{"id":202,"date":"2009-12-31T10:25:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T18:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/35.225.155.113\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/12\/31\/y2k_c2net_hks_and_red_hat\/"},"modified":"2019-10-13T12:59:55","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T19:59:55","slug":"y2k-c2net-hks-and-red-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/12\/y2k-c2net-hks-and-red-hat.html","title":{"rendered":"Y2K, C2Net, HKS and Red Hat"},"content":{"rendered":"

In November of 1999 I had over a year
\nof work as a professional programmer under my belt working for C2Net<\/a>
\nSoftware. It had been a bit of a bumpy ride, by the end of 1999 I had
\nalready been hired, laid-off, hired as a consultant and rehired as an
\nemployee.<\/p>\n

Given the personal struggle and the
\nfact that I worked for an “Internet company”, I had a bit of
\nremote detachment about Y2K<\/a>. But by November 1999, even C2Net was in
\nthe mist of Y2K preparations, internally and externally.<\/p>\n

Externally plenty of customers had, as
\npart of their own Y2K compliance efforts, started seeking us out long
\nbefore November to verify that our main product, the Stronghold Web
\nServer, was Y2K safe. The concern being that plenty of elements
\nabout managing web traffic require proper handling of date and time
\ninformation, from the underlying network protocols to creation of
\nunique session identifiers. The good news was that Stronghold, was a packaged and commercially distributed version of
\nthe Apache Web Server<\/a>, which was indeed Y2K compliant, thanks to its
\nmany developers.<\/p>\n

While most customers went away content
\nwith a signed letter of compliance, I remember our Sales and
\nMarketing VP asking me if I wanted to go to NYC on behalf of client
\nand be available if anything went wrong. Basically, since Stronghold
\nwas in the clear and any web application the system was running would
\nhave been outside of our domain – I was being asked if I wanted an
\nall expense paid trip from San Francisco to New York City to
\nwitnesses the ball drop in Time Square for the new millennium1<\/sup><\/a>.
\nNaturally, I declined2<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Internally, the biggest worry I had was
\ndealing with our online credit card processing system. First off, the
\nvirtual terminal program we had was running on Windows 98, which
\nitself was not Y2K compliant.<\/p>\n

However, the bigger problem was the
\ncredit card processing software, ICVerify<\/a>. Today there are plenty of
\nsolutions for processing credit card purchases, in real-time, online,
\nfrom do it yourself solutions such as MainStreet Softworks’ Monetra<\/a>
\nto all-in-one solutions such as Google’s Checkout.<\/a> But in 1999, while
\na number of virtual terminal<\/a> solutions, such as ICVerify existed, for
\nprocessing credit cards “by hand”, few solutions existed for
\nprocessing credit cards automatically, online.<\/p>\n

In fact the only reason C2Net’s system
\ndid real time transaction3<\/sup><\/a>
\nwas because ICVerify had been hacked in such as way as to process
\ntransactions via a secured network connection. The best part of the
\nsituation, like many other Y2K issues, was that the person(s) who had
\ncreated the “solution” no longer worked for the company, as
\neveryone at the company had been adversely affected by the previous
\nyear’s corporate turmoil, as I had.<\/p>\n

Patching Windows 98 would hardly solve
\nthe problem and since no one with the company understood the
\nICVerify hack completely, it was unknown if patching it would
\nadversely affect our main method for selling Stronghold within the
\nUnited States.<\/p>\n

Given that Stronghold was a
\ncommercially distributed version of Apache and Apache at that time
\nwas built for Unix (POSIX) based systems, the main requirement,
\nbesides real-time processing, was the ability to run along with our
\ncustom ecommerce system built using FreeBSD<\/a>, Stronghold and PHP. That
\nleft us with one viable solution, Hell’s Kitchen’s4<\/sup><\/a>
\n(HKS) CCVS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By December of 1999 I had already
\nidentified CCVS as our would-be solution, to the point that I had
\nactually purchased it on behalf of C2Net and had started developing
\nthe replacement credit card processing solution. Doing so had me in
\ncontract with a couple of primary individuals at HKS, including the
\nfounder, Todd Masco<\/a>, who must of had his hands full with a few other
\npeople, such as myself, rushing to replace their credit card
\nprocessing systems before the new year. Despite that I don’t recall
\nnot being able to reach Todd or Doug DeJulio when needed.<\/p>\n

