[HN Gopher] AlmaLinux - Our Value Is Our Values
___________________________________________________________________
AlmaLinux - Our Value Is Our Values
Author : mroche
Score : 158 points
Date : 2023-06-30 14:51 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (almalinux.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (almalinux.org)
| powersnail wrote:
| This situation is somewhat confusing, as someone who doesn't have
| a RedHat subscription. Rocky and Alma claim that RH's new policy
| is a hindrance to the re-distribution of RH's code, while RH's
| staff claims that "Anyone is allowed to create an account, get
| GPL'ed code and redistribute that code as much as they want
| according to the license".
|
| Some genuine questions:
|
| 1. If Bob doesn't currently have a RedHat subscription, does he
| have a way to obtain RHEL source code, legally, continuously,
| without the help of a current subscriber, and for free?
|
| 2. If Bob has a RedHat subscription, and has access to RHEL
| source code through the customer portal, is he free to
| continuously re-publish the source code else where? (in other
| words, facing no legal threat, and won't be cut off the
| subscription)
|
| 3. RH's staff mentioned "GPL'ed code", so it sort of implies the
| possibility that some other code are not GPL'ed, and might be
| subject to less favorable terms regarding redistribution. So, are
| all the code authored by RH and re-distributed by Rocky/Alma
| licensed with GPL? Or in other words, are there code whose re-
| distributability changes with the new policy of RedHat?
| None4U wrote:
| 1. no 2. subscription will be cut off 3. they used to be gpl
| and still are
| powersnail wrote:
| Thanks!
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| > We have also enriched the upstream community. AlmaLinux
| community members have submitted PRs to projects such as RPM,
| AWX, and VirtualBox. Our community has sent over 50 PRs to
| GlusterFS and also extended openQA. A Red Hat employee even
| thanked us for enabling Fedora tests to run on ELN and RHEL. An
| AlmaLinux contributor (who was formerly an ArchLinux user) was so
| fired up by our community that he now maintains over 600 Fedora
| and Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) packages,
| including some widely-used ones like certbot, brotli, iperf3,
| imapsync, and countless Python libraries, many of them as the
| primary contributor maintaining them for the greater Fedora and
| Enterprise Linux ecosystem. EPEL is tremendously important to
| both Red Hat and RHEL users.
|
| I wasn't aware of this. So it's looks like RH/IBM argument that
| they don't contribute back is bullsh*t.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/redhat/comments/14jq5i7/t/jpoeunh/
|
| tl;dr: there are some contributions, mostly not to RHEL but to
| the surrounding ecosystem (including RHEL's upstream), so it
| apparently doesn't count.
| spookie wrote:
| The implication that nothing from Fedora will make into RHEL
| for years seems absurd to me. Is this true?
| chasil wrote:
| RHEL 7 was introduced in 2014; RHEL8 came out in 2019.
|
| That 5 years is the longest gap so far.
| coolgoose wrote:
| Even if it's years, it does get into RHEL, so it is value
| by itself, since I do assume they don't plan to shut down
| RHEL in 1 year.
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| So it doesn't count when AlmaLinux does contribute upstream,
| but somehow counts when RH contributes and has this "100%
| upstream policy"? Is this RH's argument?
| freedomben wrote:
| Don't read one guy's opinion on Reddit and attribute it to
| the whole company. There are surely others who agree with
| him, and others who don't. This is the kind of dumb stuff
| that leads to most tech companies barring employees from
| saying anything. Let's stay reasonable.
| itsmartapuntocm wrote:
| It was always a bad faith argument.
| xinayder wrote:
| EPEL Fedora maintainers should just stop updating their packages,
| if RHEL uses Fedora packages, just stop updating them or make
| them available explicitly for Red Hat through closed sources that
| you need to pay for. Fight fire with fire.
|
| I have little faith that RHEL will change, especially after that
| blog post from the vice-president calling AlmaLinux and Rocky
| Linux "freeloaders" and that they bring no value to RHEL. They
| are the reason RHEL is as big as it is today and they're actively
| fighting against what made them big.
| davisr wrote:
| Red Hat never called anyone "freeloaders" in any of their blog
| posts.
|
| Also, there is nothing wrong with making people pay for free
| software. That is explicitly in the philosophy of free software
| and the GNU Project.
