https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/im-done-red-hat-enterprise-linux Skip to main content Jeff Geerling Main menu * Blog * Projects * About I'm done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux) June 26, 2023 Two years ago, Red Hat killed CentOS, a widely-used free version of their Enterprise Linux distribution. The community of CentOS users--myself included--were labeled as 'freeloaders', using the work of the almighty Red Hat corporation, without contributing anything back. Don't mind all the open source developers, Linux kernel contributors, and software devs who used CentOS for testing and building their software. Also ignore the fact that Red Hat builds their product on top of Linux, which they didn't build and don't own. I almost wrote off Red Hat back then. It felt like someone stuck a knife in my back. This past week, Red Hat took that knife and twisted it hard, when they published this blog post. Let there be no mistake: this was meant to destroy the distributions the community built to replace what Red Hat took away. There were only two things that kept me around after Red Hat betrayed us the first time: First, instead of attacking the community of open source users, many Red Hatters reached out and asked, "How can we do better?" It didn't heal the wound, but it meant something, knowing someone at Red Hat would at least listen. Second--and more importantly--Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux stepped in. They prevented a mass-exodus from the Red Hat ecosystem, giving developers like me a stable target for my open source work. But Rocky and Alma relied on Red Hat sharing their source code. Here's how it used to work: 1. Red Hat would grab a copy of Linux 2. They would add magic sauce that makes it Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. They would release a new version 4. They would update a source code repository with all the data required to build it from scratch That's kinda the status quo because in open source, the source... is open! And it doesn't matter if someone who uses your source benefits from it too... that's kind of what it's all about! We all benefit from sharing our work, and in this case, the GPL license Linux uses legally requires us to share it! Without that sharing, there would be no Debian, Arch, Mint, Ubuntu, PopOS, Fedora... or any of the other hundreds of Linux distros that build on each other and prop up the community. But Red Hat decided to put the source code behind a paywall. Now, this is legal. Technically, the GPL allows it. But it's generally rude and annoying to do that when the code you're locking down is largely based on other people's open source code. But... it's within their rights, so I won't argue that point. What I will argue is the current subscription agreement, which might not be legal. Red Hat currently says they can cancel any user's account if they download the source code and redistribute it. Let's say someone downloads the source through a Red Hat subscription, and uses that to build a new version of Rocky Linux. If Red Hat retailiated by cancelling that subscription, I'd definitely tune into that court case. I don't know if the community could front the money to take on IBM's powerful laywers--maybe that's what Red Hat's banking on. But there's another player in this game who might, and that's Oracle. Wouldn't it be ironic if Oracle were the ones who knocked Red Hat down a peg for being so uppity with their abuse of their community! But let me be clear: everything I've seen points to Red Hat trying to choke out downstream distros like Rocky, Alma, and Oracle Linux. I think their hope is users of those distros would get scared and sign up for a Red Hat subscription. They need this to happen to lock in some short-term profits to please their IBM overlords. That's my cynical take on it. What Red Hat's doing is skirting right on the edge of legality the terms of Linux's GPL License. If you wanna dig into that, read this post from the Software Freedom Conservancy. RHEL Gandhi Quote Red Hat used to be the company of rebels. They used to have edgy ads quoting Gandhi and positioning Red Hat as the plucky underdog, using open source to upend the old proprietary software companies. It's funny they used to be so devoted to that Gandhi quote in particular. In one sense, Red Hat kinda won, they're the default choice for running Linux in big companies. The irony is that Cory Doctorow recently wrote this about a different company, but I think it applies here: HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. What a juxtoposition! They built up so much goodwill in the open source community through the years and used to be known as the 'open source company.' But they're throwing away that goodwill--at least as far as Linux is concerned--all in the name of