Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#21

Post by freehunter » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #7

> Red Hat is a fantastic company, and a pioneer in successfully commercializing open source. However, beyond Red Hat the effort has largely been a failure from a business standpoint. SUSE started around a year before RedHat, in 1992. Sure, we haven't had the same success and growth, but I would disagree that RedHat pioneered the model. I wouldn't even argue SUSE pioneered it (arguably it was Cygnus in 1989 -- though…

Purely anecdotal and I've never worked for or on a team whose main responsibility was Linux administration, but at two places I worked in the past, our Linux guys didn't like SUSE. It wasn't a technical problem, and more marketing could probably help fix the problem.

I have a SUSE Linux certification, and at two companies folks from the Linux team commented that SUSE makes them uncomfortable because they're unsure of how to pronounce the name. It's like GIF or Porsche but worse. Half of them pronounced it Suzy, like the person's name. Some pronounced it closer to Zeus with a -e at the end. Some pronounced it "Soos" like it has a silent -e. They preferred Red Hat or Ubuntu not because of technical superiority but because they were embarrassed to attempt pronouncing SUSE. It's likely the only time they heard it pronounced was from coworkers who didn't know how to pronounce it either.

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#22

Post by freehunter » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #10

rumcajz wrote: post #4

The article argues that Red Hat's business model was selling a "slightly better version of Linux". IMO they were rather in the business of being a professional scapegoat. Someone to blame when that scary open source thing goes wrong.

That's how they were used at my last employer. Yes, their OpenShift platform is very good, and they have a lot of good products in their ecosystem, but the biggest value they provided was a vendor to blame if things went south. Maybe Red Hat and IBM aren't as different as we like to think.

Exactly. The best reason to hire IBM is so you have a company who is big enough to sue when something goes wrong.

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#23

Post by cyphar » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #21

cyphar wrote: post #7

> Red Hat is a fantastic company, and a pioneer in successfully commercializing open source. However, beyond Red Hat the effort has largely been a failure from a business standpoint. SUSE started around a year before RedHat, in 1992. Sure, we haven't had the same success and growth, but I would disagree that RedHat pioneered the model. I wouldn't even argue SUSE pioneered it (arguably it was Cygnus in 1989 -- though…

Purely anecdotal and I've never worked for or on a team whose main responsibility was Linux administration, but at two places I worked in the past, our Linux guys didn't like SUSE. It wasn't a technical problem, and more marketing could probably help fix the problem. I have a SUSE Linux certification, and at two companies folks from the Linux team commented that SUSE makes them uncomfortable because they're unsure of…

There was a video explaining how to pronounce SUSE several years ago (both funny and a little worrying that such a video was necessary)[1]. It is pronounced strangely since it was a German name and so you have to put on your best German impression to get the "s" sound right.

All jokes aside, I think most folks would agree that SUSE's marketing really needs to be reworked very significantly.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4lFHP-UxTk

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#24

Post by bewo001 » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #7

> Red Hat is a fantastic company, and a pioneer in successfully commercializing open source. However, beyond Red Hat the effort has largely been a failure from a business standpoint. SUSE started around a year before RedHat, in 1992. Sure, we haven't had the same success and growth, but I would disagree that RedHat pioneered the model. I wouldn't even argue SUSE pioneered it (arguably it was Cygnus in 1989 -- though…

Wasn't there a close collaboration between IBM and SUSE?

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#25

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 2:52 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #21

cyphar wrote: post #7

> Red Hat is a fantastic company, and a pioneer in successfully commercializing open source. However, beyond Red Hat the effort has largely been a failure from a business standpoint. SUSE started around a year before RedHat, in 1992. Sure, we haven't had the same success and growth, but I would disagree that RedHat pioneered the model. I wouldn't even argue SUSE pioneered it (arguably it was Cygnus in 1989 -- though…

Purely anecdotal and I've never worked for or on a team whose main responsibility was Linux administration, but at two places I worked in the past, our Linux guys didn't like SUSE. It wasn't a technical problem, and more marketing could probably help fix the problem. I have a SUSE Linux certification, and at two companies folks from the Linux team commented that SUSE makes them uncomfortable because they're unsure of…

I get that it's a German company and that they can name it what they want, but I also think it's part of the problem. The only reason I know the correct pronunciation is because I was in a class with a Swiss person who made reference to it.

More generally, it's an example of why I think that, for US companies, "weird" names are a bad idea. People don't like to sound stupid and something as simple as a name that's difficult to pronounce, or sounds odd can limit adoption of your product.

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#26

Post by organsnyder » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #22

organsnyder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how they were used at my last employer. Yes, their OpenShift platform is very good, and they have a lot of good products in their ecosystem, but the biggest value they provided was a vendor to blame if things went south. Maybe Red Hat and IBM aren't as different as we like to think.

Exactly. The best reason to hire IBM is so you have a company who is big enough to sue when something goes wrong.

"No one ever got fired for buying IBM."

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#27

Post by zackbloom » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 3:17 PM UTC

That article never actually explained why Red Hat was successful where others weren't. It got lost on showing how _not_ successful they were, even as it said how exceptional their results were.

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#28

Post by taejo » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 3:18 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #23

freehunter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely anecdotal and I've never worked for or on a team whose main responsibility was Linux administration, but at two places I worked in the past, our Linux guys didn't like SUSE. It wasn't a technical problem, and more marketing could probably help fix the problem. I have a SUSE Linux certification, and at two companies folks from the Linux team commented that SUSE makes them uncomfortable because they're unsure of…

There was a video explaining how to pronounce SUSE several years ago (both funny and a little worrying that such a video was necessary)[1]. It is pronounced strangely since it was a German name and so you have to put on your best German impression to get the "s" sound right. All jokes aside, I think most folks would agree that SUSE's marketing really needs to be reworked very significantly. [1]: https://www.youtube.c…

The German pronunciation would be pretty close to "zooza", so the pronunciation in that video isn't German, and a German accent would hinder you from pronouncing it that way (in German you can't have the /s/ sound at the beginning of a word followed by a vowel). Either way, "sooza" and "zooza" are not exactly hard for English speakers: they're just completely non-inferrable from the "SUSE" spelling.

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#29

Post by nimblegorilla » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 3:18 PM UTC

Seems weird to claim Red Hat failed. Even if their revenue is tiny compared to Microsoft or Amazon they are still on a chart measuring market cap by billions of dollars.

Re: Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat: The Economics of Open Source (2014)

#30

Post by Angostura » Mon, Oct 29, 2018, 3:18 PM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #10

rumcajz wrote: post #4

The article argues that Red Hat's business model was selling a "slightly better version of Linux". IMO they were rather in the business of being a professional scapegoat. Someone to blame when that scary open source thing goes wrong.

That's how they were used at my last employer. Yes, their OpenShift platform is very good, and they have a lot of good products in their ecosystem, but the biggest value they provided was a vendor to blame if things went south. Maybe Red Hat and IBM aren't as different as we like to think.