\"Last
\nLast Remaining Share
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

That in and of itself endeared me to
\nHKS, but little did I know at the time that wasn’t going to be the
\nhalf of it. While I recall missing the end of the year deadline for
\ngetting our new payment system operational by a week (or so), I
\nwas hardly in the thick of it. In fact, if anything Todd, Doug and
\nHKS had most certainly had it much worst. For besides the presumed
\nend of the millennium rush to update transaction systems across the
\nnation, in the first week of 2000 the public announcement<\/a> was made,
\nRed Hat<\/a> had acquired HKS.<\/p>\n

The folks at HKS really had played it cool.<\/p>\n

Now here is where things get a bit
\ninteresting, the main selling point of Stronghold was that it was a
\nfull distribution of the Apache Web Server that included the commercial right to
\nuse the encryption technology that allows for secure web
\ntransactions, thus allowing one to built solutions such as our custom
\necommerce system. As mentioned Stronghold, by way of Apache, was a
\nPOSIX based application that ran on systems such as FreeBSD, Sun
\nSolaris and on a the new, up-and-coming operating system Linux which
\nwas (and still is) favored by Red Hat. CCVS was a POSIX based credit
\ncard processing system.<\/p>\n

All of which meant that by the summer
\nof 2000 I received a friendly phone call from Todd, now of
\ncourse at Red Hat, looking to build contacts at C2Net with regards to
\npossible partnership.<\/p>\n

Now it was my turn to play to cool.<\/p>\n

Given, in part, the issues at C2Net
\nover the previous year the majority owner of the company was looking
\nto sell and by late spring\/early summer the whole of C2Net had been
\ninformed that negotiations had been started in regards to Red Hat
\npurchasing C2Net5<\/sup><\/a>
\nand then sworn to secrecy.<\/p>\n

So when Todd’s call came, I had to
\npolitely tell him I would pass on his information to our VP of Sales
\nand Marketing and then of course made a beeline to said office after
\nhanging up with Todd. Sadly, with hindsight and all, I should have
\nrealized that if Todd was in the dark about the potential purchase of
\nC2Net by Red Hat, given the obvious fit between the three products,
\nthat the acquisition of HKS might have been poorly executed, which
\nin turn was not a good sign for C2Net. But at the time I recall
\nhearing shortly after that Todd did eventually get filled in. And by
\nAugust of 2000 C2Net and Red Hat issued a joint press releases<\/a>
\nannouncing the agreed upon acquisition.<\/p>\n


\n<\/i><\/p>\n

\n


\n<\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/i><\/p>\n

1<\/a> That
\nis of course if, like most Americans, you can’t count and\/or don’t
\ncare that our Gregorian calendar had no year 0<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t<\/i><\/p>\n

2<\/a> Call
\nit Bloomberg’s Law or whatever, but in the US one’s loathing of all
\nthings New York (or Los Angeles) is inversely proportional to one’s
\ndistance from New York City. Thus, Boston, which is closer, hates
\nNYC greater than Chicago. San Francisco, not so much hating NYC as
\nit does LA. New York and Los Angeles can of course clam no one
\nloathes themselves more than they do, which in doing so means they
\ncare little about anyone else, given their immediate proximity to
\ntheir own location. Having grown up in and around Chicago, I
\nnaturally care equally less about New York as I do LA.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t<\/i><\/p>\n

3<\/a> And
\nfor that matter the only reason why we had a machine running Windows
\n98 in our environment<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t<\/i><\/p>\n

4<\/a>
\nYes, despite my previous ragging on New York City, I do know that
\nnot only is Hell’s Kitchen the name of a neighborhood in New York,
\nbut if I recall correctly, that the company Hell’s Kitchen was in
\nfact named after said neighborhood.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t<\/i><\/p>\n

5<\/a> A
\nbit fuzzy here on the timeline and details, but I recall hearing
\nabout a deal between Caldera and C2Net that never materialized and
\nthen Red Hat got cold feet when “the bubble burst” in purchasing
\nRed Hat, until various revenue commitments renewed discussions
\nbetween C2Net and Red Hat.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"