profit. Developers like me, maintainers of the EPEL repository, Fedora maintainers who are rightfully worried about the long-term impacts... We're all being told to go sign up for a Red Hat Developer Account so we can snag our 16 licenses[^1] of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for testing. Oh boy! Thanks, I guess I'll drop doing something actually productive and spend a week retooling my test infrastructure and automation to work with Red Hat licensing. You know who doesn't require me to do that? Debian. Ubuntu. FreeBSD. Not even Rocky Linux! And please tell your employees to stop patronizing me, saying I should just use CentOS Stream. There's a reason Rocky and Alma linux have been downloaded millions of times. Stream is not a substitute for CentOS. So I've dropped support for Enterprise Linux on all my work, effective last Friday. And people are asking me about Ansible. That's the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (by IBM), by the way. I don't think Ansible's gonna try locking down access, but the fact I have to spend even a second considering that possibility is insane! Who wants to build around an ecosystem where the open source users are called freeloaders and where massive disruptions are implemented in the middle of a release cycle, two times in a row, with no warning ? I don't see this helping Red Hat in any way in the long term. In the end, this is just sad: * It's sad for users like me who used CentOS and developed tools on it that on-ramped folks into Red Hat's ecosystem. * It's sad for Red Hat, which used to fight for open source, but now puts up barriers around their own source code. * It's sad for everyone still in their ecosystem, because they're now forced to deal with Red Hat's licensing shenanigans and the loss of so many in the open source community. Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux both announced they'll find a way forward. I hope they can, if nothing else so people who stuck with Red Hat don't get burned again. But as for me? I'm done with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I'll keep up support for Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux on a best-effort basis, but I have no confidence I'll be able to support Enterprise Linux moving forward. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... [^1] Red Hat seemed to be upping the limit to 240 sockets per developer, but now it seems that was just a bug. Further reading * Cracks are showing in Enterprise Open Source's foundations * Dear Red Hat: Are you dumb? * Removing official support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux red hat linux open source video youtube * Add new comment Comments Tiaan - 7 hours ago Solution could be as simple as drawing up a new GPL that would exclude RedHat practices and campaign to have package maintainers adopt it. Let RedHat fork everything they include and try and maintain it themselves * Reply -dsr- - 5 hours ago In reply to Solution could be as simple... by Tiaan The SFC says that the new Red Hat practice violates the current GPL, no changes needed. I can see how a judge might agree or disagree, but I can't see a path to anyone who likes the GPL ever cooperating with IBM again. * Reply Jeff Geerling - 5 hours ago In reply to The SFC says that the new... by -dsr- SFC says it might, but that a court case would be needed after someone actually triggers Red Hat's ire. * Reply MSpreij - 6 hours ago https://fosstodon.org/@omenos/110602377978605193 "UPDATE 2023.06.26: I can confirm via Red Hat employees the Developer Subscription has not experienced any changes. There is a display bug with the Customer Portal that is being tracked down. The DS4I is still limited to 16 entitlements." * Reply MRC - 6 hours ago The tweet seems to be a bug unfortunately. * Reply Will - 5 hours ago Please post your alternative recommendations more clearly. We're also CentOS users, so what's the best way forward? We just need a LAMP stack really. * Reply Jeff Geerling - 5 hours ago In reply to Please post your alternative... by Will I've been running Debian mostly, lately. * Reply Nathanael - 3 hours ago In reply to I've been running Debian... by Jeff Geerling Since Debian is controlled by a not-for-profit foundation, it's much more robust against this sort of corporate shenanigan. Not *immune*, but more robust. * Reply Logan - 2 hours ago In reply to I've been running Debian... by Jeff Geerling Debian is good. Debian was very good before the systemd nonsense. * Reply Yeroc - 3 hours ago In reply to Please post your alternative... by Will If you're looking for a distribution with long term support options your choices are probably either Ubuntu LTS or Suse Enterprise Linux. Particularly if you're looking for distributions that are supported by commercial packages you might need to