Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[John Hearns via Beowulf]

MArk Shuttleworth's statement here
https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/10/30/statement-on-ibm-acquisition-of-red-hat
I make no comment.

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 at 00:18, Gerald Henriksen  wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:49:05 -0400 (EDT), you wrote:
>
> >> "Will Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now run out and buy SUSE, Ubuntu,
> >> Apache, etc? Yes.
> >>
> >> "Will there be a mad rush to create new Linux distros? No. I think that
> boat
> >> has already sailed and further Linux branding won?t happen, at least
> not for
> >> traditional business reasons.
> >
> >Google already has one.  It's called "Android".  Microsoft has been
> >flirting with Linux for the first time in forever as every one of their
> >efforts to compete with Android and IOS has underwhelmed, if not
> >flopped.  At this point Linux actually owns a substantial chunk of the
> >desktop, in the form of Android on tablets that have largely replaced or
> >augmented actual computers,
>
> Not even close.  Android on tablets is essentially dead, they only
> thing the remaining tablets are used for is media viewers.
>
> The Android app developers never developed tablet versions of the
> apps, and Google dropped the ball yet again.
>
> Google's latest attempt, announced several weeks back, is an attempt
> at a ChromeOS tablet...
>
> And when that fails, perhaps we will finally see Fuchsia.
>
> > and is just under Apple in the phone market
>
> Depends on how you measure, some ways Android is ahead.
>
> But the big problem is that few people are making money from Android,
> in part because few Android users buy apps.
>
> >with M$ a joke down near the bottom in both domains.
>
> Microsoft existed the phone business several years ago, and at least
> in terms of usefulness for doing anything other than watching a movie
> their tablet offerings are far ahead of anything Android.  It's not a
> coincidence that the latest iPad Pros announced today look like
> Surface Pros.
>
> >But Android is
> >vulnerable -- lots of people dislike it and dislike the play store and
> >all that goes with it and with iOS.
>
> The only people who hate the iOS store are certain techies, and
> certain players big enough that they dislike the percentage.
>
> The users love it because it is hassle free and has none of the
> virus/malware/etc issues that they experience elsewhere.
>
> Google Play is vulnerable because Google refuses to invest in it and
> the developers increasingly leary of getting locked out with no way to
> appeal the decision.
>
> > IBM has the resources to actually
> >make an OPEN tablet/phone OS if they choose to and are at least as
> >likely as M$ is to be able to step into the market and steal away
> >mindshare from Android and iOS -- if they couple it to a slick AI
> >component, maybe semi-proprietary, they might even jump to the head of
> >the line as Alexa and Siri etc leave a great deal to be desired.
>
> Any attempt at an open tablet/phone would require signficant money and
> there is no way IBM is going to invest the money in hardware and
> software to try it.
>
> Say want one wants about Apple, but they have had the best ARM
> processors for mobile for a while now and noone appears to be close to
> catching up anytime soon.
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:49:05 -0400 (EDT), you wrote:

>> "Will Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now run out and buy SUSE, Ubuntu,
>> Apache, etc? Yes.
>> 
>> "Will there be a mad rush to create new Linux distros? No. I think that boat
>> has already sailed and further Linux branding won?t happen, at least not for
>> traditional business reasons.
>
>Google already has one.  It's called "Android".  Microsoft has been
>flirting with Linux for the first time in forever as every one of their
>efforts to compete with Android and IOS has underwhelmed, if not
>flopped.  At this point Linux actually owns a substantial chunk of the
>desktop, in the form of Android on tablets that have largely replaced or
>augmented actual computers,

Not even close.  Android on tablets is essentially dead, they only
thing the remaining tablets are used for is media viewers.

The Android app developers never developed tablet versions of the
apps, and Google dropped the ball yet again.

Google's latest attempt, announced several weeks back, is an attempt
at a ChromeOS tablet...

And when that fails, perhaps we will finally see Fuchsia.

> and is just under Apple in the phone market

Depends on how you measure, some ways Android is ahead.

But the big problem is that few people are making money from Android,
in part because few Android users buy apps.

>with M$ a joke down near the bottom in both domains.  

Microsoft existed the phone business several years ago, and at least
in terms of usefulness for doing anything other than watching a movie
their tablet offerings are far ahead of anything Android.  It's not a
coincidence that the latest iPad Pros announced today look like
Surface Pros.

>But Android is
>vulnerable -- lots of people dislike it and dislike the play store and
>all that goes with it and with iOS. 

The only people who hate the iOS store are certain techies, and
certain players big enough that they dislike the percentage.

The users love it because it is hassle free and has none of the
virus/malware/etc issues that they experience elsewhere.

Google Play is vulnerable because Google refuses to invest in it and
the developers increasingly leary of getting locked out with no way to
appeal the decision.

> IBM has the resources to actually
>make an OPEN tablet/phone OS if they choose to and are at least as
>likely as M$ is to be able to step into the market and steal away
>mindshare from Android and iOS -- if they couple it to a slick AI
>component, maybe semi-proprietary, they might even jump to the head of
>the line as Alexa and Siri etc leave a great deal to be desired.

Any attempt at an open tablet/phone would require signficant money and
there is no way IBM is going to invest the money in hardware and
software to try it.

Say want one wants about Apple, but they have had the best ARM
processors for mobile for a while now and noone appears to be close to
catching up anytime soon.
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Re: [Beowulf] New tools from FB and Uber

[Christopher Samuel]

On 31/10/18 5:14 am, Tim Cutts wrote:

I vaguely remember hearing about Btrfs from someone at Oracle, it 
seems the main developer has moved around a bit since!


Yeah Chris Mason (and another) left Oracle for Fusion-IO in 2012 and
then shifted from there to Facebook in late 2013.  Jens Axboe (the
kernel block layer maintainer) also moved from Fusio-IO to Facebook
shortly after (early 2014).

FB run btrfs on a bunch of their infrastructure which helped them find
problems at scale (from memory, I don't track it any more).

All the best,
Chris
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Re: [Beowulf] New tools from FB and Uber

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 01:27:23 +0800, you wrote:

>FB has open sourced some interestimg kernel tools, including 'cgroups2' and
>btfrs (!! Wasn't that already floss?)

Btrfs has been around for a while, and has even been in the Linux
kernel for a while.

