09:08AM (#1872105)
    Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    I've worked for/with some complete losers as well. But rambling, misspelled, ungrammatical rants aren't the way to convince people.

    It looked like E was pretty important to RH (new default WM and tightly integrated to GNOME). And Raster was the main E developer. So if he had a problem with a manager, why not go to a higher up and complain? Surely RH is smart enough not to lose the goose that lays the golden eggs.

    No, I think it is much more likely that Raster acts in person a lot like his emails paint him out to be--and his manager wanted someone a little more mature to headup a crucial project like a Window Manager for "The People's Distro". The manager probably tried to get Raster to clean up his act (if not his code) and that just "broke the camel's back".

    --
    "Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
  • not true. yesterday the aforementioned article was on the front page of redhats main site http://www.redhat.com it's possible you went there after /. scolled the story. full points to rh for this. ms would NEVER have let that happened (employee publicly abusing the company on it's front page).

  • Re:Boycott RedHat !!! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @08:56AM (#1872109)
    There are a lot of people in the world who can accomplish amazing things on their own but have difficulty working in groups. Playing well with others requires sometimes setting aside what you want in order to do what's best for the project, and sometimes going along with choices you don't agree with.

    If someone isn't a "team player", then they should stay away from group projects. It's not that they're a bad person or that they're a bad programmer, it's just that they are not well suited to working on large projects working with a number of peers.

    People should work on what they're good at. Individual superstars should go do their own thing. People who can play well with others should do so.

    But we shouldn't start a witch hunt against the person that points out that someone isn't good at playing with others. He's just the messenger.

    -Lyle
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Celebrity Worship the coinage of OSS (Score:3)

    by Wah ( 30840 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @09:03AM (#1872111) Homepage Journal
    Just seems that the cults of personality that crop up are the compensations for a job well done and mass distibution of your work. Not a bad replacement for cash IMHO (mainly b/c it allows easier access to larger sums of said exchange material and that whole ego thing)

    Just to be redundant......spell cheque, please, it makes you seem more preffesionel.



  • Another reason for bad grammer may be that English is not the author's native language.

    This might not be the case in this example it is often the case in comments posted here on slashdot. (just a guess)

    English speaking people often forget to think about this.
    --
  • The guy might be a good coder, but he comes off as being very immature. If he only had a problem with one person, why did he in the previous letter slam GNOME, Redhat, RHAD LABS, KDE while praising his own work to the heavens and boasting of his noble commitment to users?

    Well, that's my view. I wont post on the subject again, no use fanning the flames.
  • Its not for kids or something...

    I don't know what you consider "kids", but as an 8th grader, I happily use E (unfortunately with GNOME).

    He means that E is not for kids exclusively, not that it's not intended for kids to use. It's like lego not being `just for kids'.

    BTW, nifty bit of limits. I didn't learn that stuff untill about grade 11.

  • Whether or not someone is "Team player" is relative. Think not, then think of all those pro athletes that struggle under one coach but then blossom when traded.

    I've been a manager and right now I'm a grunt. I baled from managing because of two things 1) I had some architectural ideas that I wanted to play with and 2) I wasn't getting support from my manager who just wanted to play it safe. I might go back to managing, I might not; only time and opportunity will tell.

    I don't know who raster's manager was nor do I care but I will hazard a guess that s/he is a first time manager, has had no formal training on how to manage and/or might be a living embodiment of the peter principle. On the flipside, raster might have been able to better manage up.

    The sad thing is that this event is generating so much bad publicity. I think that the uber-manager should have realized that there was something up and reined in front-line manager because good talent is more important mediocre management. As it is now, RH is going to have to spend a fair amount of time and energy rebuilding any bridges that have been burnt.

  • Er, that's "commodity", not "commidity". What stupodity :-)

    Bruce

  • Raster seems like kind of a priss to me... I mean, if you are taking a paycheck from someone, you should do what they want you to do. What I'm saying here is based on what I've read in other articles about Raster. I've kind of formed an opinion about him in the past, and this is about what I expected to happen with him. If he wants to sit around and do things all day that he likes and that the people who are paying him don't necessarily want him to be doing, there is going to be friction. No surprise in this latest bit of news.

