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Bruce Perens Canned by HP
HPPosted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 09, @08:42AM
from the what-if-we-were-all-named-bruce dept.
bmarklein writes "Bruce Perens has been fired by HP for "Microsoft-baiting". This was linked in part to the HP-Compaq merger, since Windows is now a much bigger part of HP's business."

 

 
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<  Ruling in Aimster Case | UT 2003 Client For Linux?  >
Bruce Perens Canned by HP | Log in/Create an Account | Top | 593 comments | Search Discussion
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1) | 2 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
I tried to post this... 10 days ago :) (Score:1, Offtopic)
by jukal on Monday September 09, @08:47AM (#4219923)
(User #523582 Info | http://www.openchallenge.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday September 01, @04:08PM)
...this and some previous happennings are in my journal [slashdot.org].
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Bruce says... (Score:2, Funny)
by CmdrTaco (editor) on Monday September 09, @08:47AM (#4219924)
(User #564483 Info)
Bruce says "I would still be at H.P., I think, except for the Compaq merger."

But a few thousand other people can say that too.

It makes sense for Bruce, though. If HPQ is shifting away from Linux and toward Windows, why would they want to keep a bunch of Linux guys around?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Microsoft's dominance (Score:4, Insightful)
by DamnYankee (jim@mi4e.com) on Monday September 09, @08:48AM (#4219927)
(User #18417 Info | http://www.mi4e.com)
This shows the reach and depth of fear that Microsoft's monopoly can instill in even the biggest and baddest companies on the planet.

I doubt that this came from a purely internal HP-Compaq decision. The forces that be in Redmond probably played a role.

What is Bruce on to next?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:Microsoft's dominance by danheskett (Score:3) Monday September 09, @08:57AM
    • Re:Microsoft's dominance (Score:5, Funny)
    by cioxx (abuse@ c i o x x .com) on Monday September 09, @09:00AM (#4220001)
    (User #456323 Info | Last Journal: Monday September 09, @01:31AM)
    What is Bruce on to next?
    Lets hope he joins Dell.

    Dude, You're Getting a Job!
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:Microsoft's dominance by mirko (Score:1) Monday September 09, @09:03AM
    • Re:Microsoft's dominance (Score:5, Funny)
    by Bodrius on Monday September 09, @09:07AM (#4220033)
    (User #191265 Info | http://www.bodrius.com/)

    Yes, I'm sure Bill Gates personally has a black list in his office with the names of all Open Source advocates that have challenged his empire and every morning, at a strategic meeting with his closest advisors, he has a conversation like this:

    - Bill, we have successfully increased the revenue of the company by 20%. We expect this to bring the stockholders to the level of optimism they had before the recession.

    Bill: Yeah, yeah, whatever...

    - Bill, our deals with the media conglomerates regarding DRM are proceeding flawlessly, ensuring that we are unopposed to push for the PC as the consumer device that coordinates everyone's information-related activities, including entertainment.

    Bill: Sure. That's nice, I guess.

    - Bill, our marketing campaign for Web Services is being successful among developers. Soon they will be tied to our standards and companies will have to consider Windows servers seriously for their large-scale network services.

    Bill: What's wrong with you people? Is this what I pay you for?!

    Silence.

    Bill: Ok, who can answer the really important question? How close am I to fulfilling my personal vendetta against the Open Source Linux geeks? How many did we get fired today?

    - I called HP yesterday morning. We got Bruce Perens fired.

    Bill: Geek #427? EXCELLENT!

    Bill takes list, draws little check mark on "#427 Bruce Perens" entry.

    Bill: Ok. According to my list, "#428 Billy Tempherton" is next. He's a Linux administrator for a community college in Iowa that posted something about me being evil and Windows crashing his computer, at that Slashdot site in 1999...

    - We're working on it, Sir!

    Bill: Good! Meeting dismissed! I have to go to Slashdot and see who posted something against me today...

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • How about: Perens wasn't good at his job? by Nailer (Score:2) Monday September 09, @06:43PM
  • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
Fukk a Registration (Score:4, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09, @08:49AM (#4219931)
Balancing Linux and Microsoft
By STEVE LOHR

For nearly two years, Bruce Perens was a senior strategist for open-source software at Hewlett-Packard — an evangelist and rabble-rouser on behalf of a computing counterculture that is increasingly moving into the mainstream. Part of the job description, he was told, was to "challenge H.P. management."

