As some of the article’s comments say, the answer is probably the simplest: IBM.

IBM said they’d let Red Hat operate independently, but it was a matter of time before some of that corporate “culture” (aka stock-driven decisions) started showing through.

Hopefully the employees themselves aren’t slowly sinking into the IBM workload. I think a lot of them intentionally left IBM for Red Hat specifically because of the ideological difference.

The one bright side of this article is that it’s coming from The New Republic, which is traditionally more conservative. And the author is calling out how sad this plan is.

edit: I’m wrong? This never happens! see reply below.