|
| > _Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is
| that you should not charge money for distributing copies of
| software, or that you should charge as little as possible--just
| enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding._
|
| > _Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software
| to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not
| permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree
| license. If this seems surprising to you, please read on._
|
| Read more: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| Is SUSE Linux not an option for Enterprise?
| homarp wrote:
| https://www.suse.com/c/navigating-changes-in-the-open-source...
| freedomben wrote:
| I evaluted SUSE quite a bit some years ago, and I ran into a
| handful of problems that were (at the time at least)
| showstoppers. The biggest one was that not all packages could
| be reliably installed from the command line. There was a GUI
| package manager application that used a different system than
| the command line, which for me was super confusing but also not
| viable on headless systems (which is most of them). There were
| also something different about their RPMs, where even though it
| was RPM based you couldn't use centos/fedora RPMs.
|
| This was all at least 5 years ago, maybe 10, so take with a
| grain of salt.
|
| I'm sure if I really learned the system it would be fine, but
| I've got two decades of the Red Hat Way engrained in me. It
| would be hard to change.
| Arnavion wrote:
| >The biggest one was that not all packages could be reliably
| installed from the command line. There was a GUI package
| manager application that used a different system than the
| command line
|
| This doesn't make any sense. I've been using OpenSUSE for a
| decade and there's no package that can be installed via Yast
| (the GUI) but not via zypper (the CLI).
|
| >There were also something different about their RPMs, where
| even though it was RPM based you couldn't use centos/fedora
| RPMs.
|
| Obviously. They're different distros with different package
| names and library paths. "RPM" is just a file format.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Obviously. They 're different distros with different
| package names and library paths. "RPM" is just a file
| format._
|
| This is absolutely _not_ obvious to a person coming from EL
| /Fedora (which is the context we are discussing here).
| Things that are "obvious" to an existing user are not
| necessarily obvious to new users.
| Arnavion wrote:
| If you thought you could install RHEL packages on SLES,
| what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES
| was?
|
| Also I'm not sure what "new" or "existing" users have to
| do with it. I've never used RHEL so I'm technically a new
| RHEL user, but I don't have the misconception that distro
| packages are interchangeable.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _If you thought you could install RHEL packages on
| SLES, what did you think the difference between RHEL and
| SLES was?_
|
| I didn't know what the differences were. I learn by
| doing. Everybody has to install and try a distro for the
| first time at some point. Unless you are arguing that you
| were born with innate knowledge of Suse, then at some
| point you didn't know either.
|
| > _Also I 'm not sure what "new" or "existing" users have
| to do with it. I've never used RHEL so I'm technically a
| new RHEL user, but I don't have the misconception that
| distro packages are interchangeable._
|
| I would argue that you actually have the misconception,
| so this is ironically pretty good evidence that "new" or
| "existing" users does matter.
|
| In the RHEL ecosystem, packages can often be installed on
| any other (non-Suse) RPM distro, as long as the
| dependencies are met. For example, Fedora packages can be
| put on RHEL or CentOS or Alma or Rocky or Amazon Linux or
| Oracle Linux or Scientific Linux etc. I have some
| packages built for EL9 that are installed on my Fedora
| machine right now. Putting on a different distro you run
| a risk of having broken dependencies, but things are
| largely the same.
|
| The same is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, and many other
| .deb distros. This is far more common in the linux
| ecosystem than not. Suse seems to me to be the odd-one-
| out here.
| creatonez wrote:
| > The same is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, and many
| other .deb distros. This is far more common in the linux
| ecosystem than not. Suse seems to me to be the odd-one-
| out here.
|
| This is something that is explicitly warned against by
| the Debian developers - https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreak
| Debian#Don.27t_make_a_Frank...
| Arnavion wrote:
| >Everybody has to install and try a distro for the first
| time at some point. Unless you are arguing that you were
| born with innate knowledge of Suse, then at some point
| you didn't know either.
|
| No, it's absurd to assume that you can transplant distro
| packages, not that you can't. And I don't really care to
| argue with you about this. Your incorrect assumptions are
| your problem, not mine.
|
| >I would argue that you actually have the misconception,
| so this is ironically pretty good evidence that "new" or
| "existing" users does matter.
