LWN: Comments on "IBM acquiring Red Hat"

IBM acquiring Red Hat

anselm — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 12:31:24 +0000

Yes, but by now Slackware isn't exactly mainstream, either.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

linuxrocks123 — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 09:04:36 +0000

Slackware doesn't use or support SystemD.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

pm215 — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 18:05:30 +0000

VA Linux did that thing with offering shares to random open source people too. I ended up on the list because my email happened to be in the Linux kernel (for a relatively trivial contribution). I used the money from the shares to buy an Alpha to run Linux on, because I thought that was definitely the future :-)

not worried...

nix — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 16:30:32 +0000

I very much hope so. IBM saying that they're not going to gratuitously change anything or go all out with "integration" and throw the baby out with the bathwater is a good sign. (Whether it's true, who knows. Corporations lie all the time.)

not worried...

nix — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 16:28:50 +0000

Quite. Linux, and free software, are the *people*, the developers working on the system. They might move from company to company but the names of the major developers are far more constant than the names of their employers. And nobody can buy out a person (at least, not yet).

IBM acquiring Red Hat

Jandar — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 11:03:19 +0000

Wol isn't denying it, he is stating this as a problem. And a real problem this is.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

jschrod — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 02:03:04 +0000

I don't understand what you posted. (And I don't mean that literally -- I know every word you posted, but your sentence makes no sense at all. And I won't complain that "you can always pretend that the literal reading the actual one" is missing the verb "is" either, I understand that.)

What did you want to express?

Or, to be more on topic: Why do you think the OP's post is racist? Please express this without referring to obscure allegories about dog whistles.

lwn.net is an international forum, please be aware that we are *not* all native English speakers.

not worried...

mstone_ — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 21:00:32 +0000

> They are paying an awful lot for Redhat. Presumably they will want to some how recoup that investment in some capacity.

Luckily there are no examples of big corporations cluelessly pissing away huge sums of money.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

flussence — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 18:26:29 +0000

>The literal reading is the reading. Anything else is madness.

You're ignoring the context of the OP's long and consistent history of posting propaganda for a specific dead Unix distro in bad faith.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

farnz — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 17:21:16 +0000

FWIW, my experience is that Indian developer quality varies in proportion to how much you're paying them, just like any other developer; the bad stereotypes happen because the floor price for an Indian developer is so much lower than the floor price for a European developer, and thus you get exposed to "senior" Indian developers who are only senior in longevity, not quality of experience, because some beancounter realises that they can pay 1/10th the money for offshore developers with the same titles as their onshore equivalents.

Of course, they then get to discover that cheap offshore developers are cheap because they're not particularly competent - the competent offshore people aren't cheap, because they've learnt they can do remote contracting and get paid European level wages while paying Indian level cost of living.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

k8to — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 17:14:54 +0000

The breadth and density of talent is really unmatched. I found this initially doubtful, but people from other tech centers around the world gave me countless examples.

It's still true that software does not require silicon valley, but there are a number of advantages in getting the ball rolling, even when the product is real and has real value. I've been part of more than one of these experiences. Granted, I have to filter out a lot of bullshit companies when I look for work.

Your point that there are extremely talented people around the world stands. I think the concerns about low-quality outsourcing are fairly real, but derive more from the typical business cultures of the United States and India more than they derive from the talent in any particular geo area.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

k8to — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 17:08:56 +0000

You are (accurately) identifying that people communicate in annoying and indirect ways and that this often very unhelpful.

Sadly, this doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and simply denying it doesn't really work.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

tao — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 16:19:18 +0000

Of course Devuan doesn't use systemd. That distro was created for the express purpose of being "systemd free".
The reason was that even when you use sysvinit on Debian systems you still link against some systemd components,
and apparently even that was considered too horrible.

Also, Devuan isn't a major Linux distribution; it's a tiny niche fork of Debian.

I think you can find better examples of distros not using systemd (and for more sensible reasons).

not worried...

smurf — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 15:48:58 +0000

These days, Cisco et al. provide code and support for the Great Firewall, plus smaller (but not necessarily leser) ones in Iran and other countries. I'm far more worried about those than what IBM did 70 years ago.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

lkundrak — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 13:47:50 +0000

> The only emotionally meaningful word was "yikeys"

It was "Yayks". I'm not a native speaker, and I've never heard the word, but I'm presuming it's essentially "Yay" and thus carries a positive connotation.

