[HN Gopher] Impact of RHEL Changes to AlmaLinux
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Impact of RHEL Changes to AlmaLinux
Author : jzb
Score : 51 points
Date : 2023-06-22 18:13 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (almalinux.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (almalinux.org)
| MattSteelblade wrote:
| Due to the discontinuation of Centos 8 and these manufactured
| obstacles faced by RHEL derivatives, I am strongly considering
| migrating our systems to Debian.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| Do it. Even if it's somewhat painful now, seems like it'll be
| much cheaper long term. This is the second major surprise we're
| seeing from Red Hat's side over the last couple of years. It's
| quite likely you'll have to migrate somewhere soon anyway (for
| the second time in as many years), and it might as well be a
| community-supported distribution that has never pulled any
| similar tricks over its multi-decade lifetime (as it is not
| dominated by any single corporate entity, or really any
| corporate entities at all).
| phpisthebest wrote:
| I have already seen a ton of vendors that once only has RHEL
| certifications for their software switch to having RHEL and
| Debian or Ubuntu Certifications for deployment
|
| Clearly the enterprise market is moving, as once in the US
| every vendor would mainly only support RHEL, now I am seeing
| most support both RHEL and Debian\Ubuntu
| jzb wrote:
| Go for it. I hope lots of people switch to Debian and help
| support its development. If RHEL isn't compelling enough to pay
| for, then Debian is great and available for free and that
| community isn't trying to make a profit. So IMO everybody wins
| in that scenario.
|
| If you _are_ paying for RHEL and are willing to switch on
| principle, then tell your sales rep that, too. If enough RHEL
| customers drop RHEL for this reason, that 'll have an impact.
|
| But if your business is using a RHEL clone because you want
| what RHEL provides, but for free, then consider paying for
| RHEL. Or go ahead and switch to Debian and see if the costs
| associated with switching and staying on top of a community
| driven distro outweigh what you save not paying for RHEL.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Red Hat's user interface agreements indicate that re-publishing
| sources acquired through the customer portal would be a violation
| of those agreements.
|
| A bunch of the software in the customer portal is GPL, which
| says:
|
| "Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
| Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
| original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program
| subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any
| further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights
| granted herein."
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Aren't the vast majority of RHEL packages GPL? I assume Alma's
| "indication" that this would be a violation... is incorrect in
| that case?
| fariszr wrote:
| It's not a violation, because every RHEL user is a customer,
| which has access to the source code. They can't sue you for
| redistribution, but they can ban your account for breaking
| their T&C.
| toyg wrote:
| And then you can sue for "imposing further restrictions",
| though.
|
| (Not that fighting a legal battle with IBM is something you
| can realistically do without losing your business, of course.
| But legally, I think one would have grounds to.)
| jzb wrote:
| But they're not. Let's say you download RHEL 10.0 someday.
| You download RHEL 10.0 source code. Some of which is
| GPL'ed. You rebuild and call it Acme Linux 10.0.
|
| Red Hat says "bye, enjoy distributing that, no more RHEL
| for you." You still get to distribute _what you already
| have._ That 's what the GPL entitles you to - it does _not_
| entitle you to a business relationship with Red Hat, ever.
| But your ability to distribute that source is preserved.
|
| Red Hat releases 10.1. They do not have to distribute that
| to you, nor give you source code, you're no longer a
| customer.
|
| Whether this is in line with the spirit of the GPL or not
| is another story. But at least as I understand it, it does
| not violate the GPL.
| xoa wrote:
| > _Red Hat releases 10.1. They do not have to distribute
| that to you, nor give you source code, you 're no longer
| a customer._
|
| Although without legal teeth, in practice wouldn't this
| become very challenging to keep enforced? The Acme Linux
| person would be free to conspire with someone who was
| still a customer of Red Hat, get the 10.1 source code
| from them (they too could be banned but that's it), and
| then go ahead and distribute that. RH would have no way
| to compel the Acme Linux group to reveal who they got it
| from, they aren't committing any infringement and neither
| is whoever gave it to them. RH could try to fingerprint
| the code they gave each customer, but this would be
| trivially revealed by getting 2+ sources and doing a
| diff. If RH was tiny with a tiny customer base of small
| businesses then that could work, but they're so gigantic
| and with lots of gigantic business customers with 4/5/6
| figure employee counts that preventing anyone so much as
| employed at any of these businesses from making copies of
| the code and uploading it wherever seems like quite a
| lift? Obviously said employees could be fired if caught,
| RH can try to incentivize customers. But still, with
| proprietary software at the end of the day there is
| copyright to fall back on as the big stick at the bottom.
