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Genuine question: how did the IBM acquisitions of Red Hat and HashiCorp turn out? For Red Hat, there's no longer an official "public" distribution of RHEL, but

Genuine question: how did the IBM acquisitions of Red Hat and HashiCorp turn out? For Red Hat, there's no longer an official "public" distribution of RHEL, but apart from that they seemingly have been left alone and able to continue to develop their own products. But that's only my POV as a user of OSS Red Hat products at home and of RHEL and OpenShift at work.

EarthIsHome 10mo ago
Gnome has stagnated significantly.
- tannhaeuser 10mo ago
  If only it had stagnated around gnome 2.0.
  - tristan957 10mo ago
    MATE exists. You can use it right now.
    - nextaccountic 10mo ago
      I do. It's great that the UI is stagnated, but unfortunately the UX is too. Things like bluetooth not being integrated with the DE, and various details that we take for granted not working correctly
- throw10920 10mo ago
  Could that be due to increased popularity of KDE?
- phkahler 10mo ago
  >> Gnome has stagnated significantly. GTK is still alive. It seems like Cosmic desktop with GTK apps will be a reasonable path forward. Of course there's KDE and QT, but I mean as an alternative to those.
  - spookie 10mo ago
    Cosmic isn't there yet. I don't use GNOME but at least it works.
- shrubble 10mo ago
  The Gnome desktop that shipped with Solaris over two decades ago is just as useful, possibly more useful, as the tablet-oriented hamburger menu UI of today. Yes, two decades: https://adtmag.com/articles/2003/08/04/solaris-gets-a-gnome-of-its-own.aspx https://adtmag.com/articles/2003/08/04/solaris-gets-a-gnome-...
- JeremyNT 10mo ago
  I'm not sure this is bad? It's still maintained, and it isn't like there are frequent revolutions in UI design - if it works, it works. Slow and boring is a pretty nice place to be.
  - maxloh 10mo ago
    It doesn't really work for me. The first thing I always do with it is installing a taskbar extension.
- jamespo 10mo ago
  Linux on the desktop isn't a lucrative business
- aprilnya 10mo ago
  Has it? I feel like Gnome has made great progress the last few years
- tristan957 10mo ago
  The people on the Red Hat desktop team that work on GNOME are killing it. I think you might not be paying attention. Not every change is visible.
m4rtink 10mo ago
Well, there is CentOS Stream: https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ And Fedora is still the upstream of RHEL, nothing changed there.
- bluedino 10mo ago
  It seems like most users got tired of the unknowns with CentOS and went to Alma/Rocky. Doesn't help that most third party software vendors also didn't bother to support it.
- maxloh 10mo ago
  No, it is a totally different distro. CentOS Stream employs a rolling-release model, which is much less stable than RHEL. The previous main selling point of CentOS was bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL. Red Hat is just killing the distro by moving their focus to a non-existent market. Enthusiasts will choose RHEL, while enterprises would choose the more stable RHEL, which Red Hat could earn money from, or alternatives like Alma or Rocky.
  - carlwgeorge 10mo ago
    It's not a totally different distro, it's a different variant of the same distro. Back when I was on the release team I would create builds, release them in CentOS Stream 8, then a few months later release them in CentOS Linux 8. It was the same content on a different schedule, released once it passed QA rather than batching up most updates into minor versions. CentOS Stream has major versions and EOL dates, and thus is not a rolling release. It functions as the RHEL major version branch and follows the RHEL compatibility rules, so it's the same major version stability as RHEL. While you may have considered bug-for-bug compatibility the main feature, it was a major point of frustration for many users and the maintainers. That model means you can't fix any bugs or accept contributions from the community. CentOS finally fixed both problems by moving to the Stream model.
this_user 10mo ago
The argument has been made that the real value of RH lies in the people working there. And if IBM were to interfere too heavy-handedly, those people would just leave, and RH would become basically worthless.
- bityard 10mo ago
  Maybe that's how it should work, but it's not how it actually works. The culture makes the company. Everyone on the lower rungs of the org chart knows this, because it's what they live and breathe every day. A positive, supportive workplace culture with clear goals and relative autonomy is a thing of beauty. You routinely find people doing more work than they really have to because they believe in the mission, or their peers, or the work is just fun. People join the company (and stay) because they WANT to not because they have to. Past a certain company size, upper management NEVER sees this. They are always looking outward: strategy, customers, marketing, competition. Never in. They've been trained to give great motivational speeches that instill a sense of company pride and motivation for about 30 seconds. After