La IBM's purchase of Red Hat It caught the entire open source and free software community by surprise, including VP of Customer Experience and Engagement, Marco Bill-Peter.
During the Red Hat Forum 2018, an event that took place in Sydney, Bill-Peter explained that the acquisition impacted employees, suggesting that the transition should go smoothly so that the open source culture remains intact.
"At Red Hat we have at least 13,000 people, believe me, if the open source culture is impacted many of those people will quit. We truly believe that open source and the free software path create better products, better innovation.”Mentions Bill-Peter.
Bill-Peter also mentions that it is critical that IBM allows Red Hat to operate independently, and while the new direction may dictate the new direction of the company, it shouldn't be much different than what is being sought today.
While IBM has yet to discuss its plans with Red Hat, Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat CEO, said when it announced the purchase that IBM will help “accelerate the impact of open source” with its resources.
Red Hat has always been in the crosshairs of tech giants, and while the IBM purchase came as a surprise, there was talk long ago of a potential acquisition that included a number of stakeholders including Microsoft and Google.