  • Code Quality (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @09:17AM (#1872119)
    I suspect the issue here is code quality: If RH wants to be successful in the long term, it should care deeply about code quality. Code quality is a key factor deciding the success of a Free Software "product". For example, the linux kernel is relatively solid and rather clean. So is Alan Cox's code.

    Anyone who has taken a peek at the E source (and I last did so before AC started cleaning up behind RM), knows that E doesn't come close. In fact, after seeing the source, I am amazed that RM's grammar and spelling as as good as they are.
    [Sorry for the seeming ad hominem -- unfortunately, this is how I feel.]

  • Off topic, I know, but...

    "About Face; The Essentials of User Interface Design", by Alan Cooper [cooper.com]
    ISBN 1-56884-332-4

    I strongly recommend this particular book for anyone looking at doing some serious UI design.

  • Well, I will not let your "facts" get in the way of my belief in a massive mailing list coverup...

    ;) (my bad!)

    AW
  • BTW, ignore my spelling errors. Eye cant spel wurth a dam.

    As is evidenced by the fact that you think that `potatoe' is considered correct. I won't comment on the implications of totally missing a joke.

    Which I assume I haven't done.

    --neil

  • Hrm... I don't know if we should pay much attention to you... you appear to be a steve forbs supporter :)
    ---------------
    Chad Okere
  • 1) It didn't have a search system anyway.
    2) They never sent anything to the list with any insulting comments about E users.

    You really thought that they'd write to pretty much all of the serious E users telling them they were 'festering' around Raster?

    They've been unprofessional, but that's just plain childish.
    --
    David Coulson (TechNoir)
    themes.org Senior Developer
  • Grammar and spelling this bad can only be the result of one of two things:

    1) An unwillingness to admit error by proofreading. Very bad attribute in a programmer.
    2) A deepseated inability to communicate.
    =================

    People who flame only over poor grammar and/or spelling can only be the result of one of two things:

    1) An unwillingness to accept anything different than their silly world view
    2) A deep-seated constipation.

    "Run it through a spell-checker!" Dude, spell checkers can suck. If you can't spell, you have to trust that the spell checker is right, no?

    Some people can't type to save their lives. You are saying they're illiterate idiots because they can't type? Get a life.

  • Let the newbies remain ignorant :) The rest of us know...
    ~luge
  • Don't worry, I don't think Redhat tried to pull a Microsoft [min.net], the headline probably just scrolled off.
  • Usually, I have a pretty good relationship with my direct manager - they need stuff done, I get it done - and after a while, they let me do it my way. It's the guys in higher positions that cause the trouble.
    For example: recently, after getting permission from my direct manager, I installed Linux on my desktop machine at work. So that I could be more productive. Then a higher manager caught wind of it (via. the whining of the local system support person, not that I needed his support), and demanded that I put NT back on my desktop (in the name of "complying with corporate standards" - what bogosity). Needless to say, I do most of my productive work at home now (in Linux). And my job satisfaction has sunk very low.
    But none of this is my direct manager's fault - in some ways I feel we both suffered together on this. (Having such a decision reversed must have been embarrasing, to say the least).
  • Forget lining up another job before you quit, as long as you've socked away a bit of cash. Some of the best times in my life have come when I've been between jobs.

    Having a break between jobs allows you to get your head screwed back on straight. After working in a job where you've had to either quit or lose your sanity, you don't want to walk into that next, possibly cool as shit job, burned out.

    Take a much needed break. You and your next employer will thank you.

  • After the moderation of the entire first Raster thread devolved into "if your name is known, we'll bump you up to a five," it's sort of ironic that a funny post by a well-known name not only doesn't get upgraded, but bumped down to a -1. Ahh, the vagaries of moderation. Wonder where this one will go?
    ~luge

  • Re:Michael Fulbright (Score:5)

    by maw ( 25860 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @10:45AM (#1872134) Journal
    It's fairly well known that Dr Mike and Raster have disagreed on a number of things. Dr Mike's target audience (in his programming) is for the real newbie and he's very much in favor of keeping things simple. Raster tends to be more interested in making cool stuff. Although I don't use Enlightenment, I have to concede that it is *very* cool.