that, employee morale is HR's job. I have worked in a company that got acquired while it was profitable. The culture change was slow but dramatic. We went from a fun, dynamic culture with lots of teamwork and supportive management, to one step or two above Office Space. As far as the acquiring company was concerned, everything we were doing didn't matter, even if it worked. We had to conform to their systems and processes, or find new jobs. Most of us eventually did the latter. Somehow Red Hat seems to be a notable exception. Although IBM owns Red Hat, they seem to have mostly left it alone instead of absorbing it. The name "IBM" doesn't even appear on redhat.com. Because I'm an outsider, I can't say whether IBM meddled in Red Hat's HR or management, but I would guess not.
  - PeterCorless 10mo ago
    There have been annual layoffs at RedHat since 2023. This year they just laid off more. The layoffs this year are expected to be "a low single digit percentage of our global workforce." Which will likely include hundreds of folks at Red Hat. 1. https://www.cio.com/article/4084855/ibm-to-cut-thousands-of-jobs-as-red-hat-growth-slows.html https://www.cio.com/article/4084855/ibm-to-cut-thousands-of-... 2. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article312796900.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article312796900....
rmccue 10mo ago
We moved off HashiCorp's Terraform Cloud when they tried to hike the price 100x on us, although that was technically pre-acquisition I think (it was their move to resource-based pricing). In talking with our account manager, they basically said they only really cared about enterprise accounts, and that migrating away would probably make sense for us. HashiCorp also changed their licenses to non-open-source licenses, but again I think this was technically pre-acquisition (I think as they were gearing up to be a more attractive target for an exit).
- dangus 10mo ago
  In addition to this, I’ve noticed that OpenTofu is gaining much more interesting features and are actually acting upon long-requested functionality that HashiCorp has refused to implement (example: provider for_each in 1.9.0)
  - aryonoco 10mo ago
    Yeah I just implemented a new stack and noticed OpenTofu now supports client side encryption for the state files in with keys stored in Azure KeyVault (in the latest 1.11 release). AWS and GCP had been supported for a while. Client side state encryption was one of the things which HashiCorp always gatekeeped for HashiCorp Cloud and never implemented in the Open Souce / Sourece Available versions.
- mitchellh 10mo ago
  > (I think as they were gearing up to be a more attractive target for an exit). A common conspiracy theory, but not true.
  - sethops1 10mo ago
    Source: the guy the company was named after
    - maxloh 10mo ago
      Where did you read that?
CSMastermind 10mo ago
I migrated our company off Terraform to Pulumi as a direct result of the acquisition.
- tietjens 10mo ago
  How has it been? Sincere question.
  - CSMastermind 10mo ago
    Really good so far, would recommend anyone using Terraform switch.
HashiCorps 10mo ago
Former-Hashi employee here: there's a clear prioritization of enterprise products. So much so that I would not be surprised if they stopped supporting the Open Source projects entirely. That would be a big boost for the forks. Red Hat has far more autonomy. We are not structured the same. On the HR side — many good people are leaving; new hires have to be on-site for 3 days and located in 4 "strategic" locations in the US.
- thayne 10mo ago
  That's really bad news for projects that don't (yet?) have significant forks, like consul and vagrant.
worthless-trash 10mo ago
> no longer an official "public" distribution of RHEL What do you mean by that, like "centos/stream" (aka https://www.centos.org/download/ https://www.centos.org/download/ ) ?
- maxloh 10mo ago
  CentOS Stream employs a rolling-release model, which is much less stable than RHEL. The previous main selling point of CentOS was bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL. Red Hat is just killing the distro by moving their focus to a non-existent market. Enthusiasts will choose RHEL, while enterprises would choose the more stable RHEL, which Red Hat could earn money from, or alternatives like Alma or Rocky.
  - carlwgeorge 10mo ago
    CentOS Stream has major versions and EOL dates, and thus is not a rolling release. It functions as the RHEL major version branch and follows the RHEL compatibility rules, so it's the same major version stability as RHEL. While you may have considered bug-for-bug compatibility the main feature, it was a major point of frustration for many users and the maintainers. That model means you can't fix any bugs or accept contributions from the community. CentOS finally fixed both problems by moving to the Stream model.
cess11 10mo ago
One thing that's happened is that OpenShift has an IBM stamp of approval, which means it is now available in more organisations, that would otherwise have clung to more obscure mainframes and worse clown platforms. From my perspective, as someone who is deeply suspicious of IBM in general, that's a plus.

