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Posts tagged as “red hat”

Open Source Women, Preinstalled Linux & the SF Giants

By Larry Cafiero on October 17, 2014 |

Community, Hardware and News

Open Source Women, Preinstalled Linux & the SF Giantszareason

FOSS Week in Review

With another week coming to an end, let’s wrap it up on a somewhat balanced note.

Get out the Vote: Our friends at Red Hat are now taking votes for the Women in Open Source Awards. The first award of its kind, the prize shines a spotlight on women making important contributions to an open source project, to the open source community, or through the use of open source methodology.

Red Hat logoNominations are open through Nov. 21. Qualified judges from Red Hat will narrow down the nominees to a subset of finalists for both the Academic and Community awards. The public will vote to determine the winner from the finalists selected. Winners will be announced in June during an awards ceremony at next year’s Red Hat Summit in Boston.

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Is Oracle Using Canonical to Counter Red Hat?Ubuntu Oracle kissing penguins

Is Oracle Using Canonical to Counter Red Hat?

By Christine Hall on September 25, 2014 |

Business, Distros and Operating Systems

Penguinistas now have another reason not to adopt Ubuntu as their operating system of choice. Canonical and Oracle have each announced, in separate blog posts, that the two companies are working together to insure the compatibility of each company’s Linux offering on the other’s OpenStack cloud implementation.

Such a collaboration isn’t surprising. To be successful in the cloud, Canonical will need to support any Linux distro that potential enterprise customers throw at them, just as they’ll need to support Windows, and to a lesser degree, OS X. What is surprising is that Canonical thought it best to advertise the fact that they’re now holding hands with Oracle, if not in fact dating.

Ubuntu Oracle kissing penguinsIn a PR piece posted on Tuesday, Ubuntu stated, “…Canonical will support Ubuntu as a guest OS on Oracle Linux OpenStack, and Oracle will support Oracle Linux as a guest OS on Ubuntu OpenStack. Canonical will test Oracle Linux as a guest OS in its OpenStack Interoperability Lab (OIL) program. This gives customers the assurance the configuration is tested and supported by both organisations.”

Again, this isn’t surprising, but it would seem to be an ill advised move of desperation by Canonical. Indeed, if the two companies’ relationship has already moved beyond hand holding and the two are contemplating going steady, Canonical would be well served to determine whether Oracle is truly interested in forming an alliance with Ubuntu, or whether Ubuntu is merely a way for Oracle to get around Red Hat.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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Red Hat’s Brian Stevens Now At Google

By Christine Hall on September 10, 2014 |

Business, Internet and News

Brian Stevens formerly of Red HatNow we know he walked and wasn’t pushed.

Back on August 27 when Red Hat announced that CTO Brian Stevens had left the building and was no longer in their employ, rumors began flying as people began to wonder what happened. His resignation came without warning and Red Hat wasn’t forthcoming with anything, other than a terse message wishing him well, so it’s only natural that some people began to suspect that some kind of shakeup was in play. Indeed, I was pretty sure that he hadn’t left voluntarily but had been pushed through the door.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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How Many Linux Distros Are On the Top Ten?

By Christine Hall on September 3, 2014 |

Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the number of GNU/Linux distros there are out in the wild. This is nothing new, as this has been an ongoing discussion among Linux users for at least as long as I’ve been using Linux.

In a nutshell, in case you’re new to the Linux world, some say that the overabundance of Linux distros is overkill, that it weakens the development by spreading developers out on the various distros when they could be focused on just one or two key distros. Those in this camp also claim that the huge number of distros also confuses the public, thereby acting as a roadblock to desktop Linux’s growth.

On the other side of the fence, there are people who claim that the choices offered by the numerous distros are actually good for Linux, that the plethora of distros means that users can find an implementation of Linux that’s just right for them.

I’m in the latter camp, but that’s neither here nor there. No matter which side of the fence you sit, there’s actually not nearly so many distros as there may seem.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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Did Red Hat’s CTO Walk – Or Was He Pushed?

By Christine Hall on August 29, 2014 |

Business, Distros and News

Brian Stevens formerly of Red HatIt’s hard to believe the official story coming out of Raleigh, that CTO Brian Stevens abruptly resigned his position at Red Hat on Wednesday “to pursue another opportunity.” The company is being mainly mum on the subject, only offering a terse three sentence announcement on their website.

Red Hat seems to want us to believe Stevens left on his own in pursuit of the American dream. Maybe, maybe not. From the way the story has unfolded, it seems highly unlikely that Stevens’ decision to leave was entirely his.

ZDNet’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is a North Carolina resident who usually has a pretty good idea of the happenings within Red Hat’s Raleigh headquarters. In his initial report on this story, he seems to have been as surprised by this move as anyone else.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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Results for Our ‘Red Hat & the NSA’ PollRed Hat logo

Results for Our ‘Red Hat & the NSA’ Poll

By Christine Hall on February 5, 2014 |

Business, Distros, Politics, Polls and Security

It looks as if Red Hat has some work cut out for them if they care what impression folks in the FOSS community have about them. If the results of our Red Hat &the NSA poll are any indication, some people aren’t convinced that the most commercially successful Linux distro on the planet has clean hands when it comes to the whole NSA mess.