I also had to read it twice to notice it's not "yikes". It might be that I'm also sort of used to hear pointless bashing of Indians (not on LWN though). It's kinda sad -- I've got an impression Indian schools do a pretty good job at producing good engineers, whether they decide to stay in India or go study/work abroad. Some of the smartest people I got a chance to work with come from there.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

rahulsundaram — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 13:40:07 +0000

I think quabbling over the whether "winning" is the right phrase is not very productive but I will say that systemd isn't just PID1 and there are a number of interfaces defined and many of them with documented alternatives by systemd project itself

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Interfa...

Whether people want to invest time fixing up sysvinit or use a more modern alternative is up to them. My support or lack thereof is entirely immaterial. If someone were to ask for my opinion, I would advocate standardizing on file formats and interfaces and if you have a need for it, develop alternatives so people can use it as a drop-in without disrupting rest of the higher level stack that depends on said interfaces.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

pizza — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 13:36:44 +0000

> I guess I find "winning" an odd choice of phrase in a free software discussion, where user freedom is supposed to matter.

In this context, "user freedom" means the FSF's four freedoms, starting with the freedom to run or use the software for any purpose, along with the complete corresponding source code to alter, modify, and redistribute to their heart's content.

It doesn't mean that they get to expect (much less demand) other folks allow for any particular combination of options, much less support that or otherwise do work for them. For zero compensation.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

madhatter — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 13:19:09 +0000

I guess I find "winning" an odd choice of phrase in a free software discussion, where user freedom is supposed to matter. I doubt that it matters much how other people use language, except that sometimes I fear people go from "I think systemd won" to "because it won, no significant effort should be expended on any PID1 solution that isn't systemd". As long as you don't support the latter proposition, I suppose that I don't really mind how you describe the status quo.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

rahulsundaram — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 13:07:23 +0000

You don’t need to be an expert. The article you are referring to confirms the same fact that systemd is the default in Debian and all in major distributions. Older versions of CentOS released before doesn’t have it but that’s obvious. In free software world there are always going to be alternatives but most people using a recent distribution version are already using systemd. That’s just a fact. That’s what winning looks like to me. I think that’s a very reasonable perspective. Nothing unrealistic about it.

Wow...

daniel — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 12:42:18 +0000

IBM has lost about a third of its revenue over the last six years, but easily continues to spin enough cash to pay the mortgage on its pricey new property. Over the same period, Red Hat has turned in about 17% annual revenue growth. Profit, not so much, but you can understand how hungry IBM was for a new growth story. Hungry enough to overpay in my opinion, but IBM stock already was descending to earth in a pretty steep glide path, a new bit of financial imprudence isn't going to change that much. The deal on Monday hardly affected IBM's stock price at all. Analysts seem to think its a marriage made in heaven. Analysts are fickle beasts, they could all change their minds at the same time tomorrow, but for now they seem content.

For my part, I don't see how Red Hat ever earns back that 34 billion IBM just spent, given that they only earned $98 million last quarter. At that rate it would take 392 quarters, or 98 years to pay off the house, that's with an interest rate of zero. But what do I know? If that 17% annual income growth continues forever and income starts to go up with it, then Red Hat is worth the price of a small country. It won't do that, but it does fire the imagination, doesn't it. It's apparently enough for the analysts, for now.

Meanwhile I doubt that much will change in terms of job security for Red Hat developers or progress of Red Hat's favorite projects. It's business as usual for Linux, it is not our job to stay awake worrying about IBM's financial prospects. Like a glacier, it may be melting, but there's an awful lot of ice there, it will take a long time to melt.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

madhatter — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 12:14:42 +0000

The default in Debian? Probably, though I'm no expert. In CentOS? Yes, though not in all supported versions. In Devuan? Not if the article is to be believed.

I'm not suggesting systemd isn't common in most major up-to-date Linuxes, since it is; to pretend otherwise would be to fly in the face of the evidence. I *am* noting that behaving as if systemd is now the only startup daemon anyone would use, while there are still distributions like Devuan being actively maintained, flies equally hard in the face of the opposing evidence.