    Neither of them can design an interface worth a damn, though. (There's a difference between something that looks cool and something that drives you nuts when you try to use it for more than 8 seconds.) Examples: Dr Mike is one of the guys behind Gnome Help Browser, which doesn't have a Find function! Raster wrote Electric Eyes and the Gnome Pager applet, both of which are extremely cumbersome to use.

    Lots of other Gnome programs are about as bad. One thing that's really lacking is good programmers who are also good at designing interfaces. (Designing a good interface is probably just as hard as designing a good program.) The problem is that when somebody says "Hey, program Foo really needs an extra menu here and a button or two there," he'll too often hear "Ok, code it yourself," as a response.

    That's a well-and-good attitude (I guess..) for traditional Unixesque programming projects, but for one that's intended to ultimately be used by the masses, it's a problem.

    I bet one of the RHAD (or any other party seriously interested in improving Unix's usability) might do would be to hire some former UI guy from (say) Apple and put him in charge, or at least in a position where he would be taken very seriously.

    It's a frustrating situation.

  • Incidentally, you still had a few errors.... Maybe Raster doesn't proofread his e-mails, and in that case, I think he did pretty darn good. On the other hand, that's one of the reasons why I hate posting on Slashdot. I can spell, but geez, some people really know how to flame.

  • "...the redhat corporation had to make a choise bettween rasterman and the un-named manager and the obvously chose the manager..."

    And you are basing this profound statement on what exactly? Do you have some sort of insider info on how this thing went down? Or, more likely, do you just like stickin it to da Man? Really going out on a political limb there aren't you?

    At no point in this whole tabloid mess going on have we heard what exactly transpired between the manager and Raster. All we have are the disjointed ramblings of a pissed-off former employee. You have absolutely no idea what RedHat's corporate level involvement in this whole mess is.

    This knee-jerk hero worship is gettting very old.


  • not uncommon, apparently (Score:4)

    by pohl ( 872 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @08:58AM (#1872138) Homepage
    I've been reading a management book (don't laugh) by some folk at Gallup (my employer; forgive the plug) that has the basic premise that the immediate manager is the biggest determining factor in employee satisfaction. Red Hat should take the matter very seriously if they want to keep good talent around.

  • djb@redhat.com (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @12:09PM (#1872139)
    What is with this "lets not name anyone?" RedHat's arrogance as a whole and the actions of individuals that show they care little for the ideals of the Linux community has been a LONG STANDING problem. In terms of the redhat domain address that showed me what RedHat truely stands for was Donnie Barnes, djb@redhat.com. He has been involved in writting and "maintaining" documentation that have been written to the same format as the Linux Documentation Project and sometimes distributed with RedHat in a method that makes it difficult initally distringish from being LDP works. In one of the documents written by him, he made it clear that RedHat had gotten several requests for Linux support for a certain piece of hardware and that the piece of hardware would probably never be supported (the company was keeping the specs closed). Since I had worked with someone to to get the company to release the specs and even written a patch to support the hardware, I notified Donnie Barnes that the documentation was no longer correct. He stated that he still considered it correct since the patch was unoffical and the offical Linux kernel still did not support the hardware but when it became offical he would correct the documentation (so the statement that Linux would probably never provide support remained.) A couple weeks later, I let him know that the patch was available in the latest stable kernel. His responce was that RedHat did not support the latest stable kernel and the documentation was RedHat's so the fact was he still considered the statement that linux did not support and probably would never support the hardware was the correct thing to state until the issue of offical support from RedHat changed. About two months later, RedHat came out with a new distribution with a RH offially supported kernel that worked with the hardware in question. So, I emailed him again. He stated that the documentation was written to cut down on technical support calls to RedHat and they wheren't getting calls about the specific piece of hardware anymore so the documentation should remain the way it was instead of him taking time from his busy schedule to remove the individual statement.