EarthIsHome 10mo ago

Gnome has stagnated significantly.

tannhaeuser 10mo ago
If only it had stagnated around gnome 2.0.
- tristan957 10mo ago
  MATE exists. You can use it right now.
  - nextaccountic 10mo ago
    I do. It's great that the UI is stagnated, but unfortunately the UX is too. Things like bluetooth not being integrated with the DE, and various details that we take for granted not working correctly
throw10920 10mo ago
Could that be due to increased popularity of KDE?
phkahler 10mo ago
>> Gnome has stagnated significantly. GTK is still alive. It seems like Cosmic desktop with GTK apps will be a reasonable path forward. Of course there's KDE and QT, but I mean as an alternative to those.
- spookie 10mo ago
  Cosmic isn't there yet. I don't use GNOME but at least it works.
shrubble 10mo ago
The Gnome desktop that shipped with Solaris over two decades ago is just as useful, possibly more useful, as the tablet-oriented hamburger menu UI of today. Yes, two decades: https://adtmag.com/articles/2003/08/04/solaris-gets-a-gnome-of-its-own.aspx https://adtmag.com/articles/2003/08/04/solaris-gets-a-gnome-...
JeremyNT 10mo ago
I'm not sure this is bad? It's still maintained, and it isn't like there are frequent revolutions in UI design - if it works, it works. Slow and boring is a pretty nice place to be.
- maxloh 10mo ago
  It doesn't really work for me. The first thing I always do with it is installing a taskbar extension.
jamespo 10mo ago
Linux on the desktop isn't a lucrative business
aprilnya 10mo ago
Has it? I feel like Gnome has made great progress the last few years
tristan957 10mo ago
The people on the Red Hat desktop team that work on GNOME are killing it. I think you might not be paying attention. Not every change is visible.

m4rtink 10mo ago

Well, there is CentOS Stream: https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ And Fedora is still the upstream of RHEL, nothing changed there.

bluedino 10mo ago
It seems like most users got tired of the unknowns with CentOS and went to Alma/Rocky. Doesn't help that most third party software vendors also didn't bother to support it.
maxloh 10mo ago
No, it is a totally different distro. CentOS Stream employs a rolling-release model, which is much less stable than RHEL. The previous main selling point of CentOS was bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL. Red Hat is just killing the distro by moving their focus to a non-existent market. Enthusiasts will choose RHEL, while enterprises would choose the more stable RHEL, which Red Hat could earn money from, or alternatives like Alma or Rocky.
- carlwgeorge 10mo ago
  It's not a totally different distro, it's a different variant of the same distro. Back when I was on the release team I would create builds, release them in CentOS Stream 8, then a few months later release them in CentOS Linux 8. It was the same content on a different schedule, released once it passed QA rather than batching up most updates into minor versions. CentOS Stream has major versions and EOL dates, and thus is not a rolling release. It functions as the RHEL major version branch and follows the RHEL compatibility rules, so it's the same major version stability as RHEL. While you may have considered bug-for-bug compatibility the main feature, it was a major point of frustration for many users and the maintainers. That model means you can't fix any bugs or accept contributions from the community. CentOS finally fixed both problems by moving to the Stream model.

this_user 10mo ago

The argument has been made that the real value of RH lies in the people working there. And if IBM were to interfere too heavy-handedly, those people would just leave, and RH would become basically worthless.

