The Implications of IBM’s Red Hat Acquisition

Edit: Have you noticed any disruptions to either company?

Originally posted September 10, 2019 on AIXchange

Red Hat’s acquisition by IBM is bound to take us in some interesting directions.

In July, Red Hat announced its acquisition by IBM. Senior vice president and CTO Chris Wright also posted this brief Q&A. I’ll excerpt a few key points:

“Q: Will the acquisition change the way Red Hat contributes to upstream projects?
A: No, Red Hat will continue to contribute to and participate in open source projects as we do today.

Q: Will the work that Fedora does, including all of the Editions, Spins, and Labs, change as a result of the acquisition?
A: Fedora’s build products will not be affected. All changes will continue to be driven by the Fedora Project.

Q: Are Red Hatters still free to work on open source projects outside of Red Hat?
A: Yes. Red Hat associates can contribute to and participate in open source projects outside of Red Hat as they do today.

Q: Will community projects be forced to support specific software or hardware?
A: No. Any inclusion of software and hardware support will continue to be driven by the community.

Q: Will community projects or Red Hat contributors be forced to use specific technologies?
A: No.

Q: Will the logos of Red Hat-sponsored projects change as a result of the IBM acquisition?
A: No logos of Red Hat-sponsored projects will change as a result of the acquisition.”

From the IBM side, check out this joint interview with IBM and Red Hat officials, this developer perspective, and this interview that covers IBM Cloud Paks and more. And a host of additional information can be found here.

The IBM-Red Hat union is bound to take us in some interesting directions.