Curt Wuollet: “It’s not commercial success or having to share Linux with the masses, or even that Linux is becoming a Windows clone… Linux is about community, Red Hat is about Red Hat. No one had really big problems–remembering that Linux folks are a diverse lot–with Red Hat making money. It’s when they split with the community that the screaming really started. It’s about fundamentals. Now, they’ve got this ‘special’ Linux, quite in the spirit of proprietary extensions… It’s proprietary value-add, whether it violates the letter of the GPL [GNU General Public License] or not. And it’s a manifestation of exactly what killed Unix.”
Well said. From what I’ve seen, very few people (or very few people who matter, anyway) begrudge Red Hat’s success. It’s the manner in which they’re attempting to maintain and enhance their success to date that has us worried. Whether a lock-in play involves proprietary intellectual property or not, it’s still a lock-in play. Can you blame Red Hat for going down this path, which has led to so many good places for others? No. They’re a business after all, and businesses exist to make money for their shareholders first and foremost. By the same token, can you blame the community for pushing back, given where this path led us last time?
RedHat does this at their peril. After all, Linux won over proprietary Unices. If RedHat disengaged completely from the linux community, then it is not to their shareholders benefit. A fine line has to be drawn strategically where RH adds value for a customer. I maintain that the value point is in the TCO and ease of use, which to their credit, has been well executed.