    This really wouldn't be that big of an issue except for the *closed* license model for documentation. RedHat promotes that they honor GPL with pure-unpatched sources /w patches seprate and that they have provided their own code under GPL. But RedHat complettely ignores that open source projects remain fluid and changing and hence the documentation should also reflect that. Instead, they provide *closed* documentation for open source project. To *THIS DAY*, a large number of RedHat documents contain:

    his document is Copyright (C) XXXX by Red Hat Software. Redistribution of this document is permitted as long as the content
    remains completely intact and unchanged. In other words, you may reformat and reprint or redistribute only.

    Hence, RedHat can use people like Donnie Barnes to continue to create closed documentation that states what is "best" for RedHat instead of what is true. RedHat documenation can not be altered in parellel with the open source project it claims to provide documentation for unless RedHat feels it wants the true nature of future revisions to be included in it's close documentation. This is one reason why I never bothered to even look at GNOME. While Mr. Young was complaining about the modifiablity of Qt widget source, I slept soundly knowing that the Qt widgets worked fine for my purposes and what KDE programs I modified, I could modify the KDE documentation to correctly reflect how the change should be documented. If stating the truth (or at least removing the lies) is too hard to support for RH, why would it be any different for RHAD?

    Donnie Barnes made it clear that RH does not desire my feedback. He won. I no longer give RH any. Go LDP!

  • Well.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    this is what happens when money gets mixed in with the concept of freedom and sharing.

    No one really expected a gold pot at the end of the rainbow, eh?

    Red Hat, like all companies, is looking to increase profits. Companies sometimes do this by any means necessary. They keep their friendlyness towards the current Linux users because they are still the majority buying Red Hat. Once mainstream gets into Linux they will forget about freedom, GPL (as if they haven't already forgotten about the little organization known as GNU), and the Linux coders, nerds, etc. More money is to be made in closed source software. Why do you think Red Hat embraces GNOME and GTK so much? Do you really think Red Hat would want to pay royalties to Troll Tech when they want to write closed-source software and sell it for big bucks? Red Hat is not concerned about modifying and redistribution. Yet that is the reason they wrote a document (if they still have it at redhat.com) about the evilness of Qt. They themselves sell closed-source software. Talk about hypocrisy.

    * Red Hat pushes for glibc so they have a "new" feature for one of their distributions. They need money--they find new features (like GNOME 1.0 is the recent "new" thing in Red Hat 6.0). Flame wars begin about libc5 vs. glibc. Slackware gets a bad rep for sticking with libc5 while people do not know that the difference between libc5 and glibc is very small and they will not be able to tell. People claim Red Hat is "innovating" while what they are really doing is jumping the gun on an unstable C library so they have a new feature.

    * Red Hat sells "regular user" (average joe) CD's for $80 while saying the $40 CD is for "hard-core" users only. A lame attempt to justify selling something for $80 that is worth less than $5. The difference between Microsoft and Red Hat is that Microsoft actually makes some of their stuff (and purchases the rest) while Red Hat uses the labor of thousands and takes advantage of freedom. The only reason Red Hat is funding GNOME/Alan Cox is because they want to speed up development so they have a product to sell in the end.

    * Red Hat pushes for a GNOME 1.0 release. And yes, I have seen the gnome-hackers mailing list emails from RHAD labs pushing the release. The coders of GNOME said it was an API release to cover up the fact that GNOME wasn't ready for the 1.0 hype. Having a stable API means nothing if the insides aren't working. It's like having a fancy car frame built but the engine won't fit under the hood once you finish.

    It's OK if Raster has no hard feelings towards Red Hat. But, I'm keeping mine.
  • Actually, I feel like my new manager is one of the best things that has happened to the dev staff where I work, and the really surprising thing is he knows *nothing* about programming, or computers in general.