run in a business. * Reply debianuser - 1 hour ago In reply to Please post your alternative... by Will Debian has never been better. Come help. * Reply AGia - 5 hours ago Just a correction in your first sentence "Two years ago, IBM (which acquired Red Hat) killed CentOS (which It was expected), a widely-used free version of their Enterprise Linux distribution." This is not unusual. Remember that Oracle has aquired MySQL (free database) and now MySQL is no longer free (really free) !!!!! That's the flow of things - unfortunately !!! * Reply Esra Erimez - 4 hours ago We've moved to Ubuntu over two years ago. We are looking closely at Clear Linux as an alternative to Ubuntu, just in case. * Reply DrWeevilJammer - 1 hour ago In reply to We've moved to Ubuntu over... by Esra Erimez Clear Linux is an Intel project. I don't trust them, either. Personally, I'm looking into SUSE's SLES. They've been around longer than RH, have the same business model and customer base, but they exist in an (arguably) better business environment for an open source company: Germany/EU. * Reply simon - 4 hours ago what if Linux and all OSS changed their license to prevent Redhat/IBM from using it? * Reply me - 4 hours ago "Red Hat currently says they can cancel any user's account if they download the source code and redistribute it." - lets see a link please and where it says that. Would also love to see a link to previous versions of the same document to highlight what changed therein. This sounds a bit like it'll revert to something like the ancient White Box Linux days to me..... * Reply Jeff Geerling - 4 hours ago In reply to "Red Hat currently says they... by me See Product Appendix 1, which currently reads: Unauthorized Use of Subscription Services. Any unauthorized use of the Subscription Services is a material breach of the Agreement. Unauthorized use of the Subscription Services includes: (a) only purchasing or renewing Subscription Services based on some of the total number of Units, (b) splitting or applying one Software Subscription to two or more Units, (c) providing Subscription Services (in whole or in part) to third parties, (d) using Subscription Services in connection with any redistribution of Software or (e) using Subscription Services to support or maintain any non-Red Hat Software products without purchasing Subscription Services for each such instance (collectively, "Unauthorized Subscription Services Uses"). Redistribution would run afoul of point 1.2 (g) (d), and providing the source from one account to someone else would run afoul of point 1.2 (g) (c), according to my "IANAL" understanding of the contract. * Reply zealot - 2 hours ago In reply to See Product Appendix 1,... by Jeff Geerling Oh snap, someone can read on the internet! * Reply MCB - 2 hours ago In reply to See Product Appendix 1,... by Jeff Geerling I am also not a lawyer, but there has been verbiage for a long time about subscription usage. This does not say that it cannot be redistributed. It does not say that you cannot make copies. It doesn't say that there can be multiple deployments. Red Hat has to pay for its development, testing, integration, support, etc. This says that if one system has an active subscription, all must have an active subscription. Kinda like I cannot buy a single copy of proprietary software and install and use it on 1000 servers. * Reply Sagar - 4 hours ago The only OS I can imagine to be viable without Ansible is nixOS. I use it for my homelab and can't recommend it enough, for a number of other reasons too. * Reply Andrea - 4 hours ago Not the first time IBM are short sighted. They are the same folks who once said OS market would never be profitable (or something along those lines), making room for one of the most profitable businesses ever. Maybe I am reading too much in this but attempting to monetize on CentOS is basically saying they are desperate for cash, even small change. Maybe they are beyond healing * Reply David Gavin - 4 hours ago I think it's time to change the brand to Big Blue Hat * Reply Dave Acklam - 3 hours ago The way forward is likely to get sources from Oracle instead.... * Reply Rob - 3 hours ago I'll say it again. Switch to FreeBSD and you'll never have any of these issues. * Reply RedShift - 3 hours ago Looks like all good things really must come to an end... * Reply Franz - 3 hours ago Any privately owned and autocratically governed GNU/Linux distribution will eventually behave in a manner similar to Red Hat. There is already a precedent on similar behaviors by Ubuntu (using snaps to create a monopoly package distribution mechanism, servers for which are not open source). Debian may be the best bet for a high quality distribution with a large package base. * Reply Search [ ] [Search] Geerling Family Crest All content copyright Jeff Geerling. Top of page.