I'm guessing that Facebook has had their own development branch which
they are now making public as that link differs from the development
branch that is shown on the kernel Btrfs page:

https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Btrfs_source_repositories

Currently I believe only OpenSUSE ships it in a supported form, Red
Hat announced they are removing support and it won't be in future
releases.
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Christopher Samuel]

On 31/10/18 4:07 am, INKozin via Beowulf wrote:


Will Red Hat come out Blue Hat after IBM blue washing?


Best one I've heard was by Kenneth Hoste on the Easybuild Slack.

Deep Purple.

;-)

--
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Re: [Beowulf] An Epyc move for Cray

[Christopher Samuel]

On 31/10/18 9:39 am, Christopher Samuel wrote:

For those who haven't seen, Cray has announced their new Shasta 
architecture for forthcoming systems like NERSC-9 (the replacement for 
Edison).


Now I've seen the Cray PR it seems it might not be as closely coupled as 
it initially reads..


http://investors.cray.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=98390=irol-newsArticle=2374181

# With Shasta you can mix and match processor architectures (X86, Arm®,
# GPUs) in the same system as well as system interconnects from Cray
# (Slingshot™), Intel (Omni-Path) or Mellanox (InfiniBand®).

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[Beowulf] An Epyc move for Cray

[Christopher Samuel]

For those who haven't seen, Cray has announced their new Shasta 
architecture for forthcoming systems like NERSC-9 (the replacement for 
Edison).


https://www.hpcwire.com/2018/10/30/cray-unveils-shasta-lands-nersc-9-contract/

It's interesting as Cray have jumped back to using AMD CPUs (Epyc) 
alongside nVidia GPUs, in conjunction with a new interconnect (Slingshot).


I've got to say that the name of the new NERSC system reminds me of 
people struggling to program in a particular scripting language.. ;-)


--
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[John Hearns via Beowulf]

> I just don't think they have been successful at attracting the cream of
the programming world
> for twenty plus years now,
IBM - I am seeking a role as an HPC expert at the moment. Do please contact
me!

Four years ago I was seeking a similar position.
I had a phone interview with the UK manager. I had a phone interview with
the EMEA manager.
I had a phone interview with the worldwide manager.
During the weeks which these took to be set up by HR, a small UK company
scheduled a single face to face interview with me and made a firm offer of
a job.

As I say - IBM - I will still happily work for you. But make me an offer!







On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 at 17:49, Robert G. Brown  wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Oct 2018, chuck_pet...@selinc.com wrote:
>
> > Cringely has some interesting observations...
> >
> > "The deal is a good fit for many reasons explained below. And remember
> Red
> > Hat is just down the road from IBM?s huge operation in Raleigh, NC.
>
> Slightly backwards.  RH is back on NC State's campus (where it began),
> having moved out of Durham a few years ago.  IBM is in the Research
> Triangle Park, which is a bit closer to Durham (closest) and Chapel Hill
> (second closest) than it is to Raleigh, but is basically in "neutral
> ground" in between, with these three and surrounding suburbs and urbs
> all three acting as bedroom communities for RTP.
>
> But there is plenty of room in all three corners of the triangle plus
> RTP plus the surrounding countryside for expansion and/or unification.
> The interesting question in my mind is whether or not RH will stay
> inside NCSU at all now that they are bought out.  I could easily see
> them moving into a shiny new building in RTP or out on the east side of
> Durham.  They both draw extensively from the congruence of Duke, UNC,
> NCSU, and NCCU (four Universities within twenty miles of RTP and about
> 25 miles of each other) and the fact that this is a really good place to
> live, with a very high percentage of the population having at least a
> bachelor's degree and a very high percentage having a graduate degree as
> well.  At one point, the Triangle had the largest concentration of MDs
> and PhDs per capita in the world, but that's been diluted by migration
> and changes in the economic profile so that research, medicine and
> education, while huge, are smaller proportions of the overall
> population.
>
> >
> > "Will Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now run out and buy SUSE, Ubuntu,
> > Apache, etc? Yes.
> >
> > "Will there be a mad rush to create new Linux distros? No. I think that
> boat
> > has already sailed and further Linux branding won?t happen, at least not
> for
> > traditional business reasons.
>
> Google already has one.  It's called "Android".  Microsoft has been
> flirting with Linux for the first time in forever as every one of their
> efforts to compete with Android and IOS has underwhelmed, if not
> flopped.  At this point Linux actually owns a substantial chunk of the
> desktop, in the form of Android on tablets that have largely replaced or
> augmented actual computers, and is just under Apple in the phone market
> with M$ a joke down near the bottom in both domains.  But Android is
> vulnerable -- lots of people dislike it and dislike the play store and
> all that goes with it and with iOS.  IBM has the resources to actually
> make an OPEN tablet/phone OS if they choose to and are at least as
> likely as M$ is to be able to step into the market and steal away
> mindshare from Android and iOS -- if they couple it to a slick AI
> component, maybe semi-proprietary, they might even jump to the head of
> the line as Alexa and Siri etc leave a great deal to be desired.
>
> > "These big questions have yet to be answered, of course. Only time will
> > tell. But we?ll shortly begin to see hints. What happens to Red Hat
> > management, for example? There are those who think Red Hat will, in many
> > ways, become the surviving corporate culture here ? that is if Red Hat?s
> Jim
> > Whitehurst gets Ginni Rometty?s IBM CEO job as part of the deal. That?s
> what
> > I am predicting will happen. Ginni is overdue for retirement, this
> > acquisition will not only qualify her for a huge retirement package, it
> will
> > do so in a way that won?t be clearly successful or unsuccessful for
> years to
> > come, so no clawbacks. And yet the market will (eventually) love it, IBM
> > shares will soar, and Ginni will depart looking like a genius.
> >
> > [SNIP]
> >
> > "In the end the C-suite of IBM may be finally admitting to themselves
> what
> > you and I have known for several years ? that their strategic imperatives
> > are not doing as well as they promised. They also know they?ve invested
> way
> > too much in stock repurchases and way too little in the business. So with
> > this Red Hat deal they?ve basically bet the farm to get themselves back
> in
> > the game.
> >
> > "With Whitehurst at the top of IBM, the company will not only have an
> > outsider like 

Re: [Beowulf] New tools from FB and Uber

[Tim Cutts]

I vaguely remember hearing about Btrfs from someone at Oracle, it seems the 
main developer has moved around a bit since!