His last day as a Hewlett-Packard employee was 10 days ago. The parting was amicable, Mr. Perens said, but he was fired — "officially a termination," he noted. "It came after a long, long warning," Mr. Perens explained. "The thing that I did that was most hazardous for H.P. is the Microsoft-baiting I tend to do."

A spokeswoman for Hewlett-Packard declined to comment on Mr. Perens's departure, citing company policy against making public statements about why individual employees leave.
Advertisement

But, according to Mr. Perens, a handful of forces combined to make his exit from Hewlett-Packard inevitable. After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft. A rising threat to Microsoft is GNU Linux, an operating system distributed free and developed using the open-source model in which communities of programmers donate their labor to debug, modify and otherwise improve the code.

After the merger with Compaq, Hewlett also became the largest vendor of Linux-based server computers, ahead of Dell Computer and I.B.M. Yet Hewlett's bet on Linux still pales compared with its reliance on Microsoft. And after the merger, it was mainly former Compaq executives who took senior positions overseeing the Linux business.

In the premerger Hewlett, Mr. Perens, a leader in the open-source movement, enjoyed a lot of independence. When speaking to potential Hewlett customers on Wall Street and elsewhere, he would make the case for Linux, extolling it as a reliable and secure operating system that also allowed corporate customers to avoid being locked in to proprietary software like Microsoft's Windows or Sun Microsystems' Solaris.

Mr. Perens did not have to make the pitch for Hewlett as supplier of choice for Linux-based servers, services or support. That chore fell to Hewlett's sales people. "It was a pretty unique job that existed because of the H.P. culture," Mr. Perens said. "I would still be at H.P., I think, except for the Compaq merger."

Yet beyond the postmerger atmosphere at Hewlett, Mr. Perens also says that he had been taking a more outspoken stance against Microsoft recently. "Microsoft is out to crush Linux as a competitor," said Mr. Perens, who became truly galvanized after the emergence in May of a Microsoft-backed industry group, the Initiative for Software Choice. Besides the chip maker Intel, a close Microsoft ally, most of the other 20 or so members are smaller foreign companies or trade organizations.

The software-choice group sees a threat in what it has identified as 66 legislative proposals, government statements and studies promoting open-source software in 25 countries, including Germany, Britain, China, Peru and Brazil. Some of those legislative proposals would require the use of open-source software in government, but most of the government steps are efforts to ensure there is an alternative to Microsoft in their critical software markets.

The Microsoft-backed group says its purpose is to promote even-handed competition based on the merits of products, instead of a government bias for one kind of software. But as Mr. Perens sees it, the software-choice group has another agenda. "Its principles are nice-sounding words," he said, "but what they really say is, `Let's maintain the status quo.' "

Mr. Perens has stepped in himself and started an effort to respond to the Microsoft-backed group. His initiative, called Sincere Choice, has its own Web site (www .sincerechoice.org), and its own set of principles. Mr. Perens asserts that governments could

Read the rest of this comment...

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Re:Fukk a Registration by Alsee (Score:2) Monday September 09, @08:59AM
  • Non-sequitor by swb (Score:3) Monday September 09, @09:13AM
    • Re:Non-sequitor by nege (Score:1) Monday September 09, @09:20AM
    • True? by 4of12 (Score:2) Monday September 09, @09:48AM
      • Re:True? by Kingsly (Score:1) Monday September 09, @10:10AM
      • Re:True? by matithyahu (Score:1) Monday September 09, @10:59AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Classic case of "the tail wagging the dog." by Ruger (Score:1) Monday September 09, @10:20AM
    • Re:Non-sequitor by madfgurtbn (Score:2) Monday September 09, @10:26AM
      • Re:Non-sequitor by JWW (Score:2) Monday September 09, @10:58AM
      • RIP HP by MountainLogic (Score:2) Monday September 09, @01:31PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Non-sequitor by TheConfusedOne (Score:2) Monday September 09, @10:27AM
    • Re:Non-sequitor by ChaosDiscordSimple (Score:3) Monday September 09, @10:51AM
    • Re:Non-sequitor by revery (Score:1) Monday September 09, @11:06AM
      • Re:Non-sequitor (Score:4, Insightful)
      by sphealey on Monday September 09, @11:31AM (#4220970)
      (User #2855 Info)
      I don't get it. If I moved from n to 1 on the list of a vendor's customers, why wouldn't I see increased leverage with my vendor?
      You are living on a space station. You purchase your oxygen from the largest oxygen vendor. He is in fact the only one big enough to supply the needs of the majority of those souls you are responsible for. You are also the oxygen vendor's largest customer.