It seems to me it should be possible to be a fan of systemd without making unrealistic claims for it, just as it should be possible to dislike it without having to invent reasons for doing so.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

rahulsundaram — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 11:32:22 +0000

systemd is still the default. sysvinit is still bitrotting to no-one's surprise and they could improve the support for it but it doesn't invalidate what OP said.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

madhatter — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 11:19:02 +0000

You say that, but another article in this week's edition suggests it's not quite as done a deal as you imply.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

nim-nim — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 09:31:05 +0000

Red Hat already has a huge (and growing) tech center in Brno, Czech Republic. And there's nothing wrong with it. The Czech Republic invested in good IT universities. It is reaping the benefits today. Other countries thought the rent-a-clueless-powerpoint-consultant model would be the future in tech jobs.

It’s been a long time since paying extortionate rents in California was a requisite for a software company. The only remaining advantage I see is being closer to US VC sharks if you want to play the no-real-product unicorn startup lottery.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

Wol — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 08:07:52 +0000

And from the OP's nic he might well not be American, and so it doesn't affect him anyways. I dunno ...

Cheers,
Wol

IBM acquiring Red Hat

Wol — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 08:06:37 +0000

The problem is your euphemism and hidden meaning is my "what the f*** are you talking about?"

As a native English speaker, once people start talking about "hidden meaning" I have a tendency to think "I don't understand what you're talking about". In fact, as a perfect example, I don't properly understand either "dog whistle" or "snowflake" !!!

Can somebody please explain what GOP is? Are they republicrats or democans? What on earth is it? In an international forum, the *only* meaning which stands a *chance* of being properly understood is the literal one (I said "chance" because even there, we have plenty of literal words in the global English language, which change meaning in local context).

Cheers,
Wol

not worried...

daniel — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 07:34:52 +0000

I seriously doubt that life will change at all for Red Hat developers. Maybe you are thinking about the mass exodus of not only developers, but projects after Oracle acquired Sun? I somehow think that IBM management is smarter than that.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

marcH — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 04:10:38 +0000

> you can always pretend that the literal reading the actual one

I tried hard and the worst non-literal reading I could imagine is complaining that jobs are moving somewhere else and that's still not racist... Maybe you have an unusually strong imagination?

Worried...

salimma — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 22:35:42 +0000

Not sure about the total, but there's certainly one very large user: Facebook

https://www.slideshare.net/DavideCavalca1/running-centos-...

IBM acquiring Red Hat

mpr22 — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 21:47:44 +0000

> The literal reading is the reading. Anything else is madness.

Implicit meanings, oblique references, and opaque euphemisms and dysphemisms all abound in natural language as it is routinely used - especially in political rhetoric.

Welcome to the asylum.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

zlynx — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 21:35:10 +0000

"Dog whistles" seem to be an excuse for other people to rewrite what was *ACTUALLY SAID* into whatever their hobby-horse is.

Don't believe in dog whistles and "coded meaning." Whether it exists or not, it makes debate, argument and "truth" impossible. One side is LITERALLY claiming that the other side said something that they DID NOT SAY. It's an outright lie.

The literal reading is the reading. Anything else is madness.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

jubal — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 18:25:42 +0000

yes, dog whistles are usually supposed to have a good amount of plausible deniability embedded; and you can always pretend that the literal reading the actual one

IBM acquiring Red Hat

johannbg — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 16:25:40 +0000

Why are you under the assumption that systemd is a Red Hat project?

IBM acquiring Red Hat

HelloWorld — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 10:30:30 +0000

Look, that ship sailed a _long_ time ago. Systemd is here to stay, just get over it.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

anselm — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 09:54:21 +0000

Systemd is not a Red Hat project so they don't get to do that any more than anybody else could.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

luya — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 06:13:27 +0000

... and going back to the stone age from decade ago without a proper system management for Linux kernel? No thanks.

IBM acquiring Red Hat

magfr — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 05:14:50 +0000

I was thinking about the System resource controller but now that you mention the ODM I have to mention GConf.

not worried...

gnufreex — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:03:43 +0000

So there is not a single kernel developer now in IBM?

Wow...

johannbg — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 23:18:17 +0000

Well we Vikings here on top of the world have a saying: English is something to conquer not learn ;)

not worried...

johannbg — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 22:58:39 +0000

You do realize it's irrelevant to the Linux ecosystem if upstream changes employment and someone else will suddenly sign upstream paycheck right?

This can however affect the Fedora project and CentOS but time will tell if it ever will.

If people in general are worried about their contribution there is no reason to stop contributing to the linux or foss eco system, just move that contribution directly upstream to the project(s) you love and or use instead.