[windexh8er]

While I'd love to believe both IBM and VMWare are acquiring in the spirit of Open Source and innovation both are, sadly, chasing sales organizations who are looking at long term pipeline dry up in their legacy product models. Time will tell, especially for IBM, but the people running these organizations are truly not friendly to, or even remotely, understand OSS at the core. Nor do they care.

Acquisitions today are mainly to block competition early. While I'm painting a broad stroke most of these types of acquisitions do little to nothing for the greater long term good of the original products. What has IBM contributed to OSS in the last decade that's been of significant value? Then compare that to the money they make off repackaging these tools and "supporting" them. IBM is chasing dollars and relevance. VMW is trying to compete in a market they've not been able to wedge into helping them sell more seats for VSphere.

Both of these companies have, historically, abused OSS. It's disheartening to see that these monoliths have figured out to buy early and often. And through that playbook, ultimately, maintain control.