On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 at 20:40, Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
I know this is strictly OT, but I suggest it's of some interest to this list:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/28/ibm-to-acquire-red-hat-in-deal-valued-at-34-... O
Fedora users have to be concerned with changes at RH that may affect the future of Fedora. The purchase of RH by IBM should remind us that linux users depend heavily on open source licenses controlled by developers, including those working for RH and IBM, and on patent licenses granted by corporate interests, including IBM and Microsoft. One of Fedora's business values is the free testing users perform for RH. This value has eroded over time. More testing is being automated and is often incorported into build systems. These tests often originated with end users, but if these approaches are successful, the need for end user testing will be greatly reduced.
The other business value of Fedora is the pool of users, particularly younger users, who will be comfortable with future RHEL releases and make it easier and cheaper for RHEL customers to find workers.
A major source of bugs that are found in end-user testing is conflicts between different applications (for example, app A requires libxx built with option P enabled and option Q disabled, while app B requires libxx with option P disabled and option Q enabled) are a major source of bugs in linux. This can be seen in the uses of static linking for applications such as TeX Live that are available in binary versions that run on multiple linux distros. Virtualization makes it feasible to provide applications with custom environments that provide a set of libraries tuned for the particular requirements of the application.
Another change that affects the viability of Fedora is the pace of changes needed to address security issues, which has increased interest in rolling distributions over long-term releases.