| Copyright affects incentives not just on possible
| distributors but also consumers, yes someone purely
| interested as an end user for free might be happy with
| pirated software but nobody can build new businesses on
| it and devs even vaguely in the same field are not going
| to want to even look at it.
|
| But with OSS someone just anonymously uploading each new
| version of RHEL isn't committing a copyright violation.
| Neither is anyone downloading/using/redistributing
| further. So this seems like it'd be hard to do a
| foundation of. It sort of has the feel of IBM going
| through the familiar motions it would with proprietary
| software, but the underlying foundation makes it all
| different. Another argument is people just wouldn't want
| to bother going through the trouble, but that too seems
| somewhat self-balancing? As-in, the more important RHEL's
| position is and thus the more valuable it is to RH/IBM,
| the more incentive people have to keep steadily sharing
| each new version. Conversely if the rest of the world
| mostly moved on and RHEL became more like IBM's mainframe
| stuff (still high profit margin but rarely thought of in
| day to day work beyond a small sphere these days) then
| the incentive to leak would shrink, but it wouldn't
| matter anyway.
|
| It's been awhile but I feel like this sort of debate was
| had in the early 00s back when copyleft was all fresher,
| just starting to really break out into big business, and
| more subject to serious legal challenges. And the
| conclusion was that (assuming GPL held, which it has)
| while there are a number of theoretical legal ways to
| sort-of-if-you-squint do a more traditional (non-service)
| proprietary model with it, the practical realities of
| trying to do that without the law on your side would be
| hard. Guess we'll see how that plays out though with a
| very powerful player trying it?
| jzb wrote:
| "Although without legal teeth, in practice wouldn't this
| become very challenging to keep enforced?"
|
| Well, enforcement is entirely another matter. It might
| turn into a nightmare of whack-a-mole for Red Hat, I have
| no idea. I'm only saying that AIUI, Red Hat can do what
| they're doing and still be GPL compliant.
|
| It may impact the clones' ability to claim "bug-for-bug"
| compatibility with RHEL, though. At least without making
| them a focal point for lawyers. But I have no idea how
| things will spin out from here.
|
| "Conversely if the rest of the world mostly moved on"
|
| This is looking like a possibility. Things are pretty
| fragmented now as it is with RHEL leading paid Linux,
| Ubuntu leading unpaid Linux, and each major cloud
| provider have their own Linux offerings + Ubuntu & RHEL.
| (Also Debian in there..)
|
| I don't know that this is the smart move by Red Hat. It
| feels like a gamble to me, but it's theirs to make.
| robmusial wrote:
| > Whether this is in line with the spirit of the GPL or
| not is another story. But at least as I understand it, it
| does not violate the GPL.
|
| I'm fairly zealous about Free Software and I don't think
| this is even against the spirit of the GPL.
|
| Many of the writings and talks from RMS on gnu.org talk
| about how it is perfectly fine for a company to modify
| GPL'd software for internal use only and not be required
| to redistribute those changes because you're not
| redistributing the binaries. If it is fine for companies
| to do that and not be considered a bad actor violating
| the spirit of the GPL this seems to me to be in the same
| moral sentiment. At the end of the day if you have the
| binary you have source and all 4 freedoms associated with
| it and you truly control your computing.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Not that fighting a legal battle with IBM is something
| you can realistically do without losing your business, of
| course.
|
| Doesn't this change affect Oracle Linux too? Suing people
| and even big companies is Oracle's favorite thing to do,
| and for once they'd be the good guys for doing so.
| uluyol wrote:
| I hadn't thought of this, but this is an excellent point.
| Oracle vs IBM, who wins? The lawyers for sure, but for
| outsiders there would be no downside.
| tmottabr wrote:
| I believe Oracle Linux might be the biggest target here.
|
| Paying enterprises that decide to go with Oracle Linux
| are the real threat to RHEL not the free alternatives.
|
| Very few people that are on the free alternatives will
| start paying for RHEL if the alternatives go away, it is
| more likely that they move to another distribution.
|
| This is not even the first time Red Hat try to make
| Oracle life difficult.
| chasil wrote:
| Notice Alma's explicit mention:
|
| "In the immediate term, our plan is to pull from CentOS
| Stream updates and Oracle Linux updates to ensure
| security patches continue to be released."