    The difference is that he *knows* he knows nothing, and doesn't try to bullshit his staff. He's been an effective buffer between my team and the rest of the company and he lets us do things our way. OK, he lets us do things our way because he doesn't know any better, but productivity has skyrocketed, and he's managed to weasel more equipment money out of the folks upstairs.

    He knows his job. He's there to manage, not write code. He does a good job making the rest of the company stick to its commitments to the dev staff, and we do our part in return. And even better, as the lead developer, I'm making more money than him. :) So when our last manager left, I wound up with all the rewards and none of the headaches of being the alpha geek.

    Now if we could only replace the VP of IT with someone like this guy....
  • RedHat needs a good WindowManager like icewm (yes, it's easy to get it to compile). Rasterman made a fucked Image Viewer (Electric Eyes, never finished), Imlib (this is growing, but is SLOW) and this piece of code named E. It's a bad WindowManager, ugly and very unstable. Good luck RedHat. We don't need this guy. Rasterman working for VAresearch. HAHAHA.
  • Linus may not exercise the power he holds; That doesn't mean he doesn't have it.

    If he treated the folks at Transmeta (I'm _not_ talking 'bout his fellow linux-kernel developers; The distinction is important) as if he were a superstar... it would not be particularly nice or in-character, but he could likely get away with it, or very easily find somewhere else to work. Same for Raster.

  • Red Hat's dilemma (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If I read correctly Raster has said that RH are interested in churning out a Windows-clone for corporations. I think companies are only funding Red Hat in the short term to hurt Microsoft since Linux is the flavour of the year and RH knows this. RH needs a flashy interface to attract newbies. I think the top two causes of the user uptake of Linux are it's flashy window managers and general 'hipness'. It's already a better windows than windows - for kids, but as long as software like GNOME and E run on it, not for corporates. What office do you know that needs its machines to have themeable widgets and transparent xterms!?

    I'm afraid I don't have much respect for GNOME at all, and I didn't have much for E until I read Raster's commendable sentiments on /. yesterday (I still think he meant what he said; he's just backtracking here because understandably he's worried about his rep with prospective employers). GNOME seems hastily designed and slow. E just seems superficial, but I spose some people really like it's looks but not me. Both are unfortunately too motivated by ego and a 'world domination' attitude, but E more than GNOME is motivated but a good desire to simply code cool stuff.

    What am I typing apart from great flame-bait? I'm saying that RH is in big trouble. I think it's riding on a wave of Linux hype. The articles about GNOME w/Linux being as newbie-friendly as windows are just crap. I have no idea what RH's plans are/were but I'm not worried about them because I think they'll fail. It pisses me off the way the other great free pieces of X software, Window Maker and KDE are so underrappreciated compared to GNOME/E. Window Maker has a truly great interface, small memory footprint and KDE is also an excellent piece of software, even though it's rarely given any credit. I think RH and much surrounding it is based on egotistical and/or power-hungry motivations and will probably implode in the next year or two. I don't have any dislike of RH, they're just another company like Sun or Apple, I just objectively think they are heading for a fall.
  • Nobody who spells so badly can be a very good coder

    Get real, not everbody who can code can spell, and everybody who can spell can code. I can't spell when I type, but when I code my fingers are trained as to what I want to do, you don't have to know the whole language to code.

    There is no doubt he would have been fired for technical reasons had he not quit

    How do you there is no doubt about that, do you have information that we don't.





  • No, dear, it's "good communication skills make an effective leader".

    /smartass>

  • Maturity (Score:2)

    by bob ( 73 )

    The one thing I notice on these threads is the criticisms of Raster for being immature. This is like criticizing a just-born kitten for having its eyes closed. How old is Raster, anyway (I thought he was in his early twenties, but I could of course be wrong), and from where was he supposed to get all that wonderful maturity everyone thinks he should have? If someone possessing as much raw talent and in receipt of as much recognition as Raster can't be a little hot-headed at that age, then I think that we've adopted a set of expectations for human behavior that is entirely disconnected with reality.

