4 ms·

RedHat sold to IBM and neutered it's free CentOS variant recently, so not so sure it's a good example.

graemep 2y ago
CentOS is no longer a drop in replacement for RHEL, but both are still entirely open source other than trademarked logos and the like AFAIK. More importantly, Red Hat was very profitable even when CentOS was a drop in replacement.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  I think the only reason Red Hat’s model works for them is that Linux distributions are obviously massive sprawling complex things, and maintaining LTS distros which you then sell support for is an incredibly complex and valuable thing that no intermediary can plausibly claim they can do. Even if the underlying code happens to be FOSS. Matrix servers (and web servers and mail servers etc) are not as complex - and if anything you want incentives to make them less complex, not more. And the better job you do of making them easy to admin and support (ie the more scalable and stable they are), the less reason there is to pay the upstream for support but some system integrator instead.
  - eredengrin 2y ago
    > Linux distributions are obviously massive sprawling complex things Just my perspective but I think this was also perhaps a product of the time when Red Hat really started growing, back when linux was a little more rough around the edges. These days it seems linux has enough polish that some (many?) corporations are happy to just use off the shelf ubuntu and call it a day and hope nothing breaks too badly.
    - graemep 2y ago
      I think another thing that has changed is that big business is less suspicious of open source and are less likely to feel that all the software they use has to be licensed from someone. I think it has dawned on people that it is impossible to avoid using open source.
      - Arathorn 2y ago
        This is definitely true. It’s also completely normalised to build a large commercial service on open source and not even contemplate if or how the upstream project is funded, or consider funding the upstream a serious cost.
- eredengrin 2y ago
  [0] has many more details but CentOS was never a drop in replacement and the new CentOS model is a big improvement for anyone wanting drop in replacements. I agree with everything else you said though, they were independent of IBM for nearly 3 decades and always were and still remain among the most active linux contributors (just see any of LWN's development statistics articles). 0: https://medium.com/@gordon.messmer/in-favor-of-centos-stream-e5a8a43bdcf8 https://medium.com/@gordon.messmer/in-favor-of-centos-stream...
emacsen 2y ago
They still don't sell a proprietary version of their software. CentOS started as a fork, and new forks exist now.

CentOS is no longer a drop in replacement for RHEL, but both are still entirely open source other than trademarked logos and the like AFAIK. More importantly, Red Hat was very profitable even when CentOS was a drop in replacement.

Arathorn 2y ago
I think the only reason Red Hat’s model works for them is that Linux distributions are obviously massive sprawling complex things, and maintaining LTS distros which you then sell support for is an incredibly complex and valuable thing that no intermediary can plausibly claim they can do. Even if the underlying code happens to be FOSS. Matrix servers (and web servers and mail servers etc) are not as complex - and if anything you want incentives to make them less complex, not more. And the better job you do of making them easy to admin and support (ie the more scalable and stable they are), the less reason there is to pay the upstream for support but some system integrator instead.
- eredengrin 2y ago
  > Linux distributions are obviously massive sprawling complex things Just my perspective but I think this was also perhaps a product of the time when Red Hat really started growing, back when linux was a little more rough around the edges. These days it seems linux has enough polish that some (many?) corporations are happy to just use off the shelf ubuntu and call it a day and hope nothing breaks too badly.
  - graemep 2y ago
    I think another thing that has changed is that big business is less suspicious of open source and are less likely to feel that all the software they use has to be licensed from someone. I think it has dawned on people that it is impossible to avoid using open source.
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      This is definitely true. It’s also completely normalised to build a large commercial service on open source and not even contemplate if or how the upstream project is funded, or consider funding the upstream a serious cost.
eredengrin 2y ago
[0] has many more details but CentOS was never a drop in replacement and the new CentOS model is a big improvement for anyone wanting drop in replacements. I agree with everything else you said though, they were independent of IBM for nearly 3 decades and always were and still remain among the most active linux contributors (just see any of LWN's development statistics articles). 0: https://medium.com/@gordon.messmer/in-favor-of-centos-stream-e5a8a43bdcf8 https://medium.com/@gordon.messmer/in-favor-of-centos-stream...

emacsen 2y ago

They still don't sell a proprietary version of their software. CentOS started as a fork, and new forks exist now.