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Redhat was actually really profitable, one of the reasons it was bought out. Unlike most startups, and darlings like Uber, Dropbox, Airbnb, and the like, Redha

Redhat was actually really profitable, one of the reasons it was bought out. Unlike most startups, and darlings like Uber, Dropbox, Airbnb, and the like, Redhat actually makes loads of money. So please try to count as many software companies are more profitable than Redhat. Redhat saw “freeloaders” and wanted a piece of that pie. Terrible mistake. Redhat says those distributions don’t really do much, they are not completely wrong, but they do one thing that helps redhat, they expand their market. Because of a lot more companies using “RHEL compatible” distros, lots of software, (specially in areas with more regulation, or very specialized domains, etc) simply target those, this makes Redhat a very good option even if you can get some build from elsewhere, or Amazon/Oracle copies of those. It also provides a safety net/insurance for anyone picking a Redhat contract. Can’t go much wrong. Anyway, the issue is simple, it’s lack of vision, not only from redhat leadership but from plenty of other companies in today’s world, they are more concerned with “capturing” their small pond, instead of having a very small part of the ocean. Ocean is scary, too big to be controlled, even if your small part is much bigger than the pond, it requires actual expertise, and to benefit from such a huge thing you have to actually look for opportunities. And worse, you have to allow others to also make profits from that huge ocean. Much easier to just close a pond and rent seek. Lazy

izacus 3y ago
What kind of "vision" includes "we'll let others take our work for free, undercut us on pricing" that doesn't end up in bankrupcy for the company?
- jpgvm 3y ago
  The kind of vision where you deliver superior service and thus win business the old fashioned way?
- stakhanov 3y ago
  You mean like how Metallica went bankrupt when Napster came along? Oh, wait. That never happened.
  - tm-guimaraes 3y ago
    This is literally a redhat thread, there shouldn’t even be a need for an example
- tm-guimaraes 3y ago
  Redhat. Did you miss their huge profits? CDProjectRed, you could just copy your friend’s Witcher3 installer. It was a best seller. Interesting choices because Redhat is trying to chase higher highs without understanding what brought them there, and so does bullshit like this, While CDproject TeamRed after witcher, also got so greedy, but in this case on employee number, that old employees left, army of juniors/newhires building their next and most ambitious game. It was a dumpster fire on release day, and under delivered on everything, with plenty of delays. There’s also small businesses like sourcehut (but wamted to give 2 very different big ones), which its author wrote this: https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your-monopoly.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your... Some big start ups like Grafana are growing, and unlike Mong and Elastic, actually uses a free software license, but i dunno if they are profitable yet.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  It seemed to be working for them up until right after IBM acquired them.
bimblesticks 3y ago
I don’t understand why people keep claiming that the advantages of these clones (expanding the ecosystem) outweigh the disadvantages (lost revenue) to Red Hat. Surely, RH have access to far better statistics on this issue than we do, and they have obviously concluded that this is not the case.
- tm-guimaraes 3y ago
  First, There will never be data for everything. Nor is data analysis without errors. Second, lost revenue implies they would actually be able to make money from such things, piracy studies imply otherwise, and so does my personal experience. Revenue is not theirs to be lost. It’s a bullshit argument. Third: Conclusions from leadership are blinded by pressure and greed, so it’s easy to parrot BS like “lost revenue”. Harder to double down on things like “customer focus” whose impacts is harder to measure. And redhat was always known for costumer focus, the free software provides huge insurance to their customers. And they are throwing that all away for “lost revenue” There’s no such thing as “lost revenue”. Ok, maybe if some natural disaster took away your goods that were already ordered.
  - bimblesticks 3y ago
    1. Of course there is no such thing as flawless data analysis, but they have data and people hired to analyse it and we… don’t. 2. RH makes their money of off companies that pay for support. Do you think that if a company can’t use CentOS they’re going to pirate RHEL? Really? 3. Conclusions from leadership are never perfect, but that does not mean the default conclusion should be that they are awful. RH seems to be doing pretty well at the moment. Opportunity cost is a central concept in economics. When deciding between decisions A and B, companies will consider the revenue they would gain from either decision. If companies accept the revenue from decision A, they are doing it at the cost of the revenue they would have made from decision B. This is what I mean by “lost revenue”. By choosing to shut down git.centos.org, RH loses the revenue they would have gotten from keeping the repository open and gains the revenue they believe they will get from shutting it down. My apologies if this sounds condescending, but you keep insisting that there’s no such thing as “lost revenue” and I genuinely don’t know how to respond to that without just explaining opportunity cost.