    If Raster's departure screws up anything in Red Hat's plans, then it is arguably true that Red Hat has some rather short-sighted managers; placing that great a dependence on someone as young and mercurial as Raster would a classic lapse of common business sense. I would expect that they hired Raster as someone with a deep understanding of X and an uncanny ability with graphical textures, not as someone who would carry the battle flag to victory. I'm sure that others working there have learned a great deal from him, that many of his contributions are greatly appreciated, and that the work will continue without him.

    Raster is strong-willed and talented enough (even if he can't write to save his life) that he will probably go on to do great things, whether it is by himself or leading some others. I am also confident that, to the extent that his behavior in this case reflects immaturity, some of that immaturity will be worn off as he experiences the consequences thereof. I wish him well.

  • Controversiality? You bet (Score:4)

    by Laxitive ( 10360 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @11:07AM (#1872152) Journal
    I might draw flame for saying this, but it needs to be said.

    This is what happens when a person lets glitz and gloss get in the way of useful coding, and immaturity takes over.

    Ok, the usual disclaimer before I get started. I dont use Gnome, I dont use KDE, I dont use E, and I rarely use X. I am not a CLI purist, just find that the CLI gives me most of what I want from a computer. Moreover, I'll say that I've tried E, and Gnome.

    Raster's main objective in E is not to actually provide a useful window manager, but to provide inconsequential configurability for the sake of configurability. I'll admit that when I first saw E I was enamored, and said "wow, cool". But take a second look people. As a windowmanager, it provides a shithole of an experience. It's quite obvious that Raster, while putting a lot of work into the configurability and theme-ability, did not pay one bit of attention to the actual usability of E. In his previous statement, Raster accuses the Gnome developers of trying to create a windows clone. But I think that Raster copies microsoft philosophy much more than the Gnome crew. E emphasizes glitz and gimmicks rather than real usability. Gnome on the other hand is about usability. Even though they might lose track of that from time to time, that's the main purpose behind Gnome.

    With all this E-bashing, one my ask what point I'm getting to. My point is that E and this occurence, is a reflection of Raster's personality. Maybe it was a mistake for the gnome crew to hire him in the first place, but It's pretty obvious that he does not jive with the goal behind Gnome.

    But this is all just my take on the matter.

    -Laxative
  • Why are so many of you saying, "raster is
    so hard to work with bla bal bal", This has, as I
    see it, nothing to do with weathere raster is
    easy to work with. It is about the fact that some
    one slanderd all E users colectivaly and that
    pissed raster off. I think he is a beter man for
    standing up for people we most of which he dosent
    even know peosonaly and to whome he sertanly owes
    no debt.

    yes I use E. not becouse I think that raster is
    the second comming but becouse I can make it do
    things that I can't do with anny othere wm with
    out patching the code.

    -Jonathan
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Bah, I can beat that. One ex-employer convinced me to ignore reality (I'd made it known that I was not happy about my job being severely misrepresented to me) and stay by giving me a near-glowing performence review and a nice raise, then one month later the out-of-state PHB-in-charge decided to cut costs to cover his idiocy by downsizing engineers with the least seniority. I should have trusted my instincts and bailed, especially after I found out the multi-$billion company was cofounded by a statist Democrat senator (I kid you not, the bastard is still in office too).

    Life's too short to put up with PHBs. If it takes four or five tries to find a good job, so be it. Just make sure you line up your new job before bailing out of the old one. And don't forget to consider contracting.

    Best 'o luck, Raster...
  • Speaking as someone who is trying to "break in" a new manager right now, I can totally feel his pain. Nothing sucks more than working for a boss that doesn't support you.

    Sounds like he made the right move to get out of there.
  • Posted by King Of The Mountain:

    Agreed - but don't forget, some people shouldn't be managers. The guy I'm working with at the moment is (technically) fairly competant, and one hell of a nice guy, but can't manage a piss-up in a distillery (and that's where I work - A DISTILLERY !!!).