|
| Wrong. Once again I remind you that you're the one who
| made the incorrect assumption and got burned by it, so
| your attempt at deflecting is laughable.
|
| >In the RHEL ecosystem, packages can often be installed
| on any other (non-Suse) RPM distro, as long as the
| dependencies are met.
|
| "As long as the dependencies are met" is doing some
| pretty heavy lifting there, isn't it? And why do you
| think your attempt to install those RHEL RPMs on SUSE
| failed?
|
| >For example, Fedora packages can be put on RHEL or
| CentOS or Alma or Rocky or Amazon Linux or Oracle Linux
| or Scientific Linux etc.
|
| First of all, four of the distros in that list are
| intentionally the same distro (RHEL, Alma, Rocky,
| Oracle), so it is expected that their assumptions and
| dependencies line up to allow you to install packages
| built for one on the other.
|
| Second of all, it is absolutely _not_ true that packages
| from CentOS (assuming we 're referring to Stream) and
| Fedora can always be installed on RHEL or vice versa. The
| whole point of them being upstream of RHEL is that they
| can have newer dependencies. Hypothetically Fedora can
| switch the libfoo package to v3 with a different soname
| while RHEL still has it as v2, so any package that
| depends on the v3 soname cannot be installed on a v2 OS
| or vice versa.
|
| Also, unlike all those distros which are either upstream
| or downstream of RHEL, SLES is not. So once again I ask,
| what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES
| was? It sounds like you just assumed that SLES is
| upstream or downstream of RHEL, and made not even a
| cursory documentation search, nor talked to the SLES reps
| apparently, to relieve yourself of that assumption.
|
| >I have some packages built for EL9 that are installed on
| my Fedora machine right now. Putting on a different
| distro you run a risk of having broken dependencies, but
| things are largely the same.
|
| "The packages work as long as you ignore all the things
| that make them not work."
|
| >The same is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, and many other
| .deb distros. This is far more common in the linux
| ecosystem than not.
|
| Debian and Ubuntu will have exactly the same problem as
| the Fedora and RHEL example. Actually worse, because
| Ubuntu isn't a strict downstream of Debian but a random
| snapshot of Debian while it's between releases. The
| packages in Ubuntu can end up not corresponding to any
| Debian stable nor unstable.
|
| And again, the scenario of taking RPMs from RHEL and
| trying to put them onto SLES is equivalent to taking RPMs
| from RHEL and trying to put them onto Debian. If the
| latter sounds absurd to you, why did you think the former
| made sense?
|
| >Suse seems to me to be the odd-one-out here.
|
| No, you just have very bad ideas about how Linux works
| and are weirdly stubborn about correcting them.
| starttoaster wrote:
| I think the end-all-be-all of this obviously spiraling
| conversation is: the other user expected SLES to be a
| drop-in replacement for RHEL/CentOS, but it wasn't. So
| why did they not consider Suse for their enterprise uses?
| Because they had existing workflows that work on RHEL-
| like operating systems, and Suse would require more work
| and time to adopt than those alternatives. All of that is
| completely fair and valid. And to make your point: all
| you have to do is learn the operating system and suddenly
| that's not much of a concern any more. If the free
| alternatives aren't as feasible in the future, I'm sure
| there may be more appetite for that kind of effort.
| Arnavion wrote:
| I don't really have any comment on whether SLES was
| suitable for their RHEL shop or not. This entire
| subthread rabbit hole is just about their absurd
| assumption that packages can be transplanted between
| distros and their subsequent doubling-down on it.
| mr_cyborg wrote:
| Anecdotally, I have only heard of Europeans using SUSE.
| skissane wrote:
| Place I used to work at in Australia 15+ years ago used SUSE.
| Novell owned it and they positioned it as their replacement
| for NetWare, and a lot of ex-NetWare sites ending up running
| it (at least for a while). But even that place, we had more
| Oracle Linux than SUSE. Everything that ran on Solaris got
| migrated to Oracle Linux (e.g. Oracle RDBMS); everything that
| ran on NetWare (GroupWise, eDirectory) got migrated to OES
| (SUSE plus extra ex-NetWare bits). But then I think most of
| the SUSE went away when GroupWise/eDir were replaced by
| Exchange/AD on Windows. Whereas they are probably still using
| Oracle Linux today. Actually, originally we were going to use
| RHEL, but found Red Hat's sales team too difficult to deal
| with, whereas we already were an Oracle customer.
