7 ms·

Does this acquisition open up the market for a Linux company to move into the Linux enterprise space? Maybe Ubuntu could pivot into this space.

dalbasal 7y ago
I think the market is probably there regardless. It's not necessarily an easy market, but it's a class of service that fulfills needs and I think demand will be there if you identify and solve the right problems. Enterprise is hard though, for total outsiders.
jake_morrison 7y ago
Probably Ubuntu will be bought by Microsoft. With the cloud, especially containers, there is little future in a business that involves paying for operating systems licenses. Most interesting is probably supporting legacy versions of operating systems for customers who value compatibility to be able to continue to run existing applications with the minimum changes.
- jaboutboul 7y ago
  I sort of agree with this. Either Microsoft will purchase Ubuntu outright from Shuttleworth or they will just create Microsoft Linux, in whatever form that is, probably something more container focused than a general purpose OS.
  - testvox 7y ago
    https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel
  - magduf 7y ago
    >they will just create Microsoft Linux This sounds like something right out of a dystopian nightmare I might have had in the early 2000s.
    - ekc 7y ago
      http://mslinux.org/ http://mslinux.org/ Quite literally!
  - MikusR 7y ago
    Microsoft has at least two Linux distributions: Azure Sphere and Azure Cloud Switch. And their own Kernel fork for WSL 2.
  - checktheorder 7y ago
    I've sometimes found myself wondering what kernel is actually running Microsoft's new "Modern OS", and if the userspace has any Ubuntu input.
    - muricula 7y ago
      Hello from Redmond. It's all good old NT under the hood. NT is in Azure, XBox, anything which MS builds really. What is interesting is that Windows Subsystem for Linux v2 will actually run a Linux kernel in a VM. I guess implementing a syscall emulation layer for all of Linux was too much, but they still did a very impressive job.
      - anticensor 7y ago
        WSL 1 allows for more security. What they should have done was map WSL users 1:1 to Windows users (Wine users work like that). setuid(), seteuid() and/or capability elevations would raise an UAC prompt as if they were called from Windows.
        muricula 7y ago
        UAC is not a security boundary, unfortunately :(
  - squarefoot 7y ago
    "Microsoft will purchase Ubuntu outright from Shuttleworth or they will just create Microsoft Linux" I'm pretty sure since like 2 years they're working on at least the second, but the purchase of Ubuntu too doesn't sound that absurd to me. What really concerns me is their power as a big corporation, which could play a role in attracting a growing Linux user base to their distro. This could lead to disasters should Microsoft pollute their OS with proprietary extensions: developers writing software for Linux on a MS branded Linux would create software that "runs better" there or wouldn't run at all on others. No conspiracies here, this happens every day in all offices when printers refuse to work with non same brand ink cartridges; so let's say tomorrow Microsoft ports a significant part of their windowing object model to Linux - to their Linux - as a closed linkable blob, then update their development systems so that one can develop full desktop linux applications with the same graphics interface model of the Windows ones. Technical issues aside, how many developers would resist the temptation? And how many of them would keep dual booting when they could build a career by working exclusively on Microsoft Linux? This is pure speculation of course, but I have this feeling that Microsoft becoming a top Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation was the corporate way of slowly getting to the captains chair.
  - tech_tuna 7y ago
    I predict that Ubuntu, Hashicorp and/or Docker are acquired in the next year. I could see Microsoft acquiring any of them.
    - h1d 7y ago
      Leaving only Debian as an independent popular distro maker sounds bad for the game.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  I have thought and wondered about this for a while. It would make things interesting if Ubuntu had the resources of Microsoft but would be allowed to be independent in regards to the OS itself. If they wanna push Azure thats ok. You dont necessarily need to use Azure to use Ubuntu if you dont want to.
- BrandonM 7y ago
  That would be hugely ironic considering https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1. Then again, Shuttleworth spoke pretty positively about Microsoft when he closed the bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834
bryanlarsen 7y ago
Ubuntu is making a lot of money from cloud and they probably see that as the future rather than enterprise. (They get a few pennies for every Ubuntu VM spun up on AWS etc).
bmicklea 7y ago
Red Hat's business model and open culture isn't changing. We will remain independent and I look at this as an opportunity for more people to engage with our stellar support and field teams. For some context you can read the email our CEO sent out to the whole company today: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/jim-whitehurst-email-red-hatters-red-hat-ibm-acquisition-closing https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/jim-whitehurst-email-red-hatt...
- blub 7y ago
  I think there's some confusion here: your company just got bought, which means that you stopped being independent.
- JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
  You're in for a surprise then...
- knd775 7y ago
  This seems like wishful thinking. These are exactly the same things that are always said. You may be fine for a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years, but IBM will inevitably interfere enough to cause a serious culture shift (or collapse).
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  I remember a very similar email from my company's CEO during a merger. Within months he had retired with millions and everything had changed. I sincerely wish Red Hat and your work doesn't fall victim to a similar fate, but IBM literally owns you as of today.
  - airstrike 7y ago
    That sort of depends on whether the CEO will remain in the company or not, and which incentives he has to continue to perform
    - TallGuyShort 7y ago
jacques_chester 7y ago
> Maybe Ubuntu could pivot into this space. Canonical is already in that market and has been for a long time. I work for Pivotal, we have a contract which gives us all-the-gold support for Ubuntu, because that's what we're shipping to our customers. Disclosure: Pivotal competes with Red Hat/IBM in the cloud platform market.

