What IBM Will Do to Red Hat in the Coming Year or Years
2025 was the "year of bluewashing" at Red Hat. Why 2025? Because the CEO made it abundantly clear in communications to staff and we've witnessed Red Hat staff formally "transitioning" into IBM.
What does this mean to GNU/Linux and to Red Hat as a product (RHEL)? (Red Hat is hardly a company anymore; "bluewashing" means integration, a la GitHub at Microsoft [1, 2])
Now that Louis Gerstner is dead [1, 2] people talk about layoffs at IBM. There's even this new discussion about this new article from WSJ about mass layoffs:
This is an allusion not just to layoffs but also PIPs and other HR 'hacks' - workarounds by which to compel people to "leave".
In the case of Red Hat, we've seen many high-profile people leaving this year. Yes, rather famous developers "left", we assume at least some of them got "pushed out" (gently or firmly).
What I envision happening to Red Hat (under IBM) in the coming year or years, having closely watched and covered both companies for decades, isn't positive. It's not because I hate Red Hat or hate Linux or whatever (neither would be true!). It's because I don't trust IBM's current leadership, which neither uses nor understands GNU/Linux. In that sense, it's a lot like the Linux Foundation, partnering with Microsoft and with Bill Epsteingate if there's potential to squeeze out a quick buck.
When Red Hat was an independent company it behaved differently. It also grew. IBM isn't growing, it's just shrinking. At Red Hat this has already meant maintaining less/fewer operating systems (CentOS, Fedora and CoreOS), compiling/packaging less software, and consolidating on fewer things in "the stack" (i.e. removing choice). This won't end up well for GNU/Linux as a whole. █