[GoLUG] Redhat's got serious competition

[Kyle Terrien]

On 7/17/24 12:44, Steve Litt wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Redhat has made some missteps lately, and SUSE is capitalizing on them
> Read the following:
> 
> https://fossforce.com/2024/07/how-suse-is-replacing-red-hat-as-the-linux-and-open-source-enterprise-standard-bearer/
> 
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt
> http://444domains.com
> 

Red Hat has stumbled into a snake pit of politics lately [1].

Now, I'm not getting into the details here.  You can read about them and 
form your own opinions.  My point is that what is going on is a 
significant shift from the meritocracy we heard repeatedly preached 
through the 1990s-2000s.  Specifically, an "open source company" (Red 
Hat) has deviated from the tenet of "show them the source".  This is 
hypocrisy, and management at Red Hat doesn't seem to understand that 
(even though some of the engineers I have talked to are rather 
frustrated).  It's not surprising that their mistakes are now costing 
them their bottom line.

Also it is painfully ironic that last year Oracle (previously known as 
"the devil" in GNU/Linux groups) schooled Red Hat on the meaning of 
"open source" [2].  (Who is the greater devil now?)

Good for SUSE for announcing 15+ year support timeframes.  Datacenter 
people want that.  I have used SUSE in a previous job, and in my opinion 
the distribution took much less of an "our way or the highway" approach 
to things.  Also, their tech representatives were amazing and always a 
pleasure to work with.  Good for SUSE.

If you use RHEL, you should have a contention plan.  The bell tolls, and 
it tolls for Red Hat.  At a minimum, get to Rocky Linux or at least have 
a backup plan to convert your systems to Rocky Linux if/when the feces 
hit the fan.  Ideally, get to Debian if you can.

We live in interesting times.

--Kyle Terrien

[1]: 
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far
[2]: 
https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/blog/keep-linux-open-and-free-2023-07-10/

-- 
[*] Kyle Terrien
     Containerizing chaos to get to the root of the problem.
   @ kyle at terren.us
   @ kyleterrien at gmail.com
   W https://terren.us/