“I continue to sense a growing resentment over Red Hat’s success
and prominence in the Linux market. And when the griping starts,
sooner or later someone suggests that Red Hat is trying to be the
next Microsoft. I must confess that nothing seems more ludicrous to
me than to paint Red Hat as another Microsoft.”
“No doubt there are similarities. Both Red Hat and Microsoft are
aggressive at developing partnerships. But so far Microsoft is
alone in crushing its partners when it no longer has any use for
them. Both Red Hat and Microsoft are excellent at marketing. But so
far Microsoft alone deliberately uses marketing as a weapon to
destroy its competition….”
“I don’t mean to paint Red Hat as unique in this regard. All
Linux vendors of which I am aware – even those that include
proprietary software in their distributions – share the most
important principles adopted by Red Hat, some more than others.
This is indeed what worries me. It seems as if Red Hat is being
singled out primarily because it is financially successful and
receiving a lot of commercial attention.“