On: Will there ever be another Red Hat?

[mpdehaan2]

Citation needed? I don't believe that was ever the "primary" case. They do have a lot of financial industry customers.

[feld → mpdehaan2]

The usage of RHEL is public, but I don't know if the numbers are public. If I can dig them up I will. My sources are a few ex-RedHatters.

If true it's concerning because RH has a huge influence on everything in the base repo, so that reverberates out to the greater open source community. Not cool when you think about the possibilities of influence the US Military could affect.

[brudgers → feld]

The US DoD influenced the development of the internet. Not sure it's all as black and white as easy absolutism demands.

[mpdehaan2 → feld]

"Not cool when you think about the possibilities of influence the US Military could affect."

I think it's pretty cool.

Much of the influence of the government on Linux has been positive, though they are not as involved now, SELinux is a fine example. Emphasis on security benefits all nations.

Another possible example might be getting to more reliable network communications.

[feld → mpdehaan2]

The Navy uses IRC for ship to ship communications but they haven't solved netsplits yet :-)