“With its acquisition of Cygnus, Red Hat has given its
investors another reason to believe while sending a tremor of
concern through the open-source community. The self-proclaimed
Linux powerhouse may not be on the Justice Department’s radar yet,
but their consolidation strategy has prompted fears that Red Hat is
setting itself up as the de facto arbiter of Linux development,
with a market position that would allow it to fork at will and take
a big chunk of the market with it. Others, though, see Red Hat
strengthening Linux as its own position is strengthened, citing the
company’s history of good works and noting that the Linux community
remains a powerful counterweight to any imperial ambitions Red Hat
might have.”
“Chris DiBona, Linux evangelist at VA Linux, thinks the deal is
good for both Red Hat and Cygnus – and while it might be worrisome
for the Linux community, they probably don’t need to worry. An
obvious win for Red Hat is the engineering talent at Cygnus, says
DiBona. “By buying Cygnus, Red Hat gets a lot of really great
engineers – which they need, because Red Hat’s always been a little
bit engineering-light, especially recently. Cygnus is one of those
companies where it’s all engineering plus a few other guys – and
those other guys are all really, really good managers. Because
Cygnus has made this work for 10 years, profitably. And they’ve
made a great deal of money.”