Tim

On 30 Oct 2018, at 17:27, Lachlan Musicman 
mailto:data...@gmail.com>> wrote:

I always find it weird when companies I don't like release new toolsets that 
make me begrudgingly think that they are not evil to the core.

FB has open sourced some interestimg kernel tools, including 'cgroups2' and 
btfrs (!! Wasn't that already floss?)

https://code.fb.com/open-source/linux/

Uber has released a new player in cluster workload management, Peleton

https://eng.uber.com/peloton/

Enjoy your morning reading!

L.

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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Robert G. Brown]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018, chuck_pet...@selinc.com wrote:


Cringely has some interesting observations...

"The deal is a good fit for many reasons explained below. And remember Red
Hat is just down the road from IBM?s huge operation in Raleigh, NC.


Slightly backwards.  RH is back on NC State's campus (where it began),
having moved out of Durham a few years ago.  IBM is in the Research
Triangle Park, which is a bit closer to Durham (closest) and Chapel Hill
(second closest) than it is to Raleigh, but is basically in "neutral
ground" in between, with these three and surrounding suburbs and urbs
all three acting as bedroom communities for RTP.

But there is plenty of room in all three corners of the triangle plus
RTP plus the surrounding countryside for expansion and/or unification.
The interesting question in my mind is whether or not RH will stay
inside NCSU at all now that they are bought out.  I could easily see
them moving into a shiny new building in RTP or out on the east side of
Durham.  They both draw extensively from the congruence of Duke, UNC,
NCSU, and NCCU (four Universities within twenty miles of RTP and about
25 miles of each other) and the fact that this is a really good place to
live, with a very high percentage of the population having at least a
bachelor's degree and a very high percentage having a graduate degree as
well.  At one point, the Triangle had the largest concentration of MDs
and PhDs per capita in the world, but that's been diluted by migration
and changes in the economic profile so that research, medicine and
education, while huge, are smaller proportions of the overall
population.



"Will Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now run out and buy SUSE, Ubuntu,
Apache, etc? Yes.

"Will there be a mad rush to create new Linux distros? No. I think that boat
has already sailed and further Linux branding won?t happen, at least not for
traditional business reasons.


Google already has one.  It's called "Android".  Microsoft has been
flirting with Linux for the first time in forever as every one of their
efforts to compete with Android and IOS has underwhelmed, if not
flopped.  At this point Linux actually owns a substantial chunk of the
desktop, in the form of Android on tablets that have largely replaced or
augmented actual computers, and is just under Apple in the phone market
with M$ a joke down near the bottom in both domains.  But Android is
vulnerable -- lots of people dislike it and dislike the play store and
all that goes with it and with iOS.  IBM has the resources to actually
make an OPEN tablet/phone OS if they choose to and are at least as
likely as M$ is to be able to step into the market and steal away
mindshare from Android and iOS -- if they couple it to a slick AI
component, maybe semi-proprietary, they might even jump to the head of
the line as Alexa and Siri etc leave a great deal to be desired.


"These big questions have yet to be answered, of course. Only time will
tell. But we?ll shortly begin to see hints. What happens to Red Hat
management, for example? There are those who think Red Hat will, in many
ways, become the surviving corporate culture here ? that is if Red Hat?s Jim
Whitehurst gets Ginni Rometty?s IBM CEO job as part of the deal. That?s what
I am predicting will happen. Ginni is overdue for retirement, this
acquisition will not only qualify her for a huge retirement package, it will
do so in a way that won?t be clearly successful or unsuccessful for years to
come, so no clawbacks. And yet the market will (eventually) love it, IBM
shares will soar, and Ginni will depart looking like a genius.

[SNIP]

"In the end the C-suite of IBM may be finally admitting to themselves what
you and I have known for several years ? that their strategic imperatives
are not doing as well as they promised. They also know they?ve invested way
too much in stock repurchases and way too little in the business. So with
this Red Hat deal they?ve basically bet the farm to get themselves back in
the game.

"With Whitehurst at the top of IBM, the company will not only have an
outsider like Gerstner was, it will have its first CEO ever who won?t be
coming with a sales background. This is very good, because IBM will have a
technical leader finally running the show.

"Let?s review:

"Ginni Rometty is past the age where IBM likes to retire CEO?s, which is 60.

"Jim Whitehurst is 51, the age when IBM likes to hire new CEO?s.

"I don?t see Whitehurst moving to Armonk, I do see IBM moving to Raleigh.


I'm not sure about that -- NYC is still the center of the financial
universe.  I'd love to see it happen, but they don't have to "move",
they can just create the tech vice-capital of IBM in the park (where
they already have a strong presence) while still leaving the bookkeepers
and stock brokers and sales people in Armonk.


"I do see Whitehurst as CEO of IBM in six months or less.

"The Red Hat team will expand their products into new areas. IBM executives
will retire in droves because they 

Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[INKozin via Beowulf]

Will Red Hat come out Blue Hat after IBM blue washing?

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 at 16:21,  wrote:

