When Happens to Red Hat If (or When) IBM Collapses
In light of some very recent developments, IBM insiders allege that IBM is cooking the books and is actually in fiscal panic, even if it tells Wall Street that it is doing well. Yes, one can compare this to GAFAM/Microsoft; each time they claim "record revenue" or something to that effect they follow up with mass layoffs, which they excuse using false narratives like "AI" (the soaring debt isn't because of slop, it's due to flailing "market share"). What has Facebook ("Meta") actually created this past decade or 5 years? Nothing. Everything turns to dust, not just "metaverse" but also the slop teams. Google's debt more than doubled in a year in spite of the cost-saving mass layoffs. There's another very massive wave of layoffs coming to Microsoft soon.
A decade ago Red Hat was an independent (but public, i.e. controlled by shareholders and military men) company. Now it's 100% dependent on IBM and many Red Hat workers are no longer Red Hat workers either because IBM laid them off or because they got "reassigned" to (and by) IBM. It's expected; it's known as "bluewashing" and it always happens sooner or later, based on IBM's long history.
What will happen to Red Hat products and services if IBM declares that it is insolvent? Well, some of these are Free software (not RHEL, not anymore), so other companies can pick up the pieces, sans the trademarks. See what IBM did to X/XOrg/XServer/X11.
Red Hat (IBM) isn't a safe bet. IBM is in flux because its CFO is now implicated in what seems like accounting fraud. They'll probably spend resources attacking/silencing critics and whistleblowers over the coming months. Expect this, don't fall for the diversion tactics, which IBM had more than 100 years to master and muster. █