| fariszr wrote:
| But these restrictions are on the account not the code?
| This will probably end up in court anyway.
| basch wrote:
| they sell you version 5. you redistribute the 5 source
| code. they refuse to sell you version 6, therefore not
| making you eligible to receive the version 6 source.
|
| refusing to sell you version 6 isnt a restriction on what
| you can do with 5. it is terminating the relationship
| going forward.
| robmusial wrote:
| Red Hat isn't imposing further restrictions. You are free
| to do with the source code whatever you wish, but the GPL
| nor any court can force Red Hat to give or sell you
| binaries in the future and thus source code in the future.
|
| An example of an illegal restriction would be if Red Hat
| gave their binaries to everyone publicly but only their
| source to people who agreed to not redistribute it, and
| then if you did redistribute the source they cut you off or
| brought some type of legal action.
| josephcsible wrote:
| How is saying "I'll ban you if you exercise these rights" not
| imposing a further restriction on them?
| unmole wrote:
| The GPL can't force Red Hat to continue to do business with
| someone.
| tremon wrote:
| No, but the copyright holders can sue IBM for copyright
| violation if Red Hat distributes GPL code with
| restrictions attached beyond the GPL license.
| unmole wrote:
| > Red Hat distributes GPL code with restrictions attached
| beyond the GPL license
|
| Do you honestly believe that Red Hat and IBM's army of
| lawyers don't understand GPL?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| companies are not one unified thing, though they may
| project that and internalize that. You don't think that
| there is internal tension ? differing opinions among
| staff attorneys?
|
| second however, it seems that there is a growing conceit
| among the cloud-native management, that they can ignore
| GPL, throw it into code-regrinding services, and
| generally act with impunity.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Random company with a device and inconvenienced by the
| GPL is one thing, but it beggars belief that Red Hat,
| which has been working with GPLed code since 1993 that is
| one of the cornerstones of its business model, struggles
| to comprehend what GPL was intended to accomplish.
| bonzini wrote:
| Why haven't they done it in the past 20 years? The
| supposed restrictions have existed for that long, and the
| long-term support branches were never in CentOS and have
| always been accessible to customers only.
| jzb wrote:
| Because you still have the rights. You just aren't in a
| position to get _future_ source code / binaries.
|
| Think of it this way: The GPL doesn't obligate Red Hat to
| accept all customers in the first place, right? If you stop
| paying for your RHEL subscription, the GPL doesn't oblige
| Red Hat to continue it and continue distributing future
| releases of RHEL to you.
|
| But even if you stop paying, you still have your GPL rights
| for the versions you received.
|
| The only difference here is Red Hat saying "yeah, we're not
| taking your money anymore. Enjoy the source code and
| binaries you've received so far, but you're not getting new
| ones from us."
| bamfly wrote:
| Oh man, the legal battle when Red Hat tries to crack down
| on "pirated" GPL software is going to be... interesting.
|
| (that's where this is surely going, right? Or else
| they're just not going to bother actually trying to
| enforce this policy change, and let all these 3rd parties
| use _alternative_ methods of obtaining the source)
| bmacho wrote:
| > How is saying "I'll ban you if you exercise these rights"
| not imposing a further restriction on them?
|
| How is saying "you haven't distributed my source code, I'll
| sell you the next version too, if you want" imposing a
| further restriction on anyone?
| tremon wrote:
| From GPLv2, section 6:
|
| > Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work
| based on the Program), the recipient automatically
| receives a license from the original licensor to copy,
| distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms
| and conditions. You may not impose any further
| restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights
| granted herein.
|
| I'd say that refusing to do further business counts as a
| retaliatory restriction against the recipients' exercise
| of their rights. In general the law finds against
| retaliatory business practices.
| [deleted]
| unmole wrote:
| Red Hat can't impose restrictions on rights granted by GPL. But
| they are well within their rights to terminate business
| relationships with partners who chose to re-publish sources.
|
| I don't know what the current situation is but Grsecurity
| operated under a similar arrangement back in the day.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Grsecurity operated under a similar arrangement back in the
| day.
|
| Weren't they violating the GPL too?
| https://perens.com/2017/06/28/warning-grsecurity-
| potential-c...
| geerlingguy wrote:
| > Is Red Hat trying to kill downstream clones?
|
| > We cannot speak to Red Hat's intentions, and can only point to
| the things they have said publicly. We have had an incredible
| working relationship with Red Hat through the life of AlmaLinux
| OS and we hope to see that continue.
