They were bought by IBM a few years back, but even aside from that they’re a corporation and they care about making money above all else.
It looks like Red Hat is doing its damnedest to consolidate as much power for themselves within the Linux ecosystem.
I don’t think the incessant Fedora shilling is unrelated.
It seems like there isn’t much criticism of the company or their tactics, and I’m curious if any of you think that should change.
No. Look at IBMs stock value history. There is a pretty clear point at which Remini stepped down and they really started to see the benefits of Red Hat. Nearly all IBM profit comes from Red Hat. They were drowning and their pivot to cloud was failing. With Red Hat they’ve been able to actually get a presence in the cloud with OpenShift.
Their stock history can also be explained as stock holders seeing value in destroying Red Hat.
That would be such a bizarre way to interpret that. They weren’t even direct competitors. VMware, Oracle, and SUSE would be better comparisons for that move. And it seems to bear repeating that Red Hat is something like 30% of IBM’s revenue. Why would you kill off a third of your income?
Because if they EEE all Linux distribution, they’ll be able to kill off the libre aspects of the software and (in their minds) make even more money.
Revenue is never enough. They always want more.
You’re being overly paranoid.
If you think IBM can be trusted you’re being overly credulous.
I’m not saying they’re to be trusted. But I’m saying they’re not killing their golden goose for at least the near future. Red Hat still operates independently with their own CEO.