At first glance, IBM’s surprise announcement that it plans to buy Red Hat for $34 billion looks like a victory for open source, which has been a huge driver of innovation in the IT market for decades. However, recent moves by prominent commercial open source companies to restrict licenses shows that open source’s future could be cloudier than many realize.

IBM‘s blockbuster announcement on Sunday that it will buy Red Hat in what will be the third-largest technology acquisition in history was cast as a conquest for open source software.

“Open source is the default choice for modern IT solutions,” said Red Hat CEO and President Jim Whitehurst. “Joining forces with IBM will provide us with a greater level of scale, resources and capabilities to accelerate the impact of open source as the basis for digital transformation and bring Red Hat to an even wider audience.”

The acquisition gives Big Blue more ammo to fight the cloud wars, according Ginni Rometty, who is CEO, president, and chairman of IBM. “The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market,” Rometty said. “IBM will become the world’s number one hybrid cloud provider…”