Bonum Certa Men Certa

Open Letter to James Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat

Dear Mr. Whitehurst,

A reader has suggested that we issue a humble statement which expresses our feelings and articulates some premature fears.

We would like to welcome your arrival and we look forward to seeing you run Red Hat. We have full confidence in your ability given an unquestionably-impressive career history.

Over the years, the company which you will serve has earned its respect and approval of the community -- despite its focus on profit -- simply because it honoured its roots and remembered where it came from.

”Red Hat's moral grounds keep Oracle shy of Linux success prevent an exodus to RHEL clones such as CentOS.“Consumers approach products that are advocated to them by professionals, whose stamp of approval is often associated with the general consensus held by a community. You have the advantage. Red Hat not only makes a de facto product for servers; it is also viewed as a symbol of open source spirit, with key figures such as Ingo Molnar and Alan Cox. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the Debian GNU/Linux of those who rely on brand names and dedicated support. Red Hat's moral grounds keep Oracle shy of Linux success and prevent an exodus to RHEL clones such as CentOS.

Companies that turned against their suppliers have suffered from significant backlash. Linspire, for example, lost the community's respect when it signed a deal with Microsoft and then propagated Microsoft's threats onto competing Linux vendors. As a result, according to one industry expert who has watched Linspire and has helped them since their inception, the company's days are numbered.

Watch Novell's financial issues, public image issue, and its ill habit of manipulating financial figures to artificially create optimism. Some influential journalists have characterised Novell's deal with Microsoft as an "anti-Red Hat deal". Antagonism does not pay off, and it shows. We strongly urge you never to go down the same path.

When partnering with Microsoft, there is only one party that gains in the long term. Cisco's CEO, as well as many others, will gladly tell you this story. It is extremely hard to name companies that have benefited from a Microsoft pact, especially at Microsoft's expense. Remember that Microsoft perceives you, Red Hat and GNU/Linux, as its #1 threat.

Novell and Linspire have already been betrayed by Microsoft, just months after a seemingly-amicable agreement. We advise that you study these complications and convince yourself that, if anything, Red Hat gains here from the misery of others, so it mustn't join this club of misery.

”Red Hat needs its positive image in order to succeed and to truly satisfy people's needs.“Red Hat will continue to prosper and grow as long as it maintains the trust which it has earned from those who develop or promote GNU/Linux and free open source software. Red Hat needs its positive image in order to succeed and to truly satisfy people's needs. Red Hat needs only to ensure that it does not get fooled. If in doubt, it must listen to its developers (in-house and outside as well) rather than rely on the gut feeling of managers. Instincts are a risk. Fear and greed are among the greatest enemies.

Microsoft is likely to approach you personally, taking advantage of the fact that it has not confronted you about this issue before. We wish to make a simple and polite request that you issue a statement similar to the one from François Bancilhon, CEO of Mandriva. We wish to know that you are committed to open standards, openness of code, the interest of those who contribute code to your company and never the interest of a predatory rival that wants you prisoned by a software patent deal -- a deal that is not even valid in the vast majority of the world's nations, where software patents are not legal.

We have considerable faith in you and we hope you have faith in our assessment.

With wishes of happy holidays,

Yours Truly,

A group of free software advocates

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
 
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders