IBM is Destroying Red Hat and Red Hatters Are Leaving

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2021-03-19 13:50:52 UTC
Modified: 2021-03-19 13:53:48 UTC

Video download link

Summary: The maltreatment of Red Hat at the hands of IBM is driving away people who joined Red Hat thinking it would help promote something positive, unlike the business model and ruthless patent aggression of IBM

THIS morning we caught up with some comments made anonymously by (we assume) IBM/Red Hat insiders. The situation has been rather bad for a while -- layoffs included -- and with that squeeze on CentOS users to pay IBM (this has largely backfired in several different ways) "redhatters [are] leaving in troves. Get out while you can." Says an insider, apparently...

We're aware of some who already left, but complete statistics are available only internally (at IBM).

"Get out while you can."

"Free software that is difficult to set up and maintain can limit one's freedom."So says the latest comment, only weeks old. In this video I give some background information, I explain why Ansible/containers (OpenShift, Podman)/systemd are added complexity which helps sell support contracts, and I remind people that I'm no Red Hat basher. I've spent nearly 20 years boosting the company and its products, many of which I've used and still use.

Yesterday we wrote about added technical complexity as a barrier. It's like a form of vendor lock-in, no matter if it's proprietary or Free software. Free software that is difficult to set up and maintain can limit one's freedom.

A do not enter sign Take AWS for example (Fedora is being outsourced to Microsoft and to AWS). AWS is not Free software but an exploiter of Free software (ask projects which are 'monetised' by Amazon at those projects' expense). AWS is about learning and memorising GUIs, not real skills, and those 'skills' become useless anyway as soon as you move to a customer/server that doesn't have AWS (then there's inclination to just outsource everything to such a surveillance monopoly). IBM wants something along the same lines. It nowadays has Amazon envy and it's doing harm to what remains of Red Hat. ⬆