A few weeks back, in response to what I thought (and still think) were unfounded allegations that Red Hat has been working with the NSA spying efforts by doing things like building back doors into RHEL, we ran a poll that asked the simple question, “Do you think Red Hat is cooperating with the NSA by building back doors into RHEL?” The poll went up on January 23rd and was ended this afternoon.

Red Hat logo

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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Is Red Hat Working for the NSA?Red Hat logo

Is Red Hat Working for the NSA?

By Christine Hall on January 23, 2014 |

Distros and Media

On Friday, Roy Schestowitz posted an article on Techrights which seems to accuse Red Hat of being in cahoots with the NSA. According to the article, the company has been building back doors into RHEL for the spy agency. However, the article appears to be long on accusations and short on proof.

I like both Techrights and Schestowitz. Both are controversial and that’s part of what I like about them. However, before making accusations it’s nice to have at least a few facts to back them up.

Red Hat logoThe article attempts to make the case for using CentOS over RHEL. Indeed, many of us who’re short on bucks and can’t afford Red Hat’s expensive support subscriptions are already using CentOS in server environments. We use it here at FOSS Force to serve web pages? Why? Because not only does CentOS have an extremely capable development team, the distro is in most ways a clone of Red Hat, which means the CentOS development team is able to leverage Red Hat’s research and development and incorporate it into their distro.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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New Temp Patent Head, Amnesty for Snowden & More…Target logo

New Temp Patent Head, Amnesty for Snowden & More…

By FOSS Force on December 20, 2013 |

Business, Internet, News, Patents, Politics and Security

FOSS Week in Review

Credit card breach at Target affects over 40 million

Merry Christmas. Your bank account has been drained.

This week’s holiday cheer was marred for millions as they learned that their banking information might be in the hands of hackers.

Target has announced that over 40 million customer credit card transactions have been hijacked since Black Friday. The data was stolen from transactions at the retailer’s brick and mortar stores. Online transactions are evidently not affected. All information contained in a credit card’s magnetic stripe has been compromised, enough information to make counterfeit cards.

The story was originally made public on Wednesday by security expert Brian Krebs on his site KrebsonSecurity. This afternoon, Krebs wrote in an update that information pilfered from Target was making its way to the black market.

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Android On Nokia, SCOTUS On Patents & More…Nokia Asha phones

Android On Nokia, SCOTUS On Patents & More…

By FOSS Force on December 13, 2013 |

Business, Distros, Hardware, Mobile, News, Patents, Security and Software

FOSS Week in Review

FreeBSD rethinks encryption after Snowden leaks

Only three months after the Snowden leaks on NSA snooping began, we learn from Ars Technica that the developers at FreeBSD have decided to rethink the way they access random numbers to generate cryptographic keys. Starting with version 10.0, users of the operating system will no longer be relying solely on random numbers generated by Intel and Via Technologies processors. This comes as a response to reports that government spooks can successfully open some encryption schemes.

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IT-oLogy: Opening Doors in Raleigh With ‘All Things Open’

By Christine Hall on October 9, 2013 |

Business and Software

The story behind All Things Open (ATO) is IT-oLogy, the nonprofit behind the conference coming to Raleigh later this month. This occurred to me last week as I was preparing for the event, on a night when I’d decided I knew as much as I wanted to know for the moment about the speakers and their workshops and started to look into IT-oLogy.

IT-oLogy school kids
IT-oLogy working with grade school students
Like most, I imagine, I was basically ignorant about the organization. I knew a few scattered facts. I also knew that in our dealings with them, FOSS Force has been treated with respect and encouragement. As I read about them, and started to connect the dots, I began to realize that IT-oLogy and All Things Open are joined at the hip. This conference isn’t separate from them; it’s just part of what they do.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
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‘All Things Open’ Conference Offers Enterprise & MoreAll Things Open

‘All Things Open’ Conference Offers Enterprise & More

By Christine Hall on September 23, 2013 |

Business, Media and Site News

When IT-oLogy opens the doors to the All Things Open conference in Raleigh on October 23, the focus will be on open source in the enterprise. That’s only fitting, given the fact that Raleigh is Red Hat’s playground–and Red Hat practically wrote the book on enterprise level open source.

Every hour during the two day conference there will be six lectures or workshops with at least four of them tailored especially for the business IT crowd. There’ll be tech-centric workshops on Python, databases, big data, Github, PHP and more. Not being a developer or admin type, I can only imagine what all of this might mean to the serious IT department types as they peruse the All Things Open schedule.

So where does that leave the rest of us who work with FOSS everyday without getting our knuckles dirty writing code, building and tweaking networks or figuring out new and better ways to make big bucks with computer technology? Is there anything at All Things Open for those of us who think the word “code” must always be preceded by “morse” or that “enterprise” refers to a Federation star ship laden with photon torpedoes?

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue reading‘All Things Open’ Conference Offers Enterprise & More
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