      What happens if you get into a dispute with the oxygen vendor and threaten to cut off your purchases? If worse comes to worst and you do stop buying from him, he might go bankrupt. On the other hand he might not - there are a lot of people who need to breathe. You on the other hand will certainly die.

      That's the problem the OEMs face when dealing with Microsoft.

      sPh

      [ Reply to This | Parent ]
      Re:Non-sequitor (Score:5, Insightful)
      by analog_line on Monday September 09, @11:31AM (#4220975)
      (User #465182 Info)
      It's more a measure of the influence that the incoming Compaq people are having on HP. Compaq, overall, was staunchly a pro-Microsoft computer maker, far more than HP ever was. Compaq's lifeblood was machines running Windows 2000. HP had other irons in the fire, and could deal with a more tepid relationship.

      When I was working there as a consultant, pro-Microsoft propaganda was everywhere. Sure, there were plenty of Linux people working there, but it was really under the radar. Microsoft was the party line and woe to anyone who would challenge that too vocally. Yeah, Compaq didn't mind if Linux ran on their machines, but they didn't really put a whole lot of effort into it. IIRC, Microsoft bought an obscene number of Compaq machines during the time I was there. There was also a massive Windows 2000 migration push at the time, which may have been related to it.

      I've posted regarding this before, but I think it bears restatement. There are an AWFUL lot of strong personalities in what used to be Compaq, hardened by a bitter internal war during the days after the Digital merger. Large caliber bullets didn't fly, but there was a whole lot of political fallout, even when I was there long after the merger (for about a year, from summer 2000 to summer 2001 before the consultancy I worked for laid me off). The "HP Way", as laid back as it's projected to be, I believe, cannot stand up to the hardened take-no-prisoners warriors at Compaq. Sure, alot of people at Compaq are going to get laid off, but sometimes you have to sacrifice your own men in a battle to win a war, and I would bet that's how the Compaq people see it, a war to save their way of doing things, and in the end, their personal employment.
      [ Reply to This | Parent ]
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Non-sequitor by swb (Score:2) Monday September 09, @10:41AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • random NYT registration generator by forged (Score:2) Monday September 09, @09:23AM
    • Hi (Score:5, Informative)
    by Bruce Perens (bruce&perens,com) on Monday September 09, @10:07AM (#4220338)
    (User #3872 Info | http://perens.com/)
    Well, I guess "being fired" gets news - but I would rather the article was just about me and not about HP. Besides, everybody knew I was leaving due to the two articles here previously, and it really was an amicable parting.

    Bruce

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:Hi by ergo98 (Score:2) Monday September 09, @10:16AM
    • Re:Hi by Peale (Score:2) Monday September 09, @11:02AM
        Re:Hi (Score:5, Interesting)
        by Bruce Perens (bruce&perens,com) on Monday September 09, @11:19AM (#4220882)
        (User #3872 Info | http://perens.com/)
        I do not get royalties or residuals. I did get some stock, which I used to pay for my home. So, I was out of the stock market when it crashed, thank goodness, and don't have the debt load of most people like me. I am not rich, sorry.

        Bruce

        [ Reply to This | Parent ]
        • Re:Hi by br0ck (Score:2) Monday September 09, @12:12PM
        • Re:Hi by trentfoley (Score:2) Monday September 09, @06:04PM
        • Re:Hi by Skevin (Score:2) Monday September 09, @07:48PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Hi by Jeppe Salvesen (Score:3) Monday September 09, @11:13AM
      • Re:Hi by Tablizer (Score:2) Monday September 09, @01:15PM
    • Thank you. by bhsx (Score:3) Monday September 09, @11:26AM
      • Tool by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Monday September 09, @11:50AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Hi by bungo (Score:3) Monday September 09, @11:55AM
    • I know a little about large corporations by westfieldscientific (Score:1) Monday September 09, @12:29PM
    • Re:Hi by Oink.NET (Score:3) Monday September 09, @03:53PM
    • Re:C'mon, Moderators! by Mr. McGibby (Score:1) Monday September 09, @11:14AM
    • Re:Hi by jasonditz (Score:1) Monday September 09, @12:09PM
    • HP is going to eat it by 0x0d0a (Score:2) Monday September 09, @04:36PM
    • 6 replies beneath your current threshold.
    Popups (Score:5, Funny)
    by xant (xant*users.sourceforge.nothin.but.net) on Monday September 09, @10:49AM (#4220661)
    (User #99438 Info | http://nestofcandles.org/)
    [. . . ] citing company policy against making public statements about why individual employees leave.
    Advertisement

    But, according [. . .]