dalbasal 7y ago

I think the market is probably there regardless. It's not necessarily an easy market, but it's a class of service that fulfills needs and I think demand will be there if you identify and solve the right problems. Enterprise is hard though, for total outsiders.

jake_morrison 7y ago

Probably Ubuntu will be bought by Microsoft. With the cloud, especially containers, there is little future in a business that involves paying for operating systems licenses. Most interesting is probably supporting legacy versions of operating systems for customers who value compatibility to be able to continue to run existing applications with the minimum changes.

jaboutboul 7y ago
I sort of agree with this. Either Microsoft will purchase Ubuntu outright from Shuttleworth or they will just create Microsoft Linux, in whatever form that is, probably something more container focused than a general purpose OS.
- testvox 7y ago
  https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel
- magduf 7y ago
  >they will just create Microsoft Linux This sounds like something right out of a dystopian nightmare I might have had in the early 2000s.
  - ekc 7y ago
    http://mslinux.org/ http://mslinux.org/ Quite literally!
- MikusR 7y ago
  Microsoft has at least two Linux distributions: Azure Sphere and Azure Cloud Switch. And their own Kernel fork for WSL 2.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  I've sometimes found myself wondering what kernel is actually running Microsoft's new "Modern OS", and if the userspace has any Ubuntu input.
  - muricula 7y ago
    Hello from Redmond. It's all good old NT under the hood. NT is in Azure, XBox, anything which MS builds really. What is interesting is that Windows Subsystem for Linux v2 will actually run a Linux kernel in a VM. I guess implementing a syscall emulation layer for all of Linux was too much, but they still did a very impressive job.
    - anticensor 7y ago
      WSL 1 allows for more security. What they should have done was map WSL users 1:1 to Windows users (Wine users work like that). setuid(), seteuid() and/or capability elevations would raise an UAC prompt as if they were called from Windows.
      - muricula 7y ago
        UAC is not a security boundary, unfortunately :(
- squarefoot 7y ago
  "Microsoft will purchase Ubuntu outright from Shuttleworth or they will just create Microsoft Linux" I'm pretty sure since like 2 years they're working on at least the second, but the purchase of Ubuntu too doesn't sound that absurd to me. What really concerns me is their power as a big corporation, which could play a role in attracting a growing Linux user base to their distro. This could lead to disasters should Microsoft pollute their OS with proprietary extensions: developers writing software for Linux on a MS branded Linux would create software that "runs better" there or wouldn't run at all on others. No conspiracies here, this happens every day in all offices when printers refuse to work with non same brand ink cartridges; so let's say tomorrow Microsoft ports a significant part of their windowing object model to Linux - to their Linux - as a closed linkable blob, then update their development systems so that one can develop full desktop linux applications with the same graphics interface model of the Windows ones. Technical issues aside, how many developers would resist the temptation? And how many of them would keep dual booting when they could build a career by working exclusively on Microsoft Linux? This is pure speculation of course, but I have this feeling that Microsoft becoming a top Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation was the corporate way of slowly getting to the captains chair.
- tech_tuna 7y ago
  I predict that Ubuntu, Hashicorp and/or Docker are acquired in the next year. I could see Microsoft acquiring any of them.
  - h1d 7y ago
    Leaving only Debian as an independent popular distro maker sounds bad for the game.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
I have thought and wondered about this for a while. It would make things interesting if Ubuntu had the resources of Microsoft but would be allowed to be independent in regards to the OS itself. If they wanna push Azure thats ok. You dont necessarily need to use Azure to use Ubuntu if you dont want to.
BrandonM 7y ago
That would be hugely ironic considering https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1. Then again, Shuttleworth spoke pretty positively about Microsoft when he closed the bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834

bryanlarsen 7y ago

Ubuntu is making a lot of money from cloud and they probably see that as the future rather than enterprise. (They get a few pennies for every Ubuntu VM spun up on AWS etc).

bmicklea 7y ago

Red Hat's business model and open culture isn't changing. We will remain independent and I look at this as an opportunity for more people to engage with our stellar support and field teams. For some context you can read the email our CEO sent out to the whole company today: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/jim-whitehurst-email-red-hatters-red-hat-ibm-acquisition-closing https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/jim-whitehurst-email-red-hatt...

blub 7y ago
I think there's some confusion here: your company just got bought, which means that you stopped being independent.
JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
You're in for a surprise then...
knd775 7y ago
This seems like wishful thinking. These are exactly the same things that are always said. You may be fine for a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years, but IBM will inevitably interfere enough to cause a serious culture shift (or collapse).
TallGuyShort 7y ago
I remember a very similar email from my company's CEO during a merger. Within months he had retired with millions and everything had changed. I sincerely wish Red Hat and your work doesn't fall victim to a similar fate, but IBM literally owns you as of today.
- airstrike 7y ago
  That sort of depends on whether the CEO will remain in the company or not, and which incentives he has to continue to perform
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago

jacques_chester 7y ago

> Maybe Ubuntu could pivot into this space. Canonical is already in that market and has been for a long time. I work for Pivotal, we have a contract which gives us all-the-gold support for Ubuntu, because that's what we're shipping to our customers. Disclosure: Pivotal competes with Red Hat/IBM in the cloud platform market.