Bonum Certa Men Certa

Further Comments Illuminate Observations Regarding IBM's Layoffs (RAs) Plan for Europe

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 23, 2026

Some shed light on the expected scale, which matches the 15% figure we saw in relation to evaluations 6+ days ago

In a couple of months (in order to better protect sources) we'll show how Red Hat folks feel inside Big Blue. Saying they abhor the "bluewashing" (cultural change, culture shock) would not be an overstatement.

"IBM doesn't need to make it to the top 10," someone wrote 2 hours ago regarding employer desirability or prestige. "IBM will simply acquire these best companies to work for, raid on their assets and IP, and soon their employees would be posting here after wondering what just happened to them."

That's what they did to Red Hat and quite frankly I've been disgusted to see how they treated Torvalds, Stallman (or FSF), RHEL, Fedora, Xorg, OpenSource.com, and so many other things (the list is so long!). They're strip-mining what they bought. Insiders can see it and feel it too. Changing git branch names from "master" to "main" is a symbolic gesture that feels (to many people) like a PR stunt, even trolling. I could think of 20-30 other bad things IBM did to Red Hat over the years, but that would miss the point of this article, which deals with staff reductions (including in core operations of Red Hat). Many have been driven away/out by sheer disgust, not PIPs or RAs.

Way to lower the value or devalue what you acquired.

New comment on IBM's layoffs tactics (SILENT layoffs) - a comment which tries to dissect the modus operandi: "is that after you get your layoff notice or before you receive it ? Timing is everything..."

This morning we mentioned this new thread about RAs (staff reductions) in Europe and some of these latest comments concur and say it was predictable for quite some time already:

Yesterday IBM has announced RA in Europe for 2026

Maybe some other day we'll strive to make an almost-exhaustive list of all the missteps (or deliberate bad steps) of IBM as the "master" of Red Hat. My mind gets overloaded with things (bad memories to be frank) that IBM did. A lot of them were already discussed openly in past years.

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