The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
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The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
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Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#2> Under Red Hat control, CentOS no longer modeled RHEL production code but was marketed as a beta—a preview of what was coming down the pipe. Eventually, the company sunsetted the project entirely, and as a result, new copycats emerged.
I thought CentOS was downstream of RHEL. Doesn't this describe what CentOS Stream became?
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#3> Under Red Hat control, CentOS no longer modeled RHEL production code but was marketed as a beta—a preview of what was coming down the pipe. Eventually, the company sunsetted the project entirely, and as a result, new copycats emerged. I thought CentOS was downstream of RHEL. Doesn't this describe what CentOS Stream became?
That very brief segment of the article pretty much collapsed a decade of time into two sentences, but yes it appears to be denoting the transition from CentOS [Linux] to CentOS Stream.
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#4> Under Red Hat control, CentOS no longer modeled RHEL production code but was marketed as a beta—a preview of what was coming down the pipe. Eventually, the company sunsetted the project entirely, and as a result, new copycats emerged. I thought CentOS was downstream of RHEL. Doesn't this describe what CentOS Stream became?
That very brief segment of the article pretty much collapsed a decade of time into two sentences, but yes it appears to be denoting the transition from CentOS [Linux] to CentOS Stream.
Right, but I assume the first sentence refers to CentOS and the second sentence of "sunsetting" referring to the end of CentOS and the start of CentOS Stream. After all, CentOS became a part of Red Hat back in 2014 and stopped in 2021.
In other words, how was downstream CentOS considered a beta or "a preview of what was coming down the pipe"?
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
That very brief segment of the article pretty much collapsed a decade of time into two sentences, but yes it appears to be denoting the transition from CentOS [Linux] to CentOS Stream.
Right, but I assume the first sentence refers to CentOS and the second sentence of "sunsetting" referring to the end of CentOS and the start of CentOS Stream. After all, CentOS became a part of Red Hat back in 2014 and stopped in 2021. In other words, how was downstream CentOS considered a beta or "a preview of what was coming down the pipe"?
Probably a typo, but the CentOS Project came under the Red Hat umbrella in 2014.
That segment of the article in particular is very poorly written, and seems to aim for sensationalism rather than accuracy.
To answer your question directly: it wasn't.
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#6> Under Red Hat control, CentOS no longer modeled RHEL production code but was marketed as a beta—a preview of what was coming down the pipe. Eventually, the company sunsetted the project entirely, and as a result, new copycats emerged. I thought CentOS was downstream of RHEL. Doesn't this describe what CentOS Stream became?
It was, but that changed as of RHEL 8.
I suspect that AmazonLinux (also originally downstream of RHEL) caused Red Hat to reconsider this. I’m not sure why exactly. Perhaps Red Hat/IBM compete with Amazon in some space, or perhaps they felt that Amazon should release their patches.
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#7> The first company to successfully commercialize open source software at scale
It depends on the definition of scale, or the company. Cygnus started in 1989 and was doing well, it merged with Red Hat around 1999.
> The company generates way more value than it captures and has a low rake out of necessity—none of the software it creates is proprietary.
There are expenses and revenues, and companies like Red Hat rake in revenues - which are more than expenses. So did MySQL and other companies.
> It’s under constant threat of being disrupted or undermined by other open source providers.
Back before cloud got big, I worked for companies that paid for HP/Dell service agreements and RHEL service agreements. If we were a smaller company we may have gone with CentOS or something, but we weren't.
The thing not mentioned is not only that people can and do use things like Debian instead, but that RHEL gained from Linux and Debian as well. So the benefits flow both ways.
> open core model...MongoDB...Elastic
This is another model which can be done. Three years ago, Red Hat sold for more than twice what MongoDB's current market cap is.
> The Red Hat model won’t be repeated.
It's worked for a number of companies in the past, some of whom were purchased by Red Hat. I don't see any reasons why it won't happen again, although it's not every day that a Red Hat is founded. No reasons are given why this will never happen again - all the reasons given were things Red Hat, MySQL, Cygnus etc. had to deal with.
> Support and services models don’t achieve hypergrowth
Red Hat sold for $34 billion. If that is not enough hypergrowth for some VC or founder, then they will go with another model.
> Support and services companies are uninvestable. Annual revenues are low and nonrecurring, and margins are tight. VCs are looking for 80%+ gross margins and hockey stick growth.
I don't know how revenues are nonrecurring - I worked for a number of companies that paid service contracts for RHEL and other Red Hat products alongside our HP/Dell service contracts.
Also - Intel, Netscape, Greylock and Benchmark did invest in Red Hat.
Also, companies like Red Hat and MySQL did have hockey stick-like growth.
For a company following the Red Hat model that needs to raise money from VCs, these thoughts might be applicable. But for companies following the Red Hat model that are not losing money, they don't really have to worry about what VCs think of this.
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#8> Under Red Hat control, CentOS no longer modeled RHEL production code but was marketed as a beta—a preview of what was coming down the pipe. Eventually, the company sunsetted the project entirely, and as a result, new copycats emerged. I thought CentOS was downstream of RHEL. Doesn't this describe what CentOS Stream became?
It was, but that changed as of RHEL 8. I suspect that AmazonLinux (also originally downstream of RHEL) caused Red Hat to reconsider this. I’m not sure why exactly. Perhaps Red Hat/IBM compete with Amazon in some space, or perhaps they felt that Amazon should release their patches.
OpenShift and IBM Cloud.
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#9"open core is the best model" says company dedicated to pursuing open core...
There are dozens of "open source business models" and as this article shows the "red hat model" isn't even one thing.
Re: The Red Hat model only worked for Red Hat
#10> The first company to successfully commercialize open source software at scale It depends on the definition of scale, or the company. Cygnus started in 1989 and was doing well, it merged with Red Hat around 1999. > The company generates way more value than it captures and has a low rake out of necessity—none of the software it creates is proprietary. There are expenses and revenues, and companies like Red Hat rake i…
From my limited existence, one of my older employers paid Red Hat a lot of money for a fairly limited/short engagement with 1-2 of their software engineers and 1 of their solutions engineers, and then paid tens of thousands per year for I think 2 production support contracts for their software for years after.
At the same time, I could see how they could have gotten pinched recently if they were unwilling to pay more to retain talent and are now getting squeezed from the other side by companies moving away from their products to reduce costs.