> Cringely has some interesting observations...
>
> "The deal is a good fit for many reasons explained below. And remember Red
> Hat is just down the road from IBM’s huge operation in Raleigh, NC.
>
> "Will Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now run out and buy SUSE, Ubuntu,
> Apache, etc?  Yes.
>
> "Will there be a mad rush to create new Linux distros? No. I think that
> boat has already sailed and further Linux branding won’t happen, at least
> not for traditional business reasons.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> "These big questions have yet to be answered, of course. Only time will
> tell. But we’ll shortly begin to see hints. What happens to Red Hat
> management, for example? There are those who think Red Hat will, in many
> ways, become the surviving corporate culture here — that is if Red Hat’s
> Jim Whitehurst gets Ginni Rometty’s IBM CEO job as part of the deal. That’s
> what I am predicting will happen. Ginni is overdue for retirement, this
> acquisition will not only qualify her for a huge retirement package, it
> will do so in a way that won’t be clearly successful or unsuccessful for
> years to come, so no clawbacks. And yet the market will (eventually) love
> it, IBM shares will soar, and Ginni will depart looking like a genius.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> "In the end the C-suite of IBM may be finally admitting to themselves what
> you and I have known for several years — that their strategic imperatives
> are not doing as well as they promised.  They also know they’ve invested
> way too much in stock repurchases and way too little in the business.  So
> with this Red Hat deal they’ve basically bet the farm to get themselves
> back in the game.
>
> "With Whitehurst at the top of IBM, the company will not only have an
> outsider like Gerstner was, it will have its first CEO ever who won’t be
> coming with a sales background. This is very good, because IBM will have a
> technical leader finally running the show.
>
> "Let’s review:
>
> "Ginni Rometty is past the age where IBM likes to retire CEO’s, which is
> 60.
>
> "Jim Whitehurst is 51, the age when IBM likes to hire new CEO’s.
>
> "I don’t see Whitehurst moving to Armonk, I do see IBM moving to Raleigh.
>
> "I do see Whitehurst as CEO of IBM in six months or less.
>
> "The Red Hat team will expand their products into new areas. IBM
> executives will retire in droves because they can’t compete and will resist
> learning something new.
>
>
> *Red Hat takes over IBM*
> https://www.cringely.com/2018/10/29/red-hat-takes-over-ibm/ [cringely.com]
> 
>
>
>
> Chuck Petras, PE**
> Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc
> Pullman, WA  99163  USA
> http://www.selinc.com
>
> SEL Synchrophasors - A New View of the Power System <
> http://synchrophasor.selinc.com>
>
> Making Electric Power Safer, More Reliable, and More Economical (R)
>
> ** Registered in Oregon.
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[Beowulf] New tools from FB and Uber

[Lachlan Musicman]

I always find it weird when companies I don't like release new toolsets
that make me begrudgingly think that they are not evil to the core.

FB has open sourced some interestimg kernel tools, including 'cgroups2' and
btfrs (!! Wasn't that already floss?)

https://code.fb.com/open-source/linux/

Uber has released a new player in cluster workload management, Peleton

https://eng.uber.com/peloton/

Enjoy your morning reading!

L.
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Chuck_Petras]

Cringely has some interesting observations...

"The deal is a good fit for many reasons explained below. And remember Red 
Hat is just down the road from IBM?s huge operation in Raleigh, NC.

"Will Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now run out and buy SUSE, Ubuntu, 
Apache, etc?  Yes.

"Will there be a mad rush to create new Linux distros? No. I think that 
boat has already sailed and further Linux branding won?t happen, at least 
not for traditional business reasons.

[SNIP]

"These big questions have yet to be answered, of course. Only time will 
tell. But we?ll shortly begin to see hints. What happens to Red Hat 
management, for example? There are those who think Red Hat will, in many 
ways, become the surviving corporate culture here ? that is if Red Hat?s 
Jim Whitehurst gets Ginni Rometty?s IBM CEO job as part of the deal. 
That?s what I am predicting will happen. Ginni is overdue for retirement, 
this acquisition will not only qualify her for a huge retirement package, 
it will do so in a way that won?t be clearly successful or unsuccessful 
for years to come, so no clawbacks. And yet the market will (eventually) 
love it, IBM shares will soar, and Ginni will depart looking like a 
genius.

[SNIP]

"In the end the C-suite of IBM may be finally admitting to themselves what 
you and I have known for several years ? that their strategic imperatives 
are not doing as well as they promised.  They also know they?ve invested 
way too much in stock repurchases and way too little in the business.  So 
with this Red Hat deal they?ve basically bet the farm to get themselves 
back in the game.

"With Whitehurst at the top of IBM, the company will not only have an 
outsider like Gerstner was, it will have its first CEO ever who won?t be 
coming with a sales background. This is very good, because IBM will have a 
technical leader finally running the show.

"Let?s review:

"Ginni Rometty is past the age where IBM likes to retire CEO?s, which is 
60.

"Jim Whitehurst is 51, the age when IBM likes to hire new CEO?s.

"I don?t see Whitehurst moving to Armonk, I do see IBM moving to Raleigh.

"I do see Whitehurst as CEO of IBM in six months or less.

"The Red Hat team will expand their products into new areas. IBM 
executives will retire in droves because they can?t compete and will 
resist learning something new.


Red Hat takes over IBM
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.cringely.com_2018_10_29_red-2Dhat-2Dtakes-2Dover-2Dibm_=DwIFAw=-_uRSsrpJskZgEkGwdW-sXvhn_FXVaEGsm0EI46qilk=fawF3TRTwCqlaBkoLcxYCr4F4NRwCc64hmEgi9rHPpE=nBHJaAM6JyP3cvsCYzpD-gPsPm8M8gpYv5jayTSj5t8=tnaZNtnYayv2W8cBKjyxw_M4RSZlAU3NtCYjpkREYVo=



Chuck Petras, PE**
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc
Pullman, WA  99163  USA
http://www.selinc.com

SEL Synchrophasors - A New View of the Power System <
http://synchrophasor.selinc.com>

Making Electric Power Safer, More Reliable, and More Economical (R)

** Registered in Oregon.
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Ryan Novosielski]

> On Oct 30, 2018, at 10:55 AM, Joe Landman  wrote:
> 
> 
> On 10/30/18 10:46 AM, Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf wrote:
>> TIL: A lot of you old-timers are really salty about systemd. ;)
> 
> Some parts I like (integrated restart).
> 
> Some parts are terrible (integrated restart).
> 
> I especially like it when a dependency is in the slightly wrong order and it 
> takes forever to boot/shutdown.
> 
> Systemd is much like the RH anaconda/kickstart installer.  It is best to 
> spend as little time under its control as possible.  To postpone much startup 
> and shutdown stuff to scripting outside of systemd's control.  Gee, just like 
> init of days of old.
> 
> I've had to learn its ins and outs over the last few years, and while it 
> improves some things, it makes a complete hash of others.  Its highly 
> opinionated, and seeks to impose its opinion whenever possible.  Thankfully, 
> some of its opinions can be (for now) controlled via /etc/systemd/*.conf 
> scripts.
> 
> I'll paraphrase Churchill here:  Systemd is the worst, except for all the 
> rest.

