Red Hat Quietly Going Extinct After Bluewashing in 2026
There are Red Hat layoffs happening this month, but IBM hides them in the usual IBM ways. Red Hat is moreover de-emphasised as a brand, as staff is made to "leave" Red Hat and become just... IBM.
A couple of days ago someone formerly from Red Hat wrote: "Excited to start my new role at IBM as Global HR Business Partner. Looking forward to this next chapter and continuing to make an impact alongside amazing teams at both Red Hat and IBM!"
Bye, Red Hat:
Just one example among so many! They don't make much noise about it, but it's happening. The wheels are in motion. Red Hat is being deleted; it'll eventually become just some product name or "brand" of IBM, just like many other companies before Red Hat.
The culture of Red Hat will accordingly change. Expect illegal NDAs, PIPs, and lots of gaslighting. Transparency? Naaa. Look what IBM did to Red Hat's sites, including OpenSource.com. The "open way" is no more. "Open" is just a hollow buzzword.
Here's IBM Red Hat pushing slop as such (Microsoft booster, on Red Hat's payroll):
That is from "SVP, AI Innovation Hub" (yes, "AI" in the job title) promoting this thing called "Open Accelerator", a project or PR initiative that's rewarding proprietary things in order to earn some "buzz" and sell IBM as a slop leader/authority of some kind.
At this point it would be rather foolish to assume that IBM will let Red Hat just "do its own thing" or maintain its corporate culture, identity, projects etc. █