    Then again, some people CAN'T be managed, or require very careful management. I've never met Raster, nor am I likely to - I've admired and respected his work, and tend to agree with his comments on E, but he is an obvious example of someone who cares more about the users than "toeing the corporate line".

    Having said that, the RH manager he's refering to should have had more common sense than to make a "company-binding" comment in a public forum like that.

    To Raster, I say "Well done" - move on and continue the work on E - there's lots of us out there who support your stand !!!
  • I just noticed (and e-mailed RedHat's generic webmaster mailbox about) the fact that even though RedHat claims to carry SlashDot news on their portal site, the two "negative" articles about RedHat posted today on /. are nowhere to be found!

    Sounds like their PR/Marketing engine is in as high a gear as Microsoft's usually is! Congratulations, RedHat. You've now truly, "Known thine enemy."
  • I am really tired of such discussions...
  • Would be cool to have a radio transmitter in Rasterman's car so all his admiring fans can track him across the country.

    But seriously, if I was in his path and not in Boston I'd offer to take him out to dinner when he passed through my town. Surely there are others who can offer appropriate hospitality to a road-weary hacker.

    Note to Malda: the meat pie comment is just so 'leet. Stick to the news, pal. Just keep doing that thing you do.
  • I think creat is one of those iffy words, like potatoe vs. potato, both are considered correct, just potato is commonly used. And strcmp is short for stringcompare. C was developed on teletypewritters and keystrokes were expensive so as many of them as possible were cut out. Dropping vowels is a common practise among computer nerds for shortening works.

    BTW, ignore my spelling errors. Eye cant spel wurth a dam. Yet I am quite a good coder...

  • Re:Best and only valid point here! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There's no need to visit a bookstore; Apple's Human Interface Guidelines are available here [apple.com] on the Web. The guidelines, indeed, have little to say about good program design (in terms of coding), but are an excellent resource for those who want to make intuitive interfaces. Apple's widget set is not what the text is about: its audience is (or should be) much broader than just Mac OS programmers.
  • Maybe E was bloatware in the .14.x devel series, but if you had bothered to use it recently you would know better. I'm using the .15.5 snapshot on an AMD 266 overclocked to 300 with a 2mb vc and 32mb memory. It performs great for me, as it stands it's just as fast as icewm.

    If you want to turn on all the graphical bells & whistles (sliding windows, opaque windows, etc.) then it will naturally take a speed hit. However, they key here is that you can turn all of it off, on, or just have some of it running. Thanks to the nifty graphical config these days, it's just a matter of clicking a few options.

    Don't flame something which you haven't used for six months.
  • This whole thing kind of strikes me as a semi-publicitiy stunt. People shouldn't write publicly about their former employers unless it's really, really bad. And in this case, it was just a minor personality conflict.

    Kind of ridiculous. If you don't like it, just quit. It's that simple.


    The Open Source Community is just that, a community. Communication happens. If the idea was for this to be kept quiet, Raster would not have been able to tell ANYBODY about it. Here in /. land, the responsibility for informing and putting the issues in the community in perspective is that of the persons posting the news stories (CT, Hemos, etc). Raster himself did not submit the story. The external E developers deserved to know what was going on. The fact that it got posted on /. blew everything out of proportion.

    Remember, the internet brings us all together. By that same token if you make a mistake there is a possibility of millions reading about it. Also, if you write something you could later regret, there is a possibility of millions reading it. Raster made the latter mistake. Live and learn.
  • Right on. I challenge anyone to find another for-profit company which has done as much to advance open source software.

    It seems that too many people cannot appreciate "good" without reference to a percieved "bad". This seems to happen at all levels of society. Complex issues are polarised and reduced to simple dichotomies so they can fit in small minds.
  • the comment on raster's website refers to something that long predates this... might want to check dates on those items, as well as reading them a little closer, which would reveal that they are refering to something on a linuxnewbie.org (i think thats the url) message board.
  • Maybe if his job description was "generic programmer" this would have worked. But it seems as if his job was more like "the enlightenment programmer", and that he was the "one". So the only solution (for him) to this management conflict was to have the manager change jobs. Try working that one out -- it probably won't be pretty. I think he made the best choice available.