As someone who occasionally still comes across someone who has put something in 
/etc/rc.local in the like 2015-2018 timeframe (and thinks doing so should be a 
“pack your stuff” type of offense), I am fully on the systemd train. Of course 
learning a new thing is irritating for the first little while, but especially 
in a stateless environment where you don’t want to have to be merging 
individual local changes into the same init.d text file every time the package 
is upgraded, it’s great. I’m pretty sure that the sole problem I’ve run into so 
far is the unit for GPFS (at least at one time) returning success before GPFS 
had started, which created problems for other stuff, and I had some difficulty 
properly understanding the difference between the various dependency keywords 
(Wants, RunBefore or RunAfter or whatever they are).

--

|| \\UTGERS, |---*O*---
||_// the State  | Ryan Novosielski - novos...@rutgers.edu
|| \\ University | Sr. Technologist - 973/972.0922 (2x0922) ~*~ RBHS Campus
||  \\of NJ  | Office of Advanced Research Computing - MSB C630, Newark
 `'

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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Douglas Eadline]

> On Mon, 29 Oct 2018, Douglas Eadline wrote:
>
>> Those alleged problems could have been solved for far less than $34B
>
> The big question these days is -- what the hell DOES IBM make money
> from?

A good question indeed. Tthree things they have been pushing lately

1) Watson - for use in the medical and service industries
2) Hadoop/Spark - Analytics at scale
3) Blockchain - not cryptocurrencies but other uses

All of these have a "cloud" vibe and they may be
able to back end these with Power. I was thinking
IBM may make (at some point) a Hadoop play since
Cloudera and Hortonworks are merging. There is a
developing real market for scalable analytics, not
quite as big as was projected, however.

As far as blockchain, who knows, I suppose
there are areas where a slow distributed
write once ledger fits, but I don't know
of many right now.

As for Watson, I'm impressed with the technology
mostly because while the rest of the big kids are
all about neural networks (sorry deep learning)
IBM has taken a more symbolic approach. I think they
could replace first level support people with Watson,
they are mostly reading from a screen anyway. And
Watson's ability to know/scan more information
than a human ever could can provide better support.

Now back to SC18 prep, ugh...


--
Doug






> This is not the IBM of my youth, making "all" the mainframe
> computers in the world (as well as all of the awesomest electric
> typewriters:-).  This is not the IBM of my middle years, which made the
> IBM PC and hence laid the ground for the dissolution of its mainframe
> business, taking a tiny garage-basd software company iun the process and
> transforming it into one of the richest corporations in the world as a
> mere side effect.  This isn't even the IBM of my later years, which
> still dominated desktop and laptops, sold the most reliable hard drives
> and server hardware, and provided key corporate middleware.
>
> I see their ads, but who buys?  What are they selling?  AI?  Very Large
> Scale corporate server racks?  Consulting?  Software?  Hardware?  For
> most of my life one literally couldn't go into an office without seeing
> stuff made and sold by IBM.  At this point, I can't recall the last time
> I DID see IBM stuff in ANY office, or for that matter server room -- it
> has been maybe a decade or more since I did.
>
> I suspect that they DO in fact need to buy RH, even for $34 \times 10^9.
> RH represents two things for them.  An absolute wealth of technology
> that they can sieve through and uplift in key places, and some of the
> brightest young minds in the world of computing.  This isn't JUST about
> "the cloud", because the cloud is still a fuzzy thing with unclear cost
> benefit ratio, especially given the enormous security issues associated
> with cloud based services for the major customers for this kind of
> computing -- banks, the entire medical establishment, and the
> government.  Duke still has serious issues with people putting any kind
> of privileged or protected information on ANY cloud, for good reason.
> Is the data truly secure?  How about while it is in transit?  Who holds
> the bag in the event of a major theft of private data?  And IS IT EVEN
> CHEAPER than keeping it locally, with disk costing what, $30 per
> TERABYTE or even less (I found 8 TB drives for less than $180 without
> working particularly hard just now).  One can buy one of these drives
> every month for what renting a similar amount of cloud space costs from
> many vendors. The market is almost insane at the moment.
>
> I think IBM is at long last thinking of remaking the entire company -- I
> don't know exactly how -- maybe they will go straight up against google,
> or amazon, or microsoft, or apple.  Maybe they will release their own
> direct competition for Android, and their own phone and tablet.  Maybe
> they will turn RH and their own software base and the huge coder base
> they are buying into AI that actually works in actual devices, the next
> killer appliance.  All I know is that IBM is one of the companies which
> historically has shown the vision (and which still in its comparative
> dotage has the resources) to become a player -- again -- over and over
> again over its history, and it is dangerous to write them off.  Buying
> RH isn't about the software, and honestly I doubt it is about buying the
> cloud presence even though that's how it is being marketed to the stock
> market.  I think it is about buying the people.  I just don't think they
> have been successful at attracting the cream of the programming world
> for twenty plus years now, focusing on hardware after OS/2 collapsed and
> pretty much ended their bid to become "the" dominant computing company
> -- again, from a software point of view.
>
> That could change, especially if they DO avoid breaking RH's corporate
> culture, if they woo the bright young minds with the promise of doing
> exciting work, well compensated, the way Google has been 

Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Joe Landman]

On 10/30/18 10:46 AM, Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf wrote:

TIL: A lot of you old-timers are really salty about systemd. ;)



Some parts I like (integrated restart).

Some parts are terrible (integrated restart).

I especially like it when a dependency is in the slightly wrong order 
and it takes forever to boot/shutdown.


Systemd is much like the RH anaconda/kickstart installer.  It is best to 
spend as little time under its control as possible.  To postpone much 
startup and shutdown stuff to scripting outside of systemd's control.  
Gee, just like init of days of old.


I've had to learn its ins and outs over the last few years, and while it 
improves some things, it makes a complete hash of others.  Its highly 
opinionated, and seeks to impose its opinion whenever possible.  
Thankfully, some of its opinions can be (for now) controlled via 
/etc/systemd/*.conf scripts.


I'll paraphrase Churchill here:  Systemd is the worst, except for all 
the rest.



--
Joe Landman
e: joe.land...@gmail.com
t: @hpcjoe
w: https://scalability.org
g: https://github.com/joelandman
l: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelandman

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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Joe Landman]

On 10/30/18 10:35 AM, Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf wrote:


On 10/29/2018 07:40 PM, Douglas Eadline wrote:


[...]

