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> all IBM wants to do with Redhat is turn it into IBM Reading the histories of both companies, it seems to me that Redhat was always IBM. The acquisition was a

> all IBM wants to do with Redhat is turn it into IBM Reading the histories of both companies, it seems to me that Redhat was always IBM. The acquisition was a marriage of separated twins more than anything else, the dominating culture in both organizations is largely sales and consulting driven, with public strategy not quite identical but strongly rhyming. The technology aspects (while perhaps once important) were far from the prime focus of either organization long prior to the merger. I think of IBM's acquisition more as a desire to access marketing expertise and established sales channels than anything to do with technologies, most of RH's open source technology is after all mostly just an advanced form of disguised marketing

qwertyuiop_ 4y ago
Right on the money ! Most deals these “spent fuel” companies do are for acquiring the Rolodex of the acquisition target.
e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
I don't think that's right; Red Hat, culturally, does much more community engagement and open source development. I know several RH developers from working on Ceph-adjacent things and RH has been much more open to contributions and collaborations in academia and industry, plus they funded a significant chunk of research around storage in quite a few labs around the area. IBM never had that kind of culture imo, I would take RH anyday. From what I know Red Hat devs are also very open in other areas of OS research and development, from the new io_uring, eBPF, etc. IBM is trying to stamp it out, but it's still there.
- sillystuff 4y ago
  Maybe GP is referring to IBM having an equity stake in Redhat since the late '90s? Or, maybe because they both generate the majority of their revenue via support contracts with the same sorts of customers buying said contracts?
xani_ 4y ago
It's disgusting, really. We manage this POS for some clients, and it's the worst distribution you can have. Stuff you can "just install" under any other popular distro is often silosed off into special packages you need to buy, despise it being OSS and "just available" on EPEL.

qwertyuiop_ 4y ago

Right on the money ! Most deals these “spent fuel” companies do are for acquiring the Rolodex of the acquisition target.

e63f67dd-065b 4y ago

I don't think that's right; Red Hat, culturally, does much more community engagement and open source development. I know several RH developers from working on Ceph-adjacent things and RH has been much more open to contributions and collaborations in academia and industry, plus they funded a significant chunk of research around storage in quite a few labs around the area. IBM never had that kind of culture imo, I would take RH anyday. From what I know Red Hat devs are also very open in other areas of OS research and development, from the new io_uring, eBPF, etc. IBM is trying to stamp it out, but it's still there.

sillystuff 4y ago
Maybe GP is referring to IBM having an equity stake in Redhat since the late '90s? Or, maybe because they both generate the majority of their revenue via support contracts with the same sorts of customers buying said contracts?

xani_ 4y ago

It's disgusting, really. We manage this POS for some clients, and it's the worst distribution you can have. Stuff you can "just install" under any other popular distro is often silosed off into special packages you need to buy, despise it being OSS and "just available" on EPEL.