| znpy wrote:
| And mostly germans, afaik.
| cpach wrote:
| SUSE is a fascinating company. They've been in the game
| since the 90s. They have over 2300 employees. Revenue is
| ~650 MM USD. But I rarely hear of anyone using their
| distro.
| toyg wrote:
| European public sector.
| okanat wrote:
| And also private. Many supermarket terminals are running
| SUSE.
| mehdix wrote:
| Perhaps interesting, they also acquired rancher (makers
| of k3s).
| mattl wrote:
| $650? I assume you mean 650 million or something?
| cpach wrote:
| Haha, yes. I've edited my comment.
| dlandau wrote:
| Cray, the US super computer company uses SUSE
| chasil wrote:
| We have not yet heard anything from Oracle, which hopefully
| implies that these changes are not a problem.
|
| Alma had previously stated that Oracle would be an upstream
| source.
|
| "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."
|
| https://almalinux.org/blog/impact-of-rhel-changes/
|
| Rocky has said that they have found "a path forward," but have
| not divulged it.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/28/rocky_linux_rhel_ripp...
| tmottabr wrote:
| Oracle will just keep getting the sources from whatever the
| easiest way is and wont give a damn about Red Hat ToS or EULA..
|
| IBM can go after then in court if they want but they know that
| Oracle has pockets just as deep as IBM to fight them off..
|
| I bet they will reach an agreement before this ever see a court
| room..
| freedomben wrote:
| > _We have not yet heard anything from Oracle, which hopefully
| implies that these changes are not a problem._
|
| Giant corps move slowly, and companies like Oracle will require
| official communication only, which moves even slower. I think
| it's too early to read anything into it.
| highwind wrote:
| Rocky posted an update: https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-
| open-source-open/
| chasil wrote:
| I just saw that.
|
| "Using the UBI image, it is easily possible to obtain Red Hat
| sources reliably and unencumbered... Another method... is
| pay-per-use public cloud instances. With this, anyone can
| spin up RHEL images in the cloud and thus obtain the source
| code for all packages and errata."
| madars wrote:
| I wonder how stable the cloud path is ... can RedHat have
| cloud vendors "voluntarily agree" to not spin up VMs for
| rebuilders? (Kinda like how subscribers "agree" that
| distributing GPL'd sources could put their subscription
| renewal in jeopardy.)
| bakugo wrote:
| >an RedHat have cloud vendors "voluntarily agree" to not
| spin up VMs for rebuilders?
|
| I mean, maybe, but does it matter? You only need one
| person with access to the code to distribute it to
| everyone else, and the identity of that one person
| doesn't have to be public, so I really don't see how Red
| Hat could ever hope to stop it.
| davisr wrote:
| Red Hat's Mike McGrath explains [1]:
|
| > _That confusion manifested as accusations about us
| going closed-source and about alleged GPL violations.
| There is CentOS Stream the binary deliverable, and CentOS
| Stream the source repository. The CentOS Stream gitlab
| source is where we build RHEL releases, in the open for
| all to see. To call RHEL "closed source" is categorically
| untrue and inaccurate. CentOS Stream moves faster than
| RHEL, so it might not be on HEAD, but the code is there.
| If you can't find it, it's a bug - please let us know._
|
| [1]: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hats-commitment-
| open-sour...
|
| He goes on [2]:
|
| > _Anyone is allowed to create an account, get GPL 'ed
| code and redistribute that code as much as they want
| according to the license. But they don't actually want
| the code because as I've said over and over, its not
| about the code (Free as in freedom). The code is out
| there (as proven by the fact that none of these
| rebuilders stopped nor will they stop)_
|
| [2]: https://teddit.net/r/linux/comments/14l2t86/im_done_
| with_red...
|
| PS: How many people do you see linking to the actual Red
| Hat posts? I don't see many, which is why I think many
| comments on these threads are not made with honest
| intentions. The misinformation is rampant.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| While it's important to get both sides, RH's actions are
| the exact opposite of what he's saying there. And your
| belief that this somehow absolves them and that their
| anti-FLOSS actions are "misinformation" is incredibly
| disingenuous.