Yeah, after I posted that, I read more on the topic, and the whole 
cloud thing was cited repeatedly. I just find it hard to believe IBM 
is going that way, as it seems antithetical to the direction they 
moved in a few years ago: selling off the x86 business because they 
wanted to get out of the commodity computing arena where there was too 
much competition and low margins and move into more specialized 
high-margin products. I consider cloud computing to be the ultimate 
form of commodity computing.



Which problem is IBM solving by buying RH?  Basically its a customer 
base and market penetration, a set of standard software tools that are 
the business defaults, and a cash cow support revenue stream.


IMO, this was a wise move for them.  It was a good move for RH.

I know there are many who think IBM will (eventually) destroy/mess up 
RH.  This may (eventually) be.


However ... IBM would be loath to kill the goose that lays predictable 
golden eggs every quarter.  More likely than not, RH will internally 
"take over" some sections of IBM itself, to increase this cash cow.  IBM 
management has been having a tough time turning a profit over the last 
few years, even as the migrate more of their staff positions to India 
and other lower HR cost geos.


The impact on CentOS will likely, initially, be minimal.  Though, I 
fully expect that IBM will actually start enforcing the license language 
that says that CentOS cannot be distributed in a commercial context.  
They are not going to leave money on the table.


And yes, those problems could have been solved for less than $34B, but 
how quickly and easily? It's not uncommon for one business to buy 
another to address a deficiency quickly, rather than building their 
own team from the ground up.


I disagree that they could have solved the problems for less. There is 
always a cost to business decisions ... if you decide you really want to 
solve this quick, and acquisition is the right path, you have to accept 
that there are market forces that will help decide pricing for you.  Bid 
too low, and someone will swoop in.  Bid too high, and your 
board/shareholders will revolt and sue you.


All this said, Ubuntu LTS may be the only other (really) viable 
alternative.  And I expect that their phone has been ringing with at 
least 3 players I can imagine.







--
Prentice


--
Doug



Prentice

On 10/29/2018 02:43 PM, Jörg Saßmannshausen wrote:

Hi all,

it is not only that, but I saw something about Mellanox today as well.

Not good news in my humble opinion. :-(

All the best

Jörg


Am Montag, 29. Oktober 2018, 07:42:48 GMT schrieb Tony Brian Albers:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-red-hat-m-a-ibm/ibm-to-acquire-softw 


are-company-red-hat-for-34-billion-idUSKCN1N20N3

I wonder where that places us in the not too distant future..

I've worked for Big Blue, and I'm not sure the company cultures are
compatible to say the least.

/tony

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e: joe.land...@gmail.com
t: @hpcjoe
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g: https://github.com/joelandman
l: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelandman

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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf]

Bill,

You had no right to post this comment. ;)

Prentice

On 10/29/2018 09:30 PM, Bill Abbott wrote:

I like how a thoughtful piece on open source and freedom of choice ends
with the phrase "You have no rights".  Subtle.

Bill

On 10/29/18 7:44 PM, Douglas Eadline wrote:


In the sage words of Douglas Adams, "Don't Panic"

My take here:


https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.clustermonkey.net%2FOpinions%2Fbreathe-easy-the-red-hat-acquisition-by-ibm-was-always-the-goal.htmldata=02%7C01%7Cbabbott%40rutgers.edu%7C8766810815964e06c25a08d63df883d6%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C636764534907915996sdata=0jqNx7P%2F8rjXSIFslTb%2BuNdmo%2FjtlOdTyT78JIg7qQI%3Dreserved=0


--
Doug



https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-red-hat-m-a-ibm%2Fibm-to-acquire-softwdata=02%7C01%7Cbabbott%40rutgers.edu%7C8766810815964e06c25a08d63df883d6%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C636764534907915996sdata=qYQldJUVacWVCTeYL4Q3KhlsXRl400TB2eAwOSnqEB0%3Dreserved=0
are-company-red-hat-for-34-billion-idUSKCN1N20N3

I wonder where that places us in the not too distant future..

I've worked for Big Blue, and I'm not sure the company cultures are
compatible to say the least.

/tony

--
--Â
Tony Albers
Systems Architect
Systems Director, National Cultural Heritage Cluster
Royal Danish Library, Victor Albecks Vej 1, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Tel: +45 2566 2383 / +45 8946 2316
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf]

TIL: A lot of you old-timers are really salty about systemd. ;)

Prentice

On 10/29/2018 07:44 PM, Douglas Eadline wrote:


In the sage words of Douglas Adams, "Don't Panic"

My take here:


https://www.clustermonkey.net/Opinions/breathe-easy-the-red-hat-acquisition-by-ibm-was-always-the-goal.html


--
Doug



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-red-hat-m-a-ibm/ibm-to-acquire-softw
are-company-red-hat-for-34-billion-idUSKCN1N20N3

I wonder where that places us in the not too distant future..

I've worked for Big Blue, and I'm not sure the company cultures are
compatible to say the least.

/tony

--
--Â
Tony Albers
Systems Architect
Systems Director, National Cultural Heritage Cluster
Royal Danish Library, Victor Albecks Vej 1, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Tel: +45 2566 2383 / +45 8946 2316
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf]

On 10/29/2018 07:40 PM, Douglas Eadline wrote:

How well has Linux been supporting IBM's POWER processors? I would
imagine pretty well, since the Linux community always seems eager to run
on new hardware.

Could it be that the Linux community hasn't been quick enough in
accepting IBM's contributions to Linux to support POWER, so IBM decided
to buy the largest member of the community to fix that?

Or, could it be that IBM didn't have enough Linux expertise in-house to
support POWER on Linux, so they decided to buy a lot of expertise?

What do you think?

Those alleged problems could have been solved for far less than $34B


Yeah, after I posted that, I read more on the topic, and the whole cloud 
thing was cited repeatedly. I just find it hard to believe IBM is going 
that way, as it seems antithetical to the direction they moved in a few 
years ago: selling off the x86 business because they wanted to get out 
of the commodity computing arena where there was too much competition 
and low margins and move into more specialized high-margin products. I 
consider cloud computing to be the ultimate form of commodity computing.


And yes, those problems could have been solved for less than $34B, but 
how quickly and easily? It's not uncommon for one business to buy 
another to address a deficiency quickly, rather than building their own 
team from the ground up.


--
Prentice


--
Doug



Prentice

On 10/29/2018 02:43 PM, Jörg Saßmannshausen wrote:

Hi all,

it is not only that, but I saw something about Mellanox today as well.

