OVER the past month or so we've watched very closely (about a dozen times per day) the IBM anonymous forum (or IBM layoffs board) not just because of rumours about staff cuts but all sorts of inside stories, including some about patents, low morale, and Red Hat's future. Threads such as this one (hundreds of them) offer some insight. One can see, based on a fast assessment, that many posters there are current or former insiders (not all; in fact, there's suspicion that IBM HR people troll or AstroTurf those pages as well, maybe to discredit and ruin them).

"We need to understand the context of such misguided policies."In the video above I take stock of some of the latest (today's) posts and assemble a bunch of insights gathered over the past month. It certainly looks like there's little or no future to IBM. In recent months they liaised with Microsoft while attacking the FSF as if another struggling company can somehow save them. Some of the most tactless moves (e.g. abandoning CentOS) seem like short-sighted money-grabbing moves. We need to understand the context of such misguided policies. As far as software freedom is concerned, IBM gradually turns from ally (of convenience) into foe. ⬆