European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Battistelli's "Baltic Crusader": Gilles Requena, Battistelli's erstwhile "Baltic Crusader" and the loyal servant of his successor Campinos
Links 14/06/2026: Energy Cost and Reality Strikes at Heart of Slop Bubble, 75 Data Center Build-outs "Successfully Blocked": Links for the day
Microsoft CEO Says XBox is Not a Sustainable Business: "Now, we have to turn this into a sustainable business," he said about XBox
MElon (MUSK, Elon) is a Trillionaire Like Penguins Are Mammals: Have media outlets told the truth?
Unlikely Heroes: One personal hero who is not alive (anymore) is Navalny
Bruce Schneier Was Probably Wrong About Slop: Right now politicians who openly speak in favour of slop are committing "political suicide"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 106 Out of 200: 100 Kilograms of Legal Papers: When one party's communications and filings weigh at about 3 KG of paper and another's... at about 100 KG of paper
Links 14/06/2026: More Google Layoffs, Wall Street Deems Companies That Lose Money "Worth" Trillions: Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2026: "The Universe is a Hologram", "Matrix Brain Download", and "Happy 0th Year": Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 13, 2026: IRC logs for Saturday, June 13, 2026
Links 13/06/2026: University of Nottingham Confirms Data/System Breach, Courts Fuming at Fraudulent Lawyers Who Fling LLM Slop at Them: Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/06/2026: World Cups and 做人: Links for the day
Microsoft's XBox "Bloodbath" Seems to Have Already Begun (Informally), Studios Allegedly to Face Shutdowns, Layoff Notices Handed Out, 100% Layoffs in Some Cases, 10% in Others or on Average: So is a complete closure/shutdown imminent? (Compulsion Games in this case)
Discussing Morale at IBM and Conversations Regarding IBM Layoffs (Disguised as Other Things): Trolling can be a form of censorship
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: All the President's Men: Gilles Requena,Patrice Pellegrino, and Sandro Mendonça
SUEPO Elections Coming Up, Union Leaders at Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) to be Determined Soon: The staff union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) is having an election soon
SLAPP Censorship - Part 105 Out of 200: When Bad Legal Advice Results in Your Client, Dale Vince, Ordered to Pay £600k - or 801,930 United States Dollar (USD) - to the Person Frivolously Sued (Lord Bailey of Paddington): "A judge has ruled that Dale Vince must pay punitive costs to Lord Bailey of Paddington, the Tory peer, over the 'unexplained abandonment' of his" SLAPP
How Long for Can American Taxpayers Justify Bailing Out Microsoft?: How many times need the American taxpayers give Microsoft money for vapourware that's neither necessary nor delivered?
IBM is Importing/Exporting Corporations' Regime of Censorship (Hiding the Wrongdoing) to Free Software Communities: Is IBM protecting criminals in the name of "manners"?
Links 13/06/2026: Microsoft’s XBox Crisis and "Apple Deepfakes": Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/06/2026: Why Humans Are Mostly Right Handed and "Getting Things Done": Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 12, 2026: IRC logs for Friday, June 12, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 104 Out of 200: Exactly Two Years Ago Brett Wilson LLP Humiliated or Weaponised Our Solicitor's Judaism in an Effort to Censor and Gag Us: dated 12/06/24
Half a Year Since Slopwatch Died: To Google's credit, it did manage to delist a lot of slopfarms in recent months
Links 12/06/2026: Science, Windows TCO, and More: Links for the day
"AI" 46 Times in One 'Article' Because The Register MS Got Paid to Push it: Today is just another opportunity to remind people that the slop bubble and GPU bubble are based on inauthentic fake 'journalism'
Gemini Links 12/06/2026: FTP and Gopher, Cluster Outage Postmortem After Cleaning by Wife: Links for the day
Sonny Piers Finally Spills the Beans on GNOME Cover-up, Points Finger at Robert McQueen, Misusing "Defamation" to Silence Critics of Wrongdoing: Robert McQueen, who is extremely connected to Garrett (they share digital nests)
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Transcending Partisan Rivalry in the National Interest: Up until now, Campinos has generally been regarded as a Portuguese "asset" on the international stage
Gratitude to Whistleblowers or Sources of Techrights: Whistleblowers are what makes journalism work
Techrights Was Months Ahead of "XBox" News (Mass Layoffs): Next: end of XBox as a console
More Commentary on June 2026 IBM Layoffs and Why They Happen: It sounds a lot like what happened to the EPO
Links 12/06/2026: "NearlyFreeSpeech" No More, Openwashing by Google (DiffusionGemma): Links for the day
Today There's a Massive EPO Strike (Like Every Friday), Workers Explain Further Cuts Despite the EPO Making More Income by Granting Illegal Patents (or Invalid Patents Illegally): "Recent exchange with the Administration on the implications of the SAP on the Education and Childcare Allowance"
The Cyber Show: Remember That Code is Art: The article is very long, very profound, and speaks of "the next installation"
Communicating With Freedom - Part IV - Quibble Now in quibble.chat, Open for Contributions Via Codeberg: Today we continue the series about Quibble
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Importance of Having "Pals from the Palacete": for his reappointment bid to succeed, Campinos will need to be able to rely on the support of both the Portuguese Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and the President of the European Council, António Costa
Cyber Show on How Updates or Upgrades Break Workflows, Even in Free Software: "We did a big upgrade on the AV production pipeline"
Discussions About IBM Layoffs in June, Including by RTO and PIPs: mass layoffs are becoming increasingly difficult to conceal
Gemini Links 12/06/2026: Decks and Work Essay: Links for the day
"Rolling Strikes" Continue at the European Patent Office, the Administrative Council Needs to Take Action Against Crooked Office Management: This coming weekend we'll talk about some of the other issues and concerns expressed by the union
Only Days After Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's Azure There Are Headlines About Much-Expected XBox Layoffs: XBox as a console is basically dead or "fast-dying"
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 11, 2026: IRC logs for Thursday, June 11, 2026

IBM is Destroying Red Hat and Red Hatters Are Leaving

Recent Techrights' Posts