Not good news in my humble opinion. :-(

All the best

Jörg


Am Montag, 29. Oktober 2018, 07:42:48 GMT schrieb Tony Brian Albers:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-red-hat-m-a-ibm/ibm-to-acquire-softw
are-company-red-hat-for-34-billion-idUSKCN1N20N3

I wonder where that places us in the not too distant future..

I've worked for Big Blue, and I'm not sure the company cultures are
compatible to say the least.

/tony

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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Robert G. Brown]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2018, Douglas Eadline wrote:


Those alleged problems could have been solved for far less than $34B


The big question these days is -- what the hell DOES IBM make money
from?  This is not the IBM of my youth, making "all" the mainframe
computers in the world (as well as all of the awesomest electric
typewriters:-).  This is not the IBM of my middle years, which made the
IBM PC and hence laid the ground for the dissolution of its mainframe
business, taking a tiny garage-basd software company iun the process and
transforming it into one of the richest corporations in the world as a
mere side effect.  This isn't even the IBM of my later years, which
still dominated desktop and laptops, sold the most reliable hard drives
and server hardware, and provided key corporate middleware.

I see their ads, but who buys?  What are they selling?  AI?  Very Large
Scale corporate server racks?  Consulting?  Software?  Hardware?  For
most of my life one literally couldn't go into an office without seeing
stuff made and sold by IBM.  At this point, I can't recall the last time
I DID see IBM stuff in ANY office, or for that matter server room -- it
has been maybe a decade or more since I did.

I suspect that they DO in fact need to buy RH, even for $34 \times 10^9.
RH represents two things for them.  An absolute wealth of technology
that they can sieve through and uplift in key places, and some of the
brightest young minds in the world of computing.  This isn't JUST about
"the cloud", because the cloud is still a fuzzy thing with unclear cost
benefit ratio, especially given the enormous security issues associated
with cloud based services for the major customers for this kind of
computing -- banks, the entire medical establishment, and the
government.  Duke still has serious issues with people putting any kind
of privileged or protected information on ANY cloud, for good reason.
Is the data truly secure?  How about while it is in transit?  Who holds
the bag in the event of a major theft of private data?  And IS IT EVEN
CHEAPER than keeping it locally, with disk costing what, $30 per
TERABYTE or even less (I found 8 TB drives for less than $180 without
working particularly hard just now).  One can buy one of these drives
every month for what renting a similar amount of cloud space costs from
many vendors. The market is almost insane at the moment.

I think IBM is at long last thinking of remaking the entire company -- I
don't know exactly how -- maybe they will go straight up against google,
or amazon, or microsoft, or apple.  Maybe they will release their own
direct competition for Android, and their own phone and tablet.  Maybe
they will turn RH and their own software base and the huge coder base
they are buying into AI that actually works in actual devices, the next
killer appliance.  All I know is that IBM is one of the companies which
historically has shown the vision (and which still in its comparative
dotage has the resources) to become a player -- again -- over and over
again over its history, and it is dangerous to write them off.  Buying
RH isn't about the software, and honestly I doubt it is about buying the
cloud presence even though that's how it is being marketed to the stock
market.  I think it is about buying the people.  I just don't think they
have been successful at attracting the cream of the programming world
for twenty plus years now, focusing on hardware after OS/2 collapsed and
pretty much ended their bid to become "the" dominant computing company
-- again, from a software point of view.

That could change, especially if they DO avoid breaking RH's corporate
culture, if they woo the bright young minds with the promise of doing
exciting work, well compensated, the way Google has been enormously
successful at doing.  If anybody on the planet could tackle Google or
Apple, it would be IBM.  IBM made a fortune by not being Apple, by
CREATING the open source world for PCs, once before (until M$ took it
over).  I think they have the opportunity to not be Apple once again,
and eat Apple's core as they do (sorry:-).  With Linux, they are
guaranteed a fair fight -- NOBODY can pull a M$ on the market, not M$
itself, not Apple, not even Google.  But if they own and are funding
what is arguably "the" premier corporate Linux, they are going to be
able to ride the bleeding edge of it, open source or not.

It may sound crazy, but they may have bought the company to get Fedora
as much as for any other reason.  Fedora is where it is at, not RHEL.
RHEL is for corporate wonks and server rooms, and it is valuable enough
there.  But imagine fedora, truly transformed into a single common
platform from the server room down to the cell phone and supported with
real money from top to bottom.

Wild and crazy?  Sure, maybe.  We'll see.  But if they are SMART, this
is at least as likely as them cutting off fedora and throwing it away as
"not profitable".

   rgb



--
Doug




Prentice

On 10/29/2018 02:43 PM, 

Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2018 11:58:18 -0400, you wrote:

>The downside to (most) of the stable distros are the aging compilers, 
>languages, and libraries.  RH ships with 4.9.x, Debian 9.x ships with 
>6.3.x.  You can easily install gcc7 and gcc8 in debian.  Its a little 
>harder for pre-built rpms in RH (and its never a good idea to replace 
>distro required packages with updated ones ... always use a separate 
>tree, or a container).

Red Hat provides a parallel installable set of compilers that are
reasonably up to date, and the collection even includes languages that
weren't around (or barely around) when Red Hat 7 was released like Go
and Rust.

https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/04/06/new-red-hat-compilers-in-beta-clang-llvm-gcc-go-rust/

>Python 2.x is dead, 3.x should be used/shipped everywhere.

Even Fedora is still working to try and kill Python 2.x, blame Python
of mishandling the transition and allowing Python 2.x to last for so
long that is failed to encourage devlopers to port their code to
Python 3.x

But the bigger problem is that for whatever reason Red Hat is late in
getting Red Hat 8 out the door - it was just under 4 years between Red
Hat 6.0 and Red Hat 7.0 

It is now 4.5 years since the release of RHEL7 and we still don't even
have a beta of 8, and no indication that a beta will be anytime soon.
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2018 16:49:29 +, you wrote:

>> oh, but RH's function is so much more nowadays than just a paid for
>distribution.
>> hence the acquisition which is not about that. but the whole ecosystem
>can suffer as a result.
>Well said.  coreutils   gccllvm….  what of them?
>Redhat does a lot for the core stack.
>
>And systemd  (arrrghhh  - I said it again)

And Gnome, Java, X/Wayland, etc.  It's not just the core stack but a
lot of the open source Linux ecosystem relies on paid Red Hat
developers.  A decision by IBM, in say 2 or 3 years, to focus entirely
on cloud/server could have a detrimental effect on a lot of Linux
stuff.

