From my position, I don't feel any IBM influence. In fact, if Red Hat were still a publicly traded stock, I believe the shareholders would have had much more influence than IBM is exercising right now. That said, from the outside looking in, I know that a lot of people have a negative view of IBM, and I can understand how they would come to the conclusion that this has something to do with IBM.

Fully agree on the "PR Problem". It's tough to "control the narrative" in OSS. Based on my observations, I think Red Hat's approach is: Deliver the facts, ride out the storm, pick up the pieces and move on.