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IBM acquires Red Hat

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Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#441

Post by SwellJoe »

ethbro wrote: post #423
SwellJoe wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM is, as far a I can tell, the best example of a "mixed bag" in tech. I have heard both great and terrible things about IBM from customers, employees, developers on Open Source projects, etc. They are a huge organization, and one that seems more divided than many. It may be more useful to view IBM as a collection of fiefdoms rather than a single, focused, entity. Yes, the money all goes into one pot at the end of t…

On acquisitions, I can offer the anecdote of a friend working at a startup IBM purchased. Things started with "IBM loves you, and pledges to stay hands off and help you do what you're already doing", continued to "We're going to replace a few management positions with folks from IBM" and "We're changing some benefits, titles, and procedures to better align with The IBM Way", and finally ended up with "You aren't meet…

That sounds about right. And, I suspect it'll happen to Red Hat, too, despite the fact that Red Hat is a money printing machine. They've been literally unbelievably effective at turning open source into profit (as someone who's tried to make money on building Open Source software for roughly 20 years, I find it difficult to comprehend how much money Red Hat makes). I've even occasionally considered applying at Red Hat a few times over the years (and have on a couple of occasions been encouraged to do so by people within Red Hat), just to get a direct view of how they do it.

But, IBM is a different beast. They make a lot of money on Open Source, too, but they're not a software company. It's ancillary to their core competency, and so when software goes in, it seems to eventually become a meandering bloated and bulbous creature without a clear purpose or direction, and most of the really smart people seem to leave within a year or two.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#442

Post by 7ewis »

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?

What is the relationship between RHEL and CentOS?

Never actually used RHEL, but I've heard that they're basically the same - one comes with the support, the other obviously doesn't.

Is CentOS supported by Red Hat, so IBM in theory could shut them down?

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#445

Post by steinnes »

skybrian wrote: post #258
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.

  Having some proprietary code doesn't prevent companies from also making substantial contributions to open source in other areas.
... yes, but patents are not "proprietary code", in which case granting copyright is enough. If a private company contributes code I think it could even grant the copyright to an open organization, but still decide later to sue if the method/feature/function/etc is patented by them.

Not that I'd foresee IBM or any of the real players in the IT space attempting that anymore, I think most realize that alienating the F/OSS community isn't a viable strategy for a software services company in the long term.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#447

Post by ChuckMcM »

Assuming RedHat was in a 'sell or die' situation[1] I'm glad it was IBM that stepped in rather than Oracle.

[1] I have no reason to believe that it was a dire situation at RedHat, I make the observation that companies that are meeting their goals and doing what they want, don't generally get acquired just because.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#448

Post by stock_toaster »

jacques_chester wrote: post #414
bb88 wrote: post #243

Having been a linux user for 20 years now, I'm not worried. Mostly because in the OS market there is enough competition that didn't exist back in the 1990's when RedHat was founded around the Linux kernel. And we continue to have valid choices in the Linux market. And as we move forward into Kubernetes, we're looking at lightweight OS's to host a single purpose microservice. Most companies don't really need the full…

> Mostly because in the OS market there is enough competition that didn't exist back in the 1990's when RedHat was founded around the Linux kernel. I'd disagree; the 90s had a lot more OS diversity in the for-profit sector than we see today.

Agreed. There has been a massive amount of tech consolidation happening lately. I assume as a result of all that overseas cash that got repatriated with the tax changes.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#449

Post by tootie »

ianai wrote: post #231

The history of the “free economy” is one of concentration of market power. Good reference is Galbraith’s “1929 the great crash”

There are periods of concentration and entrepreneurship. Part of the market maturity lifecycle. As a market gets more well established, competitors become less differentiated and start competing on cost which leads to consolidation. This creates openings for upstarts to disrupt or open new markets.
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