bityard 10mo ago
Maybe that's how it should work, but it's not how it actually works. The culture makes the company. Everyone on the lower rungs of the org chart knows this, because it's what they live and breathe every day. A positive, supportive workplace culture with clear goals and relative autonomy is a thing of beauty. You routinely find people doing more work than they really have to because they believe in the mission, or their peers, or the work is just fun. People join the company (and stay) because they WANT to not because they have to. Past a certain company size, upper management NEVER sees this. They are always looking outward: strategy, customers, marketing, competition. Never in. They've been trained to give great motivational speeches that instill a sense of company pride and motivation for about 30 seconds. After that, employee morale is HR's job. I have worked in a company that got acquired while it was profitable. The culture change was slow but dramatic. We went from a fun, dynamic culture with lots of teamwork and supportive management, to one step or two above Office Space. As far as the acquiring company was concerned, everything we were doing didn't matter, even if it worked. We had to conform to their systems and processes, or find new jobs. Most of us eventually did the latter. Somehow Red Hat seems to be a notable exception. Although IBM owns Red Hat, they seem to have mostly left it alone instead of absorbing it. The name "IBM" doesn't even appear on redhat.com. Because I'm an outsider, I can't say whether IBM meddled in Red Hat's HR or management, but I would guess not.
- PeterCorless 10mo ago
  There have been annual layoffs at RedHat since 2023. This year they just laid off more. The layoffs this year are expected to be "a low single digit percentage of our global workforce." Which will likely include hundreds of folks at Red Hat. 1. https://www.cio.com/article/4084855/ibm-to-cut-thousands-of-jobs-as-red-hat-growth-slows.html https://www.cio.com/article/4084855/ibm-to-cut-thousands-of-... 2. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article312796900.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article312796900....

rmccue 10mo ago

We moved off HashiCorp's Terraform Cloud when they tried to hike the price 100x on us, although that was technically pre-acquisition I think (it was their move to resource-based pricing). In talking with our account manager, they basically said they only really cared about enterprise accounts, and that migrating away would probably make sense for us. HashiCorp also changed their licenses to non-open-source licenses, but again I think this was technically pre-acquisition (I think as they were gearing up to be a more attractive target for an exit).

dangus 10mo ago
In addition to this, I’ve noticed that OpenTofu is gaining much more interesting features and are actually acting upon long-requested functionality that HashiCorp has refused to implement (example: provider for_each in 1.9.0)
- aryonoco 10mo ago
  Yeah I just implemented a new stack and noticed OpenTofu now supports client side encryption for the state files in with keys stored in Azure KeyVault (in the latest 1.11 release). AWS and GCP had been supported for a while. Client side state encryption was one of the things which HashiCorp always gatekeeped for HashiCorp Cloud and never implemented in the Open Souce / Sourece Available versions.
mitchellh 10mo ago
> (I think as they were gearing up to be a more attractive target for an exit). A common conspiracy theory, but not true.
- sethops1 10mo ago
  Source: the guy the company was named after
  - maxloh 10mo ago
    Where did you read that?

CSMastermind 10mo ago

I migrated our company off Terraform to Pulumi as a direct result of the acquisition.

tietjens 10mo ago
How has it been? Sincere question.
- CSMastermind 10mo ago
  Really good so far, would recommend anyone using Terraform switch.

HashiCorps 10mo ago

Former-Hashi employee here: there's a clear prioritization of enterprise products. So much so that I would not be surprised if they stopped supporting the Open Source projects entirely. That would be a big boost for the forks. Red Hat has far more autonomy. We are not structured the same. On the HR side — many good people are leaving; new hires have to be on-site for 3 days and located in 4 "strategic" locations in the US.

thayne 10mo ago
That's really bad news for projects that don't (yet?) have significant forks, like consul and vagrant.

worthless-trash 10mo ago

> no longer an official "public" distribution of RHEL What do you mean by that, like "centos/stream" (aka https://www.centos.org/download/ https://www.centos.org/download/ ) ?

maxloh 10mo ago
CentOS Stream employs a rolling-release model, which is much less stable than RHEL. The previous main selling point of CentOS was bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL. Red Hat is just killing the distro by moving their focus to a non-existent market. Enthusiasts will choose RHEL, while enterprises would choose the more stable RHEL, which Red Hat could earn money from, or alternatives like Alma or Rocky.
- carlwgeorge 10mo ago
  CentOS Stream has major versions and EOL dates, and thus is not a rolling release. It functions as the RHEL major version branch and follows the RHEL compatibility rules, so it's the same major version stability as RHEL. While you may have considered bug-for-bug compatibility the main feature, it was a major point of frustration for many users and the maintainers. That model means you can't fix any bugs or accept contributions from the community. CentOS finally fixed both problems by moving to the Stream model.

cess11 10mo ago

One thing that's happened is that OpenShift has an IBM stamp of approval, which means it is now available in more organisations, that would otherwise have clung to more obscure mainframes and worse clown platforms. From my perspective, as someone who is deeply suspicious of IBM in general, that's a plus.