EEE (embrace, extend, extinguish; hard to do with Linux since it’s a headless beast)
If Microsoft bought Red Hat, they would control a massive chunk of the Linux ecosystem. Even if everyone starts forking or replacing the Red Hat-centered components, it could certainly deal a heavy blow.
A heavy but not a mortal blow. Main damage would be from multiple forks splitting efforts and fighting each other; but that seems unlikely in the face of a clearly hostile move. People in Red Hat for ideological reasons would call it quits, form a non-profit, fork the software, and business goes on as usual.
Plus Microsoft is all about cost vs. benefit. Red Hat was bought by IBM by 34 billion dollars in 2019; by now it should be worth more, and MS would need to give IBM an offer meaningfully above that in order to get IBM to sell it. So let’s say 50 billions? It would be hard to justify to shareholders they need to buy Red Hat.
If Microsoft bought Red Hat, they would control a massive chunk of the Linux ecosystem. Even if everyone starts forking or replacing the Red Hat-centered components, it could certainly deal a heavy blow.
A heavy but not a mortal blow. Main damage would be from multiple forks splitting efforts and fighting each other; but that seems unlikely in the face of a clearly hostile move. People in Red Hat for ideological reasons would call it quits, form a non-profit, fork the software, and business goes on as usual.
Plus Microsoft is all about cost vs. benefit. Red Hat was bought by IBM by 34 billion dollars in 2019; by now it should be worth more, and MS would need to give IBM an offer meaningfully above that in order to get IBM to sell it. So let’s say 50 billions? It would be hard to justify to shareholders they need to buy Red Hat.