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May You Live in Interesting Times

Dr. Rob Kolstad works as a program manager organizing computer security conferences. Longtime editor of ;login:, he is also head coach of the USENIX-sponsored USA Computing Olympiad.

Will Rogers said, "All I know is what I read in the papers."

PC Week had an interesting editorial in late December. It's titled "Red Hat: Not Fitting?" They suggest that Red Hat is "listening more to Wall Street's panderers of quick wealth than to the customers who use the product." Imagine that. Remember — we're talking serious money here. Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars per member of the founding team.

PC Week notes that Red Hat Chair Bob Young asserts that Red Hat's competition is not other Linux distributions but, rather, Microsoft. The editorial suggests Young should "wait in line behind Scott McNealy [Sun] and Larry Ellison [Oracle]." Sage advice that. The editorial makes the wry comment that "An anti-Microsoft animus has hardly been a formula for success in the past." I reckon that's not strictly true; both McNealy and Ellison have not exactly embraced the leader in the operating system market.

PC Week continues with a note that comments like "runs best on Red Hat" for products like the Mozilla browser and sendmail server would diminish both the Open Source movement and Red Hat. They conclude with comments that Linux needs more than one vendor, even if one vendor is large.

The Open Source (which I think really is heard by many as "free software") movement is an interesting one. The money in sales for free software isn't so hot, I fear. Even in volume, a large number times $0.00 isn't too high. On the other hand, people do seem willing to pay $10—100 for distributions (e.g., of the Linux and *BSD CD-ROMs). It will be interesting to see how the bottom-line business model (vs. the paper wealth of stock model) turns out.

The industry has surely changed in just a few years, particularly in the world of financing for high-tech companies. The end-of-year stock market (and I'm writing this a few days before the Y2K excitement either pans out or fizzles) has continued throughout this year to put ever more glitz on high-tech stocks. My friend at Qualcomm is giddy over the more than 1500% rise in its stock price over the last year. Watching so much money move is truly an astounding game. Yahoo joined the DJIA. The finance people are watching and investing their hearts out.

I keep trying to find a way to create value and wealth. That particular proposition is an elusive and challenging one. I think we should all try to be careful not to disappoint the investment community and poison the well for our own financial futures. I'll let you know when I figure out how to do that!