>      Lead or follow? this decade’s dilemma for GNU/Linux based ICT industry

>     Online version with links and gifs:
>     https://medium.com/think-do-tank/lead-or-follow-the-dilemma-of-ict-industry-for-the-coming-decade-4f83ee1851bc

>    I’m writing this post prompted by the disclosure of yet another bug on
>    systemd, this time a “nasty security bug” as journalists at ZDNet defined
>    it that has been granting all this time local privilege escalation through
>    an excessive memory allocation.

>    This is very bad news for people running most GNU/Linux desktop or server
>    installations with multi-user environments: it means that for the past 5
>    years or so their systems may have been compromised, with a few
>    exceptions.

>    But this post goes beyond these obvious considerations: I argue this is
>    just the tip of an iceberg passing almost unnoticed.

>      I’ll share some reasoning about the present and future challenges that
>      are defining a turning point for most of us using and developing
>      GNU/Linux based systems.

>                                     Context

>      The major event I like to focus is not a bug, but the landmark
>      acquisition of RedHat by IBM for 36 whopping billions of dollars just 2
>      years ago.

>    This event shall not go unobserved when debating about the future of
>    GNU/Linux. It is plausible to think that the enterprise strategy of
>    companies dealing with GNU/Linux technologies will evolve well beyond the
>    business on certifications, and make bold steps into more aggressive
>    exploitation of their huge “market”, something once was a community and
>    has lost that status.

>    Even the temporal context has a major role in this equation as this is all
>    happening during the troubled beginning of a decade marked by pandemic: we
>    are witnessing a boost in usage of ICT infrastructure due to COVID with
>    growing investments from both public and private sectors into this market.

>                                     Strategy

>      The big and ever-growing conglomerate of the IBM/Linux armada aims to
>      seize the market with renewed dependencies.

>    The strategy to form and consolidate dependencies around the needs of
>    clients makes sense for an oligopoly that wants to keep its dominant
>    position. For a big technology provider today the business of support and
>    certifications is marginal when compared to the opportunity to lead
>    research, standardization and the pace of innovation according to own
>    interests.

>    The one who can lead standards can also confine risks where he may please,
>    and accelerate testing of own developments no matter how experimental. For
>    example systemd builds a lot of dependencies with new untested software
>    whose risk is delegated to… anyone using Linux.

>    This is precisely what is happening as the big-tech industry establishes
>    new core standards for its sector— systemd being a too-big-to-fail example
>    — it offloads the risk of innovating strategies on user communities and
>    small clients.

>      Right after a successful trial on communities, the big-tech industry is
>      now turning small clients into guinea-pigs to externalize risks attached
>      to innovation strategies.

>    This is evident through the strategic changes applied by this new RedHat,
>    now lead by IBM, as we come to another landmark event for the ICT
>    industry: the so called “death of CentOS”.

>    The end of life of RHEL 8 and CentOS 8 has been announced, to be
>    substituted by new “stream” releases that have de-facto buried CentOS
>    original mission as a stable distribution and resurrected it as the new
>    guinea-pig to join Fedora in the gratuitous “downstream cage” of
>    experimentation.

>      Lets be aware now that what comes “free as in beer” comes at a high cost
>      in priorities and control.

>                                   Opportunity

>      All things considered this is the perfect storm. We may free ourselves
>      from the big and ever-growing conglomerate of the IBM/Linux armada
>      before they entangle us with ever growing dependencies.

>    Thanks to courage, a vibrant community of experts and some investments and
>    donations today I can tell systemd has not been a problem for me, but an
>    opportunity. To develop an alternative and facilitate a community around
>    it took us about the same time required to adopt any new system imposed by
>    RedHat or IBM in our operations. By choosing to lead rather than follow we
>    gained not just superior security and efficiency for the past 5 years: we
>    bootstrapped a community of valuable leaders as we all dared to fork of
>    Debian. Today we rank #2 worldwide by user reviews on Distrowatch.

>    But lets not look at the finger pointing at the moon: this is not just
>    about the technical choice of an init system or a system administration
>    framework. this dynamic will repeat in many forms and there will be gains
>    for those who have the courage to lead rather than follow. Far from the
>    systemd debacle, at the end of CentOS as we knew it, one of its founders
>    started Rocky Linux to continue the original mission of delivering a free
>    and stable enterprise grade distro based on RPM packaging.

>    What do we in common is that we are seizing the opportunity to develop an
>    alternative or, even better, we are sharing an opportunity with everyone
>    out there who dares to differ. The investments are coming and the market
>    is growing: the space is there for those who dare to take it and the risks
>    aren’t so high all things considered.

>      Now is the time to break the chain of growing dependencies with
>      IBM/Linux before it turns SMEs and public sector institutions into
>      security nightmares.

>    What we will soon need for this alternative to be established is the trust
>    from bigger players in public and private sectors, to rely on these
>    efforts and fund them: this is in everyone’s interest, I argue, since our
>    efforts will provide better quality and will lower costs and complexity of
>    ICT infrastructure.

>      The opportunity is in the hands of decision makers across the ICT
>      industry: now is the time we can invest on the talent and future growth
>      of alternatives.

>    Early good signs are there: grants like DECODE (EU flagship project) have
>    funded the development of Devuan for its deployment in decentralized
>    networks, as well NLNET funding Maemo-leste a fantastic port of Linux (not
>    Android) for embedded devices and mobile phones. Rocky Linux seems to
>    catch up quickly with the enterprise market it aims at and has established
>    a small round of SMEs adopters.

>    I believe the opportunity is there for new players to take their place as
>    leaders. Too-big-to-fail conglomerates have shown in the past to be a
>    rather toxic presence for the ease of maintenance and reliability of
>    systems.

>      Paradoxically we aren’t even the alternative: we are the conservatives
>      in a declining world of “fail fast fail often”. We are those who intend
>      to ship stable systems to let all users enjoy a life made of less risks
>      and more free time.

>    For more background information about Devuan, see:

>      • The Debian fork original announcement
>      • Coverage by The Register
>      • Coverage by Heise
>      • My Ph.D thesis chapter about Devuan
>      • Devuan presented at FOSDEM 2019

>    Devuan® is the registered trademark of the Dyne.org foundation.
>    Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

>    Dyne.org Think &Do Tank 
>     — we are free to share code and we code to share freedom

>    No (C) - Public domain.

>   Denis "Jaromil" Roio      https://Dyne.org think &do tank
>   Ph.D, CTO & co-founder    software to empower communities
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