IBM is making a big move to bring more software developers under its wing by acquiring Red Hat, the largest distributor of the popular open-source operating system Linux, for $34 billion.

The purchase, announced on Sunday afternoon, is the latest competitive step among large business-software companies seeking an edge in the fast-growing market for cloud computing.

In June, Microsoft acquired GitHub, a major code-sharing platform for software developers, for $7.5 billion.

With the deal for Red Hat, IBM is trying to position itself as a kind of corporate “Switzerland” in cloud computing — a trusted partner of businesses that are moving to the cloud, but are leery of becoming dependent on one major cloud supplier.