Red Hat’s source code shift may hurt third-party support but help RHEL

Recent changes to how Red Hat makes available source code to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) have raised the ire within Linux and GPLv2 circles. However, the changes are intended to help Red Hat compete more effectively in the enterprise Linux market, which is ultimately good for customers and the Linux community. Here’s how the changes may affect your company’s use of Linux.

Increased RHEL copycats compelled Red Hat to action

Since RHEL 6 was released nearly four months ago, Red Hat has decided to ship the kernel source code with Red Hat’s selected patches pre-applied. Before RHEL 6, Red Hat offered selected patches separate from the standard Linux kernel available from kernel.org, so interested parties could more easily determine what changes Red Hat had made.

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This seemingly inconsequential shift in packaging has resulted in some Linux advocates questioning whether Red Hat is obfuscating its work. Some have claimed that Red Hat’s new approach adheres to the letter of the law, but not to the spirit of the Linux GPLv2 license.

Why is Red Hat taking this new position? Red Hat’s CTO, Brian Stevens, explains:

To speak bluntly, the competitive landscape has changed. Our competitors in the enterprise Linux market have changed their commercial approach from building and competing on their own customized Linux distributions to one where they directly approach our customers offering to support RHEL.

Frankly, our response is to compete. Essential knowledge that our customers have relied on to support their RHEL environments will increasingly only be available under subscription. The itemization of kernel patches that correlate with articles in our knowledge base is no longer available to our competitors, but only to our customers who have recognized the value of RHEL and have thus indirectly funded Red Hat’s contributions to open source that will advance their business now and in the future.

Having recently met Stevens, I’m reassured that my initial pegging of him as a straight shooter and pragmatic thinker was spot on.

At first glance, it’s hard to believe that RHEL has much to worry about in the enterprise Linux market. Even as Ubuntu grows in cloud deployments and Amazon Linux offers an alternative to RHEL on Amazon.com’s cloud, RHEL remains firmly in a leadership position. For example, as this chart from Indeed.com job trends indicates, RHEL skills are in hot demand and still on a growth trajectory far and above Ubuntu, CentOS, Oracle Linux, and Novell SuSe.

However, as Stevens indicates, although RHEL usage and demand for RHEL skills may be increasing, Red Hat is no longer the only vendor to offer RHEL support. In fact, third-party vendors that offer cheaper RHEL support enjoy the added benefit of not having to invest in developing RHEL, or an RHEL clone, to the degree that Red Hat does. This lower level of investment allows the third-party vendors to pass on their savings.

The long-term competitive implications of cheaper Linux offerings

Some companies are attracted to these cheaper RHEL support providers. However, you have to question the value that these third parties deliver to the Linux market and their effect on paying Red Hat customers, especially in light of Red Hat’s decision surrounding kernel and fix packaging.

It’s well documented that Red Hat invests significantly in Linux community projects. These investments are funded by revenue from RHEL customers. Third-party RHEL providers are significantly less active in the Linux community, as necessitated by their business model of lower investment to allow lower pricing.

It’s difficult to argue that the Linux community is better off when a customer willing to pay for RHEL support does so through a third party. The customer does benefit from lower costs in the short term. But the long-term impact is the risk of a less competitive Linux, unless and until these third-party RHEL providers step up their community Linux investments.

Although RHEL may have the dominant market share in the enterprise, Red Hat is trailing in areas such as virtualization and cloud deployments. A growing revenue base helps Red Hat, like any vendor, invest in new areas and close the competitive gap in areas where it’s trailing.

How Red Hat’s new policy may affect your company

Red Hat’s new policy has little, if any, impact on Red Hat customers, as Network World’s Stephen Walli concludes. Walli suggests that the recent negative press about Red Hat’s has blown the situation out of proportion.

If you’re paying for a RHEL clone, don’t be surprised if your costs go up as your vendor may have a harder time keeping in sync with RHEL. It’s also possible that your RHEL clone provider will have a more difficult time claiming full compatibility with RHEL, thereby presenting more of a challenge to run RHEL-certified applications on your RHEL clone. As a result, your company may be faced with a decision at some point of continuing to use the RHEL clone with third-party support or moving to Red Hat for support.

I tend to agree with Walli. It’s not only Red Hat’s right to compete, but it’s in the best interests of its customers and the Linux community as a whole.

Follow me on Twitter at SavioRodrigues. I should state: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.”

This article, “Red Hat’s source code shift may hurt third-party support but help RHEL,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Savio Rodrigues’ Open Sources blog and follow the latest developments in open source at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.