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Red Hat Software

Red Hat's Layoffs Included Fedora Program Manager (funnelfiasco.com) 71

Posted by EditorDavid from the hats-off dept.
When Red Hat laid off 4% of its global staff, Fedora Program Manager Ben Cotton was "a member of that 4%," according to a new post on Cotton's blog: I've received so much support from people since the news started spreading. It's like that end scene of "It's a Wonderful Life" and I'm George Bailey. I'm proud of the contributions I've made to the Fedora community over the last five years, and it feels good to have others recognize that.
Cotton joined Red Hat in 2018, but "I was a Fedora contributor long before" Cotton writes, adding later that "I fully intend to still be participating in the Fedora community when my account hits the 20-year mark in May 2029." (Cotton's first foray into Fedora was joining its Docs team in 2009, and then volunteering to be the Docs project leader in 2011...)

And the blog post adds that professionally Cotton is "already pursuing a few opportunities... In the meantime, I have (at least) a few weeks to relax for a bit." I've told folks that if Fedora falls off the rails, then I have failed. I'm working with Matthew, Justin, and others to ensure coverage of the core job duties one way or another. I've worked hard over the years to automate tasks that can be automated. The documentation is far more comprehensive than what I inherited. No doubt there are gaps in what I've left for my successors. However, my goal is that in a few months, nobody will notice that I'm gone. That's my measure of success...

As to what the broader implication behind the loss of my position might be, I don't know. There's no indication that my role was targeted specifically. There are definitely people in Red Hat who continue to view Fedora as strategically important.
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Red Hat's Layoffs Included Fedora Program Manager More

Red Hat's Layoffs Included Fedora Program Manager

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  • There are definitely people in Red Hat who continue to view Fedora as strategically important

    Words are cheap and money talks. If what he says is true then these people are clearly either: a) not that important themselves and can't influence this decision or b) don't care as much as they say they do and won't influence this decision. Either does not bode well for Fedora within Red Hat.

  • Just as CentOS was forked off to various independent distros, it is time for Fedora to become an independent project without Big Blue Hat's influence.

    • > it is time for Fedora to become an independent project

      The value of Fedora is its continuum with RHEL and effectively being RHEL upstream/beta. If you track Fedora you're skilled in the next RHEL when it drops.

      If Fedora goes off in a different direction it's less relevant than SuSE. What is the point?

      I was with Fedora for 20 years and left for Debian when Redhat become covertly hostile towards CentOS, which was shortly before they became overtly hostile towards CentOS. You could tell from the bug tra

      • The value of Fedora is its continuum with RHEL and effectively being RHEL upstream/beta. If you track Fedora you're skilled in the next RHEL when it drops.

        Isn't this what CentOS has become?

    • Considering that most of the work of Fedora is done by Red Hat employees, a fork is unlikely. And useless.

  • 2023 tech business in a nutshell:

    Everyone is jumping on the LLM bandwagon, so we've got to do it to.

    Everyone is jumping on the layoffs bandwagon, so we've got to do it to.

    • Maybe, just maybe code was being generated by automated systems for a long time already and LLM is just a natural evolution? There have been all kinds of dramatic moral opinions and manifestos being made public by developers for about the last 10 years. Maybe they just sensed this coming?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yep. Morons that can only copy the "strategy" of others, because they are unable to actually lead anything.

    • your quarterly C-suite bonus.

      This is without even considering the dire market conditions teetering on the edge of a serious recession - nor the debt ceiling limit threatening the entire global economy (USD = world reserve currency, default on debt would destroy everyone, not just the US), currently in hostage negotiations with MAGA terrorists.

      • I suspect that the hardliners are starting to get phone calls from rich and powerful people who don't want the consequences of a default.

        And if not enough of them give in pretty soon, I expect some to start having freak accidents that keep them from being able to vote for a while, or ending up in a barrel in Lake Mead, or maybe finding out where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.

        Cause that's how power works. Especially when it comes to losing money.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cats-paw ( 34890 )

      I've often been amazed and just how "trendy" corporate behavior often is.

      I've always assumed it was ivy league MBAs all learning from the same playbook.

      Or maybe it's just group think.

      Who knows, been interesting to know why.

