On 2018-11-08 09:25, Paul Flint wrote:
OK, given that the past is prelude, when do you think that the new IBM management at Red Hat will close Red Hat source...
Even presuming mal intent, that would be almost impossible. There are literally thousands of contributors to the kernel, alone. And that doesn't even start with the rest of the stuff. And, unlike the olden days, geeks know (and care about) copyright w-a-y more than they used to.
There are certainly elements *of* the RH Linux distribution as a whole that IBM could close source (say, Anaconda -- I think that's RH's baby). But it's verging on impossible to close source "Red Hat Linux." And even if IBM managed to close-source a project that had been previously open-source, then, if people actually cared about it, there'd be a fork of the last version that was open-sourced, and that would continue on in the community; it's happened before.
Nutshell: if IBM wants to go and throw away a lot of good will, and any perceived value that RH brings to the game, they can. But I think they acquired RH as a game changer -- monetarily, it was by far their largest acquisition, ever. IBM is barely relevant nowadays, and is in 90's-era DEC mode: running on inertia. I'm betting they're hoping RH shows them how to re-invent themselves and start being a market leader again. Whether or not they succeed remains to be seen, but I'll be shocked if they just turn around and give the finger to the Linux community.
$.02, -Ken
