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This is a huge acquisition and a landmark: IBM announced Sunday night that it will acquire Red Hat, world leader in open source software. This $ 34 billion (29.87 billion euros) transaction is the largest ever purchase by Big Blue (the nickname of IBM since the days when its employees wore a quasi-corporate uniform), born in 1911.
It devotes the importance taken in the world computing by open source, born out of business and long denigrated by major software companies.
The story goes back to the 1980s: it was in this decade that the free and open source software was born, that we can use, study (hence the expression "open source", which refers to this transparency code), improve and repost freely.
Linux, a "cancer", the free license "anti-American"
Their principle was designed by Richard Stallman, an American computer scientist, furious at not being able to access the source code of a printer prone to repeated bugs. He invented GNU, a free operating system kernel, and thus created a new model of development and IT sharing – the antithesis of opaque black boxes that are proprietary software (which he calls "proprietary software") – legally formalized with a free license, the GPL (many more will follow).
In 1991, a young Finn, Linus Torvalds, launched a call to participate in his operating system project, which he placed under the GPL license invented by Stallman. Building on the pre-existing GNU kernel, the GNU / Linux software (usually called Linux by shortcut) has been a smashing success, making it one of the major underpinnings of the internet.
Not without resistance: at Microsoft in particular, we have long launched a thousand anathemas against these software too open to the taste of the firm of Bill Gates. Then CEO, Steve Ballmer described Linux in 2001 as "a cancer of intellectual property".
Microsoft executives also complained about the GPL license as "anti-American"; in the same vein McCarthy, in January 2005 the founder Bill Gates supported patents on software – rejected in Europe – and stigmatized "new kind of communists" who "want to get rid of incentives for musicians, filmmakers and the creators of software ".
The value of free software admitted for a long time
Even earlier, 20 years ago, in internal memos (which flew under the nickname "Halloween Documents", as of October 31, 1998), Microsoft executives suggested locking public standards to maintain the omnipotence of the company.
The text emphasized that free software is "at least as robust, if not more so, than commercial alternatives." The Internet provides an ideal and highly visible showcase for the world of open source software. "
Microsoft: when we are weak we become openIn 2003, David Stutz, a computer scientist, left Microsoft – in good terms, he said – after 10 years in the company, and published his e-mail farewell to his colleagues. He highlighted the rise of an environment where the network becomes more important than individual computers and criticized the strategy of the software publisher at the time of the competition of free software: "Open source software is a wave as large and powerful that has been the Internet, and quickly become a credible alternative to Windows. "
Fifteen years later, if Windows remains the majority on personal computers (in front of Apple), a little under the 90% of market share, Linux computers remaining weak (about 2%), the part of Linux has become arch-dominant in cloud servers (remote-hosted computing), perhaps around 90%.
"Microsoft likes Linux"
Microsoft has evolved significantly since its anathemas of yesteryear, making part of its software compatible with Linux and contributing to several open source software. In some years, Microsoft has even been one of the biggest contributors to Linux kernel enhancements. And in 2014, the CEO of the firm of Redmond, Satya Nadella, said: "Microsoft likes Linux."
In June, the publisher made a weighty acquisition with GitHub, for 7.5 billion dollars: this very popular service with developers hosts source code of proprietary software or free depending on the case, and allows IT professionals to work in collaboration.
What do all the techos in the world do on GitHub? At IBM, the cohabitation between free and proprietary software has been accepted for much longer, since Big Blue has given a decisive hand to the rise of Linux: in 2000, the company announced the investment the following year a billion dollars in Linux, investment renewed in 2013.
IBM justified the operation: "The investment is intended to help customers take advantage of Big Data and Cloud Computing with modern systems built to handle the new wave of applications entering data centers in the modern era. post-PC. "
How does one earn a living with free software, since it is not on their forced renewal that a company can secure its turnover? By leveraging services – customization, scalable features, training etc. – around these programs, or on an improved version.
Red Hat, created in 1993, has gradually become a heavyweight of open source, offering its version of Linux: RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) has an open source code, but in addition the company certifies compatibility with various software and infrastructures, and it is this increased security that its customers pay.
Red Hat: Strong and steady growth
As a result, Red Hat exceeds $ 1 billion in revenue in 2012 (it is the first free software company at this level), then $ 2 billion in 2015, with a profit of $ 200 million. In 2017, sales – growing steadily since 2001 – reached $ 2.9 billion.
IBM has just made this huge operation to better confront the cloud (remote-hosted computing) leaders that have become Amazon, Google and Microsoft. But by the way, the scale of the deal attests vividly to the importance of free software in computing.
That's what Paul Cormier, Red Hat's vice president of products and technology, said, praising IBM's announcement as "a big day for open source and Red Hat":
"Today is an amazing day for open source, it's the biggest transaction around software in history, and it's an open source enterprise, let's think about it for a minute. the story."
Thierry Noisette
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