Last year Red Hat was bought by IBM and there were cheers and lots of bottles of champagne being opened in celebration. I have a feeling Red Hat Linux will go the way of OS/2. Now there are several reasons why I think this will happen and it will happen because of IBM. Some will say "Oh its a subsidiary and things will be OK" No. Rot happens from the head down and when it comes to the PC market and Operating Systems, IBM is a bumblefuck. The original PC what happened? They relinquished it to Microsoft. OS/2 while there was a lot of excitement and it was an AWESOME operating system IBM just up and one day gave up. Without warning, without any kind of signals, they just gave up. Apples Copland which was a joint venture between Apple, Motorola and IBM from people that I know that worked in Copland almost all the fingers got pointed at IBM. IBM marketing and management doesnt like work. They want immediate gratification. They dont want to build. They just want to be on the top. If it doesnt happen. They go the OS/2 route and say it was great while it lasted. It happens every time. Look at AIX. Back in the late 90's/early 2000's AIX was going to be the top of the market for Operating Systems. Desktop and Server. Suddenly, sales were blah and the workstations and servers all but disappeared; put in the basement and out of sight and out of mind.
This wont happen overnight and it wont be this year but I suspect in 5 years Red Hat will be gone. I have seen IBM purchase many companies and they lay off half the engineering staff and put in yes men. I would say there is not going to be much to worry about until you see that start to happen. When people start leaving left and right. Find the off ramp. After that happens look for IBM to consolidate Red Hat into their main organization and they will call it IBM OS/Linux, IBM A/Linux or some silly shit like that and then the final destination for Red Hat as a company will be relegated to their mainframe business where IBM has had pretty good success to be fair.
Does this mean Red Hat technology will be dead as well? No. You have Fedora which is community maintained and they will continue to drive forward and keep putting out excellent releases and developing new technology. They will continue to be supported by individuals and companies and more importantly IBM doesnt really have a big presence. Rocky Linux and Oracle Linux will still be around. But Red Hat the company, Red Hat where awesome Linux engineers are born and nurtured and Red Hat the main driving force in Linux mainstream adoption will be GONE.
And that just massively SUCKS!!!!