izacus 3y ago

What kind of "vision" includes "we'll let others take our work for free, undercut us on pricing" that doesn't end up in bankrupcy for the company?

jpgvm 3y ago
The kind of vision where you deliver superior service and thus win business the old fashioned way?
stakhanov 3y ago
You mean like how Metallica went bankrupt when Napster came along? Oh, wait. That never happened.
- tm-guimaraes 3y ago
  This is literally a redhat thread, there shouldn’t even be a need for an example
tm-guimaraes 3y ago
Redhat. Did you miss their huge profits? CDProjectRed, you could just copy your friend’s Witcher3 installer. It was a best seller. Interesting choices because Redhat is trying to chase higher highs without understanding what brought them there, and so does bullshit like this, While CDproject TeamRed after witcher, also got so greedy, but in this case on employee number, that old employees left, army of juniors/newhires building their next and most ambitious game. It was a dumpster fire on release day, and under delivered on everything, with plenty of delays. There’s also small businesses like sourcehut (but wamted to give 2 very different big ones), which its author wrote this: https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your-monopoly.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your... Some big start ups like Grafana are growing, and unlike Mong and Elastic, actually uses a free software license, but i dunno if they are profitable yet.
josephcsible 3y ago
It seemed to be working for them up until right after IBM acquired them.

bimblesticks 3y ago

I don’t understand why people keep claiming that the advantages of these clones (expanding the ecosystem) outweigh the disadvantages (lost revenue) to Red Hat. Surely, RH have access to far better statistics on this issue than we do, and they have obviously concluded that this is not the case.

tm-guimaraes 3y ago
First, There will never be data for everything. Nor is data analysis without errors. Second, lost revenue implies they would actually be able to make money from such things, piracy studies imply otherwise, and so does my personal experience. Revenue is not theirs to be lost. It’s a bullshit argument. Third: Conclusions from leadership are blinded by pressure and greed, so it’s easy to parrot BS like “lost revenue”. Harder to double down on things like “customer focus” whose impacts is harder to measure. And redhat was always known for costumer focus, the free software provides huge insurance to their customers. And they are throwing that all away for “lost revenue” There’s no such thing as “lost revenue”. Ok, maybe if some natural disaster took away your goods that were already ordered.
- bimblesticks 3y ago
  1. Of course there is no such thing as flawless data analysis, but they have data and people hired to analyse it and we… don’t. 2. RH makes their money of off companies that pay for support. Do you think that if a company can’t use CentOS they’re going to pirate RHEL? Really? 3. Conclusions from leadership are never perfect, but that does not mean the default conclusion should be that they are awful. RH seems to be doing pretty well at the moment. Opportunity cost is a central concept in economics. When deciding between decisions A and B, companies will consider the revenue they would gain from either decision. If companies accept the revenue from decision A, they are doing it at the cost of the revenue they would have made from decision B. This is what I mean by “lost revenue”. By choosing to shut down git.centos.org, RH loses the revenue they would have gotten from keeping the repository open and gains the revenue they believe they will get from shutting it down. My apologies if this sounds condescending, but you keep insisting that there’s no such thing as “lost revenue” and I genuinely don’t know how to respond to that without just explaining opportunity cost.