Todd Barr leaves Red Hat - Why wasn't I given a chance to hire him?

I was just reading Todd Barr's blog this morning, only to discover he has left Red Hat and joined FiveRuns. I know Red Hat. I know FiveRuns. I even know Todd ([former] director of product marketing at Red Hat and a super-sharp guy).

But I didn't know Todd had left Red Hat to join FiveRuns, an open-source systems management company for monitoring Rails applications.

Funny enough, I was thinking of pinging Todd yesterday but forbear because I didn't want to annoy Red Hat by hiring out of its ranks...Todd, if you decide to change jobs again, I'd appreciate a call. :-)

[jsoltero]

FiveRuns isnt an 'open source systems management' company. They used that tagline early in their launch cycle (complete with mamoth booth at LinuxWorld 2006) and then quickly retrenched to specialize in Ruby while never actually releasing anything open source.

Their product monitors some open source technologies (ruby inclusive), but they themselves do not distribute any code, nor is there a project for open development of the technology.

[royrusso]

I had some bad coffee with Todd recently. Sharp guy, and impressed me with his knowledge of OSS and online marketing. I'm sure he'll do well at his new company. RHT may have lost a good guy, but the RHT marketing team tends to be pretty sharp in general.

"Funny enough, I was thinking of pinging Todd yesterday but forbear because I didn't want to annoy Red Hat by hiring out of its ranks"

Theres so many different ways to answer this. I'll pass. ;-)

[tbarrfiveruns]

Thanks guys! To answer your question, once I understood Rails, I was blown away by the possibilities, and I think FiveRuns has a great start at helping commercial Rails users in a big way (while being a good community citizen). Plus, I love Austin - you should all join us at SXSW in March!

[botchagalupe]

"while being a good community citizen"

How?

johnmwillis.com