[NCLUG] "red hat - the new redmond?" comment from mainstream online media

[Idris S Hamid]

On Saturday 07 September 2002 11:05, J. Paul Reed wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Idris S Hamid wrote:
> > The best example is their abuse of KDE, which they first tried to kill,
> > and are now butchering in a way which, while quite legal, is very clearly
> > not in the spirit of the community.
>
> Can you give specific examples of this, or URLs that discuss it?
>

The following sums up some of the recent hooplah, and has lots of relevant 
links

http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=202

The following is a pro-RedHat interpretation of the situation; my earlier 
comments can be taken as a partial rebuttal of this:

http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=203

Finally, for those who like a good old-fashioned flame-war:->

http://dot.kde.org/1030073479/

Hetz/Hemos'  comments on the second article are worth reading as well:

\begin{quote}
Yes, the GPL allows anyone to change the code whether the author agrees or 
not, fork it, etc...

But it's not the case here!

The case is simple - it's about support! when RedHat compiles KDE 3.0.3 with a 
new glibc, a new XFT-2 patch which is NOT part of the official (or the 
seperated maintained copy of) QT- 3.x, and with other changes - A user simply 
cannot be supported!

Lets say I'm running the new "null" beta and I have a crash - who should I 
turn to? RedHat? they don't give a damn about KDE (well, bero could have 
helped once, but I don't see him on the lists anymore). The KDE team? they 
cannot even know where to start looking for this bug because all the debug 
info is removed - which leaves the user helpless...

Up until Red Hat 7.3 - many people were happy. The KDE RPMS for RH 7.3 were 
more-or-less the standard with the KDE build, but it's not any more, and 
users will have problems with it.

Hetz
\end{quote}

Best wishes
Idris

-- 
Dr. Idris S Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523