|
| Reading between the lines, it sounds like they have a similar
| relationship to Red Hat that I do: tons of great folks who still
| work there and weren't burned by the IBM acquisition... but
| officially it doesn't seem like community downstreams that filled
| in the role CentOS used to play have a good relationship with Red
| Hat.
|
| Otherwise this change (which some people are saying is fine, just
| poorly communicated) would've been announced with time for the
| community to adapt to it, rather than being announced in a blog
| post a week or two after the technical/process change was made!
| awill wrote:
| Exactly right on the lack of notice. What happens to people
| relying on Alma/Rocky? They're possibly screwed.
|
| Of course, RHEL (or others) could say that if you're depending
| on a free product, you're to blame. That's where I would
| disagree a bit. Many of these really large customers could just
| have easily chosen Debian, or something else. They simply don't
| need and don't want to pay for support. With Alma/Rocky, they
| had a perfect option, a no-support, free EL distro. RHEL did
| not lose these customers to Alma/Rocky. Those customers would
| have just chosen a different free distro.
|
| This is downhill for RHEL
| OldManRyan wrote:
| This response reads like the responses third-party reddit
| client developers gave when the API changes were announced.
| "What's going to happen? We don't know but we have a great
| working relationship with reddit and they said it SHOULD be
| fine..." and we all know how that turned out.
| MattSteelblade wrote:
| > "In the immediate term, our plan is to pull from CentOS Stream
| updates and Oracle Linux updates to ensure security patches
| continue to be released."
|
| Does this mean that Oracle has an arrangement with RedHat/IBM
| that won't be disrupted by this change?
| toyg wrote:
| That's very likely. A lot of RedHat customers buy RHEL to run
| Oracle Database on it, they'd be stupid to piss them off.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| See also, Rocky Linux Etherpad notes on the change:
| https://etherpad.opendev.org/p/r.24fab14385c0aa2db6fa7340a8b...
| jmclnx wrote:
| Funny thing is, as many people know here, NASA Signed a support
| agreement with Rocky. I cannot help but read things to that.
| bonzini wrote:
| For 3 machines.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36420259 - June 2023 (296
| comments)
| fariszr wrote:
| > In the immediate term, our plan is to pull from CentOS Stream
| updates and Oracle Linux updates to ensure security patches
| continue to be released. These updates will be carefully curated
| to ensure they are 1:1 compatible with RHEL, while not violating
| Red Hat's licensing, and will be vetted and tested just like all
| of our other releases.
|
| I think they won't find any other solution than this. Maybe
| create an Ubuntu Pro clone? If Ubuntu pro patches are even open?
| zb3 wrote:
| As a Fedora user, I like this. People who want to use RHEL should
| pay and there should be no way around that so I can use my Fedora
| for free. Good job!
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| You know they won't. Anyone who really needs RHEL is already
| paying for the real thing. I reckon the main thing this brings
| is people moving en masse off RHEL-based distributions and a
| significant reduction in market- and mind-share over the long
| term.
|
| It also feels like a moment of opportunity for SUSE, but they
| seem quiet.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Er, what? You're glad they're stopping other freeloaders so
| that you can be a freeloader instead? Is this satire?
| josephcsible wrote:
| I think the intended sentiment is "if you don't want to pay,
| then you should have to run (and so help test) the new
| bleeding-edge thing, instead of using the old stable
| enterprise thing."
| zb3 wrote:
| I'm an individual freeloader, but I occasionally report bugs.
| I understand that I might encounter bugs and/or provide some
| free contributions to Red Hat, but that's in exchange for a
| well functioning desktop distribution.
|
| Now, if the commercial product is the stability itself(!),
| why 'd you expect that stability for free?
|
| Why should Red Hat customers pay for other, non-paying
| enterprise users?
| justinclift wrote:
| So, the people who put their time and effort into the
| upstream projects which RHEL uses (without paying them),
| you're saying those people are freeloaders if they want to
| build things on Alma or Rocky Linux?
|
| What about the CentOS users who report bugs, or help out
| with (say) writing RHEL docs without getting paid? You're
| saying they're freeloaders too?
|
| That sounds like a pretty crappy viewpoint to me, as I used
| to do all of the above.
|
| I did personally read the writing on the wall correctly
| though, with the previous major "CentOS 8 Stream" change
| (after the IBM acquisition). So, switched all of my stuff
| away from Red Hat based software at that point.
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