But not LLVM, that is an entirely independent project (though IBM does
sort of support the Power version of LLVM based on demand from IBM's
customers).
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2018 15:45:32 -0400, you wrote:

>How well has Linux been supporting IBM's POWER processors? I would 
>imagine pretty well, since the Linux community always seems eager to run 
>on new hardware.

Quite well, but it really isn't community driven.

Fedora has both PPC64 and PPC64LE available to download, though the
PPC64 is being phased out I believe.

The bigger problem is that while the OS is reasonable about all you
can really say about the rest of the software is that it compiles -
the lack of affordable hardware seriously restricts the testing and
development that occurs.

>Could it be that the Linux community hasn't been quick enough in 
>accepting IBM's contributions to Linux to support POWER, so IBM decided 
>to buy the largest member of the community to fix that?
>
>Or, could it be that IBM didn't have enough Linux expertise in-house to 
>support POWER on Linux, so they decided to buy a lot of expertise?

This is purely a cloud play, and that is one of the reasons for
concern.

IBM has been in decline for a while, and the stock markets aren't
entirely happy with the declining revenue for a number of years now.

So this is an attempt to reverse things at IBM by getting into the
Amazon AWS/Google Cloud/Microsoft Azure business which is a growing
market.
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Jonathan Engwall]

With just a peek at the NYT bios of IBM top execs I feel as though
community based software development is safe and RHEL is safe, for now.
Watson is their heavy hitter. What does this list think of Watson???
A future with any corporation is a future of peril. The story of commorode
64 is an example. When the product was advancement and not sales the
corporation shifted. This meant the axe. And where is the Amiga or the C64
or C128 now (I wanted a C128 very badly). Dead of course.
About Ubuntu, 17.04 is probably dead, 18.04 is probably better, server
16.04 (plus gnome for desktop) is great. People will still use 11.04 also.
Your old Unix tricks will be necessary as installing from .gz in /opt/ is
often a solid bet.
It is more or less a desktop community but that could easily change if a
beowolf direction emerged on for examle Ask Ubuntu.
Not tha I want enemies in corporate America but that some people would
rather have their hands on; something which could be lost.


On Oct 29, 2018 12:43 AM, "Tony Brian Albers"  wrote:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-red-hat-m-a-ibm/ibm-to-acquire-softw
are-company-red-hat-for-34-billion-idUSKCN1N20N3


I wonder where that places us in the not too distant future..

I've worked for Big Blue, and I'm not sure the company cultures are
compatible to say the least.

/tony


-- 
-- 
Tony Albers
Systems Architect
Systems Director, National Cultural Heritage Cluster
Royal Danish Library, Victor Albecks Vej 1, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Tel: +45 2566 2383 / +45 8946 2316
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Mikhail Kuzminsky]

There are probably several reasons for this capture - they can be from
both IBM and Red Hat. And it is very difficult to discuss it now, when
it is not clear how events will develop in the future.
But it’s much better to join Red Hat to IBM than if Microsoft got
involved :-)).

I don't know what to make of systemd as a design decision.  I'm an 
Old

Guy, so by definition I grew up with init and the classic Unix OS
structure -- I still have all of the books in my office, sadly at 
least
semi-obsolete within the current kernels and linux layout.  


I worked a set of years on IBM mainframe w/MVS OS. I hope that IBM is
not a bad choice for Red Hat. It is possible to say also
about xCAT developed by IBM.

Mikhail Kuzminsky
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Re: [Beowulf] Oh.. IBM eats Red Hat

[Chris Samuel]

On Tuesday, 30 October 2018 5:04:39 AM AEDT John Hearns via Beowulf wrote:

> I just realised...  I will now need an account on the IBM Support Site, a
> SiteID AND an Entitlement to file bugs on any Redhat packages.

I suspect that won't be the case, from what IBM are saying they're basically 
going to let them carry on with how Red Hat are doing things.

A couple of points now I've had some time to think further on this:

1) IBM has always required you to run either Red Hat or SLES for hardware 
support on xSeries hardware. Having better links into one of those means it 
becomes easier to track down issues when Red Hat stuff up a kernel feature on 
a point release (like breaking Mellanox IB for several releases in RHEL6 for 
BG/Q Power systems, it panics your service node when you boot 4 racks at once, 
had to run RHEL 6.2 kernel until it was fixed in 6.5).

I would be a bit nervous if I was SuSE on that front on that potential for 
more tie-in.  On Power I'd be worried if I was Canonical as they had gone in 
hard with partnerships with IBM for Power around 2015.

2) IBM does have techies (as others have mentioned); from my local perspective 
they hired most/all of the OzLabs folks in Canberra in 2001 (who were stranded 
after LinuxCare folded) to join the Linux Technology Centre there, and were 
doing a lot of PPC kernel & firmware hacking.

They brought up Linux on Power5 before AIX (for the first time - AIX needed 
firmware support whilst they could get Linux to boot on the bare metal). Some 
of them you may have heard of :-) (Andrew Tridgell, Rusty Russell, Paul 
Mackerras, Chris Yeoh).  I had the privilege of working with some IBM folks 
seconded to VLSCI and they were a very smart bunch (Mark Nelson moved from the 
LTC down to Melbourne & did a bunch of work on Slurm for us).   There's a heap 
more information here:

https://ozlabs.org/about.html

3) xSeries support has always been a pain point for folks dealing with IBM, 
but the pSeries (POWER) support has been a lot better in general.  As long as 
your IBM account manager doesn't muck up your support schedule. ;-)

Red Hat's support has been not that great in my experience, and there are 
signs of a lack of testing in their release cycle (they released a point 
release of RHEL6 where rsync's parsing of remote source/destinations was 
broken so you couldn't rsync to/from a remote source, plus of course the 
recent release of a kernel where RDMA was completely broken due to a single 
character typo).

4) Sierra (and presumably other IBM CORAL systems) runs RHEL7.  See point 1.

All the best!
Chris
-- 
 Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Melbourne, VIC


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