On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 20:45 -0500, Kurt Wall wrote: > http://tinyurl.com/y7rcmb > > So, Novell has sold out. I don't see how this makes good business sense in > the long term, except perhaps for Red Hat. You don't make deals with > Microsoft, because they'll find a way to to weasel out of it. Novell, of > all companies, should understand this well. Are memories so fscking short? Ray is hardly cold by now and already they've made a deal with the Devil. It appears that "they" have waited for Ray to move into the next phase, to do as they have always wanted to do. It's about the money, follow the money. Both parties in this dog fight are about the money. Ray had a dream... suing the pants off of M$. Apparently his successors want to get in bed with them. > This is now the second time that a distribution and the company behind > has sold us down the river. The first time it was OpenLinux and Caldera. Now > it is SLES/SLED/openSUSE and Novell. They did what they wanted to do, is all. > I'm sure it is only coincidence that both companies are Utah companies. > Strictly speaking, Novell is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Begrudgingly, Red Hat and Fedora have another customer. > > Kurt I feel your pain, Kurt! But, on the other hand, we need the likes of you right here. Since pain delivered you here, it must be according to your purpose! <smiles> If I could get an audience with Mathew, I'd tell him to his face that "Right Now" (TM) is the time to get off of it and Rock N Roll this crate. I spent 26 years being an extremely competitive SOB and liked it. It's not the better part of me, but if there was a single moment to define the place of RH/FC, it's right now. I'll give my perspectives for free, "Right Now." 1.) Dump Gnome, get with the KDE crowd with both feet. Make friends there while they still feel alienated and betrayed. Today. A month from now will be too late after M$ starts giving away the swag. That's what I would do, if I was in M$ shoes. The hairs on the back of my neck sez so, Mathew. You can take them to the bank. Yeah, dig out my old resume. See if it ain't so. 2.) Rock N Roll this crate. Make even the install a multimedia eye-ears-candy blast-off. Get the teens. They become Users which beget Customers. M$ understands this. All of us old farts will be dead in ten years, -- we are not the future --! 3.) Push-Pull all the hardware vendors massively. Use positive PR towards those that respond positively, and a lot of it. No bad press! Just don't mention those that will not participate. Be assertive, not aggressive, as they can come on board at any time and the door needs to be open. Your Marketing crew has a very narrow window of opportunity here. VERY narrow. 4.) Resurrect the RH Linux Expos. Regain the sense of ownership of the Linux community, which has been given away with both hands on your watch. Ubuntu wouldn't even be a blip on the map if you guys had kept your community growing. Bob understood this, and loved the unlovable (users). 5.) Revamp the blooming setup-utils routines (especially audio/visual). Allow users to chose levels such as static, cutting edge and bleeding edges when it yum updates. I'd put a halt to further new development until the static installation is perfected in those areas. Put your best people on it. Then hinge your further development efforts on that. Some pimple faced 14 year old ought to be picking himself up off the floor 60 seconds into the install. Dad should be busting into room to see "What the Hell is going on?", and then be picking himself up off the floor. Especially if Junior is using Dad's cast-off PIII with 128 megs of memory. Blow some minds and LIKE it! Grin Hugely! 6.) This might be sacrilegious, but darn if I won't stretch the envelope and put the real Java on board... right straight from the horse's mouth as an net install during or after initial installation. The Real Deal. Save yourself a dozen developers for other things and just use the real Java install. You'll then gain the support of all the other real Java developers for nothing but some goodwill. 7.) I'd package FC; disks and handbooks, for the EDU crowd. Sell it as cheap as possible or pick target EDU's and give the CD's and a xeroxed installation notes away. Then reduce the upgrade to next version cycle time in favor of more stability. That will not reduce RH sales, just increase the user base. 8.) Deal with RPM and ALSA. Maybe they've seen their day? 9.) Keep your eyes on both fronts... the Debian Crowd (linux politically correct) and the Suse/M$ crowd (great swag!) They're working on beating your ass, "Right Now!", and they will if they can. 10.) Make multimedia creation capacities equal to or greater than Apple's. You might have to scout out these people on SourceForge, KDE or Freshmeat and hire them. If those people aren't coming to you in droves, you are closer to the question to the answer you already have. Namely, "We are not winning the hearts and minds of the average user." You got that for free, in Open Source Fashion. If this isn't passed up to you, therein lies one of your problems. Ric -- ================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad. Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/oar http://www.wayward4now.net ================================================
