Why open source developers are concerned about IBM's acquisition of Red Hat

IBM announced a huge deal to buy Red Hat for a lot of 34 billion dollars. It's good news for IBM in the cloud market, analysts say, but some software developers panic.

Worth at $ 190 per share, Red Hat would be the third largest American tech acquisition ever, and IBM's biggest deal in its 107-year history.

It's also a great effort on open source, where developers across the globe contribute their time and expertise to building software projects big and small for everyone, anywhere to use as they want free. Red Hat was one of the first open source companies to become a viable business model, and is still a luminary in space today.

The rise of open source appears to be a rebuilding theme in technology this year. Just last week, Microsoft officially bought GitHub, a platform for open source coding projects, for $ 7.5 billion. Earlier this month, Cloudera and Hortonworks merged into a $ 5.2 billion deal. And earlier this year, Salesforce also bought MuleSoft for $ 6.5 billion.

Still, the deal has increased the alarm clocks in Silicon Valley and beyond, as some worry that IBM is not the right long-term home for Red Hat ̵[ads1]1; and that the open source world will suffer from it.

What does Red Hat do?

Red Hat creates open software for businesses. It is one of the largest distributors of Linux, an open source operating system that is often used to run corporate data centers. Linux is an operating system similar to Windows and MacOS, which has existed since the 90's, but Red Hat specifically develops a customized version of Linux for businesses.

It is best known for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), a specialized version of the operating system. While downloading RHEL is free, Red Hat charges software improvements and the technical support that companies need, such as maintenance, support, and installation.

Soon, other startups began to follow Red Hat's leadership in this business strategy. Today, hot startups like Docks and Mesosphere followed in Red Hat's leadership to find ways to use free software to generate revenue.

IBM plans to use Red Hat?

IBM plans to use Red Hat software to bridge the Linux-based enterprise data centers with the major cloud computing platforms in a hybrid cloud model. Customers who run Red Hat software on their servers would get an easy path to move some or all of their applications to the cloud at their own pace, "said IBM.

In addition to its own IBM Cloud, IBM also plans to maintain and maintain Red Hat's existing partnership with other major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Alibaba. To this end, IBM will run Red Hat as an independent subsidiary in order to maintain its neutrality among the skate platforms.

Furthermore, IBM has said that it will not stop Red Hat from contributing to open source projects, or from managing the popular projects it already maintains, such as the CentOS operating system or the Ansible IT automation tool.

Analysts expect this move to have significant impact on the sky landscape, and it will give IBM an advantage to keep track of key players in the cloud computing market like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. In other words, this acquisition keeps IBM relevant, even as its own cloud lies behind Amazon and Microsoft.

Still, not everyone is convinced that this agreement will be a good thing.

Why are people mad at it?

Despite IBM's assurances that Red Hat will maintain its independence and continue to contribute to open source, many nervous Linux developers (and at least one who claims to be a Red Hat employee) see this as yet another example of a tech giant gobbling up a loved open source software company.

"I'm totally shocked by this news," said a Reddit user claiming to work for Red Hat. "No indication that Red Hat would be bought." Profits were good. "Open source community was great. Not least, IBM is almost anti-Red Hat in terms of their values."

More directly, there is a feeling among fans of Red Hat's open source software that the corporate culture of the much larger IBM will have some form of negative impact on its products in the future.

These fans worry that it's just a matter of time before IBM either mandates celebrate changes to Red Hat, otherwise disassembles it and absorbs it wholesale. These concerns echoed the furrow after Microsoft announced that it was buying GitHub, open source community hub, for $ 7.5 billion. That deal closed last week.

"IBM has a long overview of providing good companies and challenging destruction on its culture," reported a Reddit user. "Consider it as corporate colonialism. Sometimes it results in an emigration of talent that has a major impact on future product updates and support."

The technology industry has also seen IBM as a company that has fallen behind as one of the oldest technology companies, and in recent years, IBM has been struggling to capture the Amazon and Microsoft clouds. IBM was founded in 1911 and lost most of its reputation as an innovator.

"IBM's open source reputation is fine indeed, it's the rest of the reputation I'm worried about," another Reddit user added.

Reasons to Be Optimistic

In fact, IBM and open source go a long way back, as experts say can cause Red Hat fans to be optimistic.

"There are many who say that this is going to be a problem for Red Hat, and open source will be bluewashed for IBM," said Chris Gardner, senior analyst at Forrester, Business Insider. "It's all this bad for me. IBM has had a lot of open source printing in the last decade or more."

IBM has previously supported open source project as an early supporter of Linux, and Red Hat is one of the top 10 contributors to Linux. It has invested billions of dollars in Linux earlier and is a member of the Linux Foundation. It even created a technology center specifically for Linux.

Meanwhile, the Linux Foundation, which monitors the development of the operating system, has intensified to praise the calm as a reflection of the importance of open source.

"IBM's announcement that it acquires Red Hat provides an enormous opportunity for both organizations, and highlights the importance of open source in the technology sector. IBM has been a major open source initiative for over two decades: promoting and defending Linux and open source of critical points in its history, "writes Jim Zemlin, director of the Linux Foundation, in a statement about the acquisition.

And while Microsoft's former CEO Steve Ballmer all spoke of war on the term open source, IBM boldly announced its support for Linux and embraced it wholeheartedly. More recently, Microsoft has made a complete 180 turn on its open source attitude, but IBM has a long history of support.

"[IBM pledging support for Linux] was a major step towards legitimizing this movement," said Bill Karpovich, EVP for open source software company Sonatype and former CEO of IBM Cloud, Business Insider. "[IBM has] has always had a business model that supports open source … They put their money where the mouth is. With this acquisition, they probably put big dollars on the open source model."

Still, Gardner agrees that the developer's concerns over the agreement may have some advantages. The two companies have very different cultures: IBM is a century-old technical giant with a bureaucratic culture and the largest of major customers, whereas the relatively younger Red Hat, founded in 1993, serves a generally smaller clientele and is more targeted at taking risks .

"There is potential for problems here," Gardner said. "Not dramatic change problems, but there is a significant difference in culture and how they handle corporate customers."

To make this acquisition work, he says, IBM should maintain Red Hat with only a slight touch.

"It must allow Red Hat to do things," said Gardner. "As long as IBM has the easy touch, everything is good. They try to override the culture a bit and it will not work."