On 12/18/2020 11:18 AM, Mark Mielke wrote:
On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 2:04 PM Mike McGrath mmcgrath@redhat.com wrote:
Just know that I mean it when I say, for those of you that are moving on. We wish you luck, we understand, and we'll see you around.
I don't think you do understand. And that is the true tragedy here.
It's clear from other emails that there is a massive amount of internal RedHat debate about this decision still going on. I sincerely hope a decision-maker can try to fix this situation before a point-of-no-return is reached. This scorched earth approach from a RedHat rep is absurd considering the relative size of the EL-derivatives vs paid support contracts in install footprint. Nobody wants to have to explain to a RedHat Vice President the realities of a F/OSS ecosystem when RedHat is the company that virtually codified the industry's best-practices on how to do it.
More explicitly: Nobody wants an EL war; nobody wants to fork. Nobody wants more of a headache than we've already all had this year for reasons unrelated to Linux. But those things can happen, and it certainly wouldn't take $34B to do it.
This could have been "just" a question about a business decision -- one that would've been entirely (if painfully) understandable had it been a direct result of the IBM purchase. It could have been "just" a question of how much stability enabling yum-cron and CR/Stream in prod. actually removes. Instead, this is turning into a four-alarm fire about whether RedHat the company has the self-awareness that we all assumed it did about the trust, deference, and good will it has received from others.
-jc