  • Doesn't this make eveything ok? (Score:3)

    by Fizgig ( 16368 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @09:23AM (#1872198)
    What from yesterday was not resolved with this?

    We've established that Raster is not a whining, immature employee, as some suggested. His response seems to be pretty level-headed, and his letter from yesterday is understandable. I'd be mad at first too.

    We've established that Red Hat is not evil. Well, maybe not, but at least we've established that Red Hat was not evil in this case.

    These were the big problems, right? (besides that mini-KDE/GNOME flame war, but hey, what else is new?) It just seems that Red Hat had a bad manager, and what company doesn't have a bad manager or two? The only problem I see is that maybe Red Hat should have put a little more distance between RHAD and themselves, at least assigning a more open-minded manager (or a more tactful one at least!) or, if he was from another department, keeping more distance between the two. A no-badmouthing-the-users-in-public policy is always a good thing!

  • ..And where he stops, nobody knows.... (Score:3)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Tuesday June 01, 1999 @11:45AM (#1872206) Homepage

    Hmm.. this is getting a little out of hand..

    First, its "They (Red Hat) don't believe users really count -- corporates and 'partners' count and what they percieve as the 'business world that wants an exact windows clone' counts" , and now (today) its "I think the rest of Red Hat have their heads screwed on right... just one does not."

    Carsten, pick one and stick with it..Honestly. Rapidly changing your tune like this sounds just as bad in the press as it does in music.

    I remember my first job..I got paid $5.25/hr to stack printouts on a reception desk at a community college. The work conditions sucked, and later on the management sucked too. Infact, there was alot of bad blood running between me and the guy who was appointed to be my supervisor. One evening, I saw him and a female coworker 20 years younger than him wander into a darkened classroom where they proceeded to "clear the desks" for a good half hour or so. A week later, she got a promotion, after only having worked there for about 8 weeks..Promoted past 5 or 6 other people (myself included) who had been there upwards of 2 years or more.

    Certainly, this was something I could have easilly gotten him fired over..But, doing so wouldn't have changed anything. Complaining would'nt have changed the fact that this guy was an asshole, and complaining to HIS supervisor (or telling my coworkers) would accomplish nothing as well. So, I put in my two weeks notice, got another job across campus, and used this loser as a job reference to get where I wanted to go.

    The world is filled with people like that..People in management who really shouldnt be there. You will ALWAYS have these sorts of disputes within any company. You either learn to comprimise, bow down and take it, or leave. The choice is up to you.

    I dont blame Carsten for leaving Red Hat. However, it was a tremendous mistake for him to take his grievances into a public forum in the manner that he chose. Keep in mind Red Hat runs Slashdot headlines front and center on its homepage.."Rasterman Leaves Red Hat" is not the kind of thing that I would want splashed across my company's webpage. It makes Carsten look bad, AND Red Hat look bad.

    And in doing so, it makes Linux as a whole look bad as well.

    Bowie
    PROPAGANDA [themes.org]
  • Some engineers can "write their own ticket". Linus is the best example - he doesn't really have to worry about getting a job. The Rasterman is another example.

    Linus and Rasterman, however, are both well-known individuals with their own user communities. They're happy to work for you on their own terms. You can deal with this, and reap the benefits of being associated with them, or you can let them move on. They won't let you push them too far, especially where their user communities are concerned, because if your decisions are poor they will be the ones who lose face. They won't tolerate that for long.

    Linus wisely works for a company that doesn't have Linux as its business, yet is willing to give him time to work on Linux, so that he doesn't get involved in this sort of conflict. Raster didn't really have that choice... maybe he'll find a position like that this time. Otherwise, he'll have to keep walking the tightrope, which means being ready to leave when he loses confidence in his management.

    If you want to employ "superstars", keep this in mind. They are not a commidity! You can't pay for their labor units and ignore them when it comes to policy decisions, they won't put up with that.

    Thanks

    Bruce Perens

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