  • IBM may have contributed code to the Linux Kernel, but IBM purchasing Red Hat was never a good idea.
    • It was a good idea for IBM shareholders, since now IBM is the major provider of Big Iron Linux, with a little bit of Canonical on the side.

    • > IBM purchasing Red Hat was never a good idea

      All the upsell on RHEL fits with IBM's vision of itself as an IT services company.

      As always IBM will acquire a company and slowly move jobs to locations where the pay is just below what it takes to hire somebody who can do the job, despite all assurances to the contrary.

      Quarterly bonuses or something.

    • ...but IBM purchasing Red Hat was never a good idea.

      I saw the writing on the wall for Red Hat at RHEL5, which is where they introduced mandatory license compliance. My company used it for a few years, but then migrated away from it to Debian. We completed our migration a few years before IBM bought Red Hat, and were terribly happy to not be beholden to IBM again, as we had cleansed ourselves of IBM just a few years prior to cleansing ourselves of Red Hat.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 15, 2023 @07:45AM (#63522063)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Except "indispensable" is a myth unless you own the project. I've seen extremely talented people outsourced.
      • [True] Story time that my dad tells ... Years ago, my dad worked in the printing trade. The big boss was more than a bit of an arsehole. He owned the business, so suck it up, buttercup. It was a business his own dad started. Years roll by, and the boss appoints some managers to help grow the business. As part of the deal the managers were given equity. After awhile those managers voted the boss out of the company. Imagine that! And the moral is, just like you said: THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS INDISPENSABLE.

    • Re:The first two rules (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Monday May 15, 2023 @08:02AM (#63522095) Homepage

      always make sure you are indispensable

      I was told a long time ago by an old battleworn programmer, once you become indispensable, it is time to leave. Being indispensable might work if you have 5 or so years for retirement, but otherwise go looking once that happens.

      That has worked for me over the decades, as to the future starting now, I would think it is still true.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Sound advice. At least if you want to keep your skills top-notch. Not everybody wants that.

        • When you have a family to support job security is worth more than upping skills (which frankly any half decent dev could do on their own anyway) and after a certain age you realise whatever the job, it's the same shit, different view out the window. There are more important things in life.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Well, there are actual craftspersons and then there are 2nd rated people like you. Actual craftspeople insist to learn things on the job and on getting a significant amount of personal satisfaction from a job. On the other hand, you probably will not have issues getting a job for the foreseeable future either. You will just not enjoy what you are doing and work is typically the one thing you spend most time on (except sleeping), family or not. Of course, it really is your choice. Just does not seem to be a

    • don't try to suck up to the bobs no you need to tell them what is really happening

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Note this would require that your project is something that is aligned with the business. IBM acquired RedHat in 2019 and thus CentOS and Fedora represented a drag on their business. If not for the pandemic injected confusion and uncertainty, we would have seen this stuff spun down probably 2 years ago.

  • A page from the IBM playbook (Score:5, Interesting)

    by weeboo0104 ( 644849 ) on Monday May 15, 2023 @08:15AM (#63522139) Journal

    Layoffs always occur AFTER the stock holder proxy vote in April and before the announcement of performance raises.

    Maybe Ben Cotton should join the Kyndryl age discrimination suit.
    https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]

  • Hard Work Still Gets You Fired. (Score:3)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Monday May 15, 2023 @08:34AM (#63522191)

    You can't be dedicated even if you want. It must be something in the water.

  • Ego (Score:2)

    by trevc ( 1471197 )
    Some people have such a big ego!

  • First thing the guy says is "I'm going to keep working on Fedora". I imagine the IBM execs figured (correctly, apparently) "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

  • The idea is to contribute to the community for the good of society, but have some secret sauces that can make you money.

    Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many current-generation companies follow this model.
    The current-gen at IBM wants to change to this model, so they brought in RedHat.

    Let us wait and watch to see what happens.

    "change is the only constant in life." - Heraclitus.

  • As someone how used Fedora for my singular daily driver for over a year very recently, the project sure seem fundamentally corrupt and directionless.

    It was extremely clear that after they became 1% better than other Linux competitors that quality and improvement were no longer important.
    They literally went so far as to published a "Future of Fedora" blog post where improving fedora was not mentioned in any of the dozen topics. The main thing they seemed interested in spending money on was making Fedora bett

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