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IBM acquires Red Hat

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Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#251

Post by OpenBSD-reich »

kartan wrote: post #170

IBM has been historically a Linux contributor. Eclipse, their open source IDE, opened the other to Java and other programming languages in the OS. And Power processors supported Linux early on. From that perspective to purchase Red Hat makes sense. It makes even more sense as the announcement states that they are trying to create a bigger cloud provider to compete with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft…

According to their 10Q and 10K filings, IBM is over seventy percent a consultation business with less than ten percent of revenue being made from hardware.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#252

Post by outbackcoder »

gtycomb wrote: post #24

I use Fedora Linux on my laptop. What does this mean for the Fedora Project? Any thoughts on an alternate OS with a lesser memory footprint than Fedora? It takes about 1 GB to boot up Fedora 27 now. And what's the future for CentOS?

Why not consider Open or NetBSD? They can make nice desktops, and OpenBSD is very friendly on laptops. And they are lighter than Fedora and perform much better. And, they use a maximally free license, but this is simply my preference. You may feel different.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#253

Post by awill »

bpye wrote: post #226
devoply wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 10 years down the line RHEL is pretty much guaranteed dead. Probably say goodbye to Fedora as well.

This is sad, Fedora has been my favourite distribution for a little while. Red Hat have been a good community player and it is a big loss for them to be gobbled up by IBM. What is the best alternative to Fedora and CentOS?

The obvious alternative would be Ubuntu. The LTS releases are alternatives to RHEL/CentOS. The others are Fedora alternatives.

However, Red Hat is _far_ more than RHEL. They actually build a ton of OSS that's used in RHEL and elsewhere. Ubuntu does little more than repackage Debian. That's not a criticism. They package well, and they know how to polish. But there's no replacement for Red Hat as a company.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#254

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

lucb1e wrote: post #227
kache_ wrote: post #183

New IBM hire, software developer. So far; I've taken part of 3 separate events where I was essentially sat through a presentation on why I should file patents (so they could farm IP off of me and my peers). IBM is a pathological company, and definitely not good news for open source.

Did you expect this beforehand? I can imagine they try to show themselves as being innovative and stuff, and only after you join you get the company policy details on stuff like what you just mentioned.

IBM is legendary for monetizing (many/most would say abusing) their patent portfolio. Be hard to miss this when getting hired.

Here is a pretty famous story: https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#255

Post by alexott »

ianai wrote: post #214
bloopernova wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share the sentiment. Gawd. Freaking. Dammit. I've been using RHEL-derived systems for like almost 20 years. This actually feels like a betrayal of the Open Source community. Any bets on whether Fedora and CentOS will exist in November 2019?

Where’s the history of IBM buying and sun setting companies? I don’t have the same prejudice towards IBM that I do for Oracle. But I’m not in a position to know. I’m thinking RHEL’s support contracts will keep IBM from shuttering RHEL. An IBM branded RHEL would represent plenty of income.

ISS?

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#256

Post by KaiserPro »

ezoe wrote: post #151

Actually Red Hat is exactly like IBM. Huge and slow. I know the contribution to FOSS from Red Hat is great and all, but their product, RHEL, was a cancer for a modern software development. Just easier to maintain for sysadmins doesn't make enough excuse for really long release cycle and the worst of all is they keep supporting the old products. The result is a nightmare development environment for all the programmers…

by "cancer" do you mean its not shiny and new?

Yes, RHEL6.x is a pain but that's because its old. For what ever reason AWS decided to standardise on that and not 7.x.

The crucial part is this: it works, and when it doesn't, there is a boat load of documentation on why and how to fix it.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#257

Post by shady-lady »

bloopernova wrote: post #187
solatic wrote: post #153

It's like Vader asked Luke to join him in defeating the Emperor (Microsoft) and ruling the galaxy as father and son - and instead of the audience hearing "I'll never join you!!", we hear "sure, let's team up." The cognitive dissonance is so strong here. WTF just happened? If you asked me a month ago to put down serious money in Vegas on this never happening, I'd have happily done so. What on Earth were they thinking?…

I share the sentiment. Gawd. Freaking. Dammit. I've been using RHEL-derived systems for like almost 20 years. This actually feels like a betrayal of the Open Source community. Any bets on whether Fedora and CentOS will exist in November 2019?

Donated to Apache...

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#258

Post by skybrian »

kache_ wrote: post #183

New IBM hire, software developer. So far; I've taken part of 3 separate events where I was essentially sat through a presentation on why I should file patents (so they could farm IP off of me and my peers). IBM is a pathological company, and definitely not good news for open source.

This is rather normal, not pathological. Most companies like to file patents, definitely including startups. Where do you think their patents come from, if not from work their employees do? It's work that's worth paying for.

Having some proprietary code doesn't prevent companies from also making substantial contributions to open source in other areas.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#260

Post by bpye »

iaml wrote: post #127
gtycomb wrote: post #24

I use Fedora Linux on my laptop. What does this mean for the Fedora Project? Any thoughts on an alternate OS with a lesser memory footprint than Fedora? It takes about 1 GB to boot up Fedora 27 now. And what's the future for CentOS?

NixOS maybe? Don't know about memory footprint, but as a fellow fedora laptop user, I find this distro the most appealing to switch to (arch being the other option, but too high maintenance for my taste).

NixOS is interesting but certainly not the easiest migration, it's a very different way of administering your system. That said, this might be what I chose to do now.
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