    If all of our advertisements were like this, I don't think I'd even bother with blocking popups.

    Now, I must go buy something at random.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • Fukk a reporter by scrytch (Score:2) Monday September 09, @12:11PM
  • Re:Fukk a Registration by darkfrog (Score:1) Monday September 09, @12:32PM
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Now that he has some free time... (Score:5, Funny)
by Junior J. Junior III on Monday September 09, @08:49AM (#4219936)
(User #192702 Info | http://www.livejournal.com/users/jjjiii)
Hey Bruce, why not run for congress?
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Corporate economics (Score:5, Insightful)
by mwber on Monday September 09, @08:49AM (#4219939)
(User #235552 Info)
HP needs a big cash inflow to survive. Microsoft currently supplies that. Linux currently doesn't. Case closed. Corporations tend to think of themselves of amoral money-making ventures, and often, with huge companies like HP, any overtures to supporting open source are simply PR moves. PR moves are usually less important than simple cash inflow. If the inflow is going to disrupted by PR (like Bruce Perens), they just chop it off.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Why is this news? (Score:2, Troll)
by nuggz on Monday September 09, @08:50AM (#4219943)
(User #69912 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Why did they even hire him in the first place?
I think that it should have been obvious that an open source activist would upset MS.
Additionally Bruce doesn't have a great history of keeping everyone happy, it should have been expected that he'd make a few stabs at MS, who is one of the more popular targets.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
various (Score:1)
by mirko on Monday September 09, @08:51AM (#4219947)
(User #198274 Info | http://www.vidovic.org/mirko | Last Journal: Saturday August 24, @08:44AM)
  1. Login/passwd: somebaudysentme/somebaudysentme (courtesy of Baud [somebaudy.com])
  2. quotes:
    • "Bruce Perens was a senior strategist for Open source at HP".
    • "he was fired "officially a termination" he noted ".

    This is not obvious to me he was not simply thrown out because HP decided to drop some of their support to the Open Source communities.
    Of course, one may be angry because itis a way of life and because being fired because his company won't endorse such activities in the (near) future may sound like a discredit, but I guess it was not, as the summary read because of some passionate activism.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
My Resume (Score:2)
by Spackler on Monday September 09, @08:51AM (#4219950)
(User #223562 Info)
HP, I would be happy to forward you my resume. I promise that I won't bait Microsoft. I'll be good, and do just what you want. I'll even use XP. Ok, that might be a bit much. Oh, fine, see, I'll give up my morals and use XP (as long as you pay me as much as you payed Bruce).
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Alternative URL (Score:1)
by joebp (jpixton@di[ ]n.co.uk ['rco' in gap]) on Monday September 09, @08:52AM (#4219956)
(User #528430 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Here [colorado.edu] or here [majcher.com]. You'll need to disable referer support in your browser.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
So, that's why (Score:2)
by red_dragon (com!bradfordwhite!cfern) on Monday September 09, @08:55AM (#4219968)
(User #1761 Info | http://fully.qualified.url/)

I guess that'd explain why Bruce has been posting to Slashdot more regularly [slashdot.org].

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Now I go buy a Lexmark printer (Score:2)
by redelm on Monday September 09, @08:55AM (#4219969)
(User #54142 Info | http://users.ev1.net/~redelm)
Thanks Carly! I was having trouble making up my mind on buying a new printer. I've always bought and liked HP, but Lexmark (ex IBM) has some nice offerings. This tips the scale.

Why does it count? Because I'm not aware of anything the Bruce has said that is immoderate or baiting (ourrageous statement inciting a response). Bruce has actually rather toed the line in withdrawing his DMCA? demo at HP's request.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Motivations. (Score:5, Insightful)
by Some guy named Chris on Monday September 09, @08:55AM (#4219970)
(User #9720 Info | http://www.grump.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 22, @11:57PM)

"I'm not just going to sit back and be a quiet engineer. I have a two-year-old son and I don't want him to grow up in a world that is less free." -- Bruce Perens (from the article)

I once had someone I admired tell me that "You shouldn't live for anything you aren't willing to die for". I've tried to incorporate that in my decision processes. Clearly, Bruce believes his child, and his freedom is more worth living for than his job at HP.

I get his motivation, I understand where he is coming from, and so, I can relate to him, and less readily dismiss him as a zealot, crackpot, or trouble maker, which is sadly the case with some other prominant free software advocates.

So, Bruce, thanks. You have my respect, even if you haven't got a job.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]