| davisr wrote:
| What actions? What anti-FLOSS? They are complying fully
| with the terms of all licenses of RHEL and CentOS
| Software. Don't believe me? Here is what Fedora says
| about it [1]. It's no problem for them. "There is no
| change in Fedora or with anything related to Fedora."
| > 3) So what happened? > > - CentOS
| Engineers will not be producing that git > repo of
| exploded SRPMs anymore because there is > no need
| for them in CentOS project. > > - Red Hat
| recommends to take RHEL sources from > CentOS
| Stream repositories because that is the > actual
| source from which RHEL packages are built > by
| RHEL Engineers. > > Can you still get access
| to SRPMs and create > exploded sources repo - Yes.
| But there is no > practical reason for Red Hat or
| for CentOS > Project to maintain such a service.
| > > There is no change in Fedora or with anything
| > related to Fedora. > > -- >
| Aleksandra Fedorova, > member of Fedora Council
| > RHEL/CentOS Strem CI Engineer
|
| [1]: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@
| lists.fe...
| oynqr wrote:
| It's malicious compliance. They might as well say that
| since their code is somewhere in Pi, it's all open
| source.
| wandering23 wrote:
| The only things that is lacking in linux ecosystem is hardwares.
|
| macOS has Macbooks. Windows has surface, Samsung.
|
| Linux has ???
|
| That's a new startup idea, right there.
| jacooper wrote:
| This is unrelated, as Almalinux is largely a server distro. But
| Linux has System76, Tuxedo and Slimbook, also Dell and
| Framework, though they aren't Linux first.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| I think the Framework laptop is pretty much as close to a
| "Linux" laptop as we're gonna get, at least for the foreseeable
| future. Shipping computers without Windows licences by default
| and supporting hackers with plenty of documentation on
| repairing the hardware and making custom modules seem to be
| pretty in line with the open source mentality.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Linux has ???
|
| Famously, the Raspberry Pi.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| Something like 90% of webservers are running Linux. Alma,
| RedHat, etc are primarily focused on enterprise servers, not
| consumer devices.
|
| But since you are looking for consumer devices running Linux, I
| recommend you check out Android, which is running on nearly 3/4
| of mobile devices globally.
| wpm wrote:
| System76? Framework (officially supports Ubuntu or Fedora)?
| andix wrote:
| Android? :D
| cpach wrote:
| Cool idea, sure, but I don't really see how it's related to
| AlmaLinux or this particular article...?
| mattl wrote:
| Dell and myriad other companies sell Linux laptops
| m4rtink wrote:
| Not to mention most servers running Linux, often actually
| supporting only Linux.
| toyg wrote:
| Lol, "new"... Iirc, KDE almost self-destroyed by chasing the
| dream of making tablets; Nokia took half a decade to build a
| working linux-based OS (and then binned it); same for Intel...
|
| Consumer hardware is hard to pull off, to start with. Then
| there are tons of components requiring closed-source drivers
| that don't play well with Linux; you can spend a lot of money
| to rewrite them, or you can build piles of weak hacks that will
| crash your OS every few hours. You need deep pockets to get
| OEMs to pay attention to your needs, rather than the needs of
| giant manufacturers hungry for their production lines. Managing
| prices on small runs is extremely hard, so your 1.0 is going to
| be prohibitively expensive, which means it won't sell, which
| means you won't have the money to fix all the problems
| freedomben wrote:
| AlmaLinux, thank you for taking the constructive/positive
| approach that you do. Red Hat is not our enemy, and although
| they've made decisions that are disappointing, I deeply
| appreciate that you aren't antagonistic toward them, and in fact
| add value to them. This is why I chose and use AlmaLinux for many
| things. The contrast between you and the others is big, and I'm
| very grateful that you are what you are. And thank you for
| improving this ecosystem!
| TZubiri wrote:
| Apparently anyone that charges money for their products is evil,
| and those who work for free have 'values'. Nothing more than
| slavery, don't contribute to gratis software
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| What software do you use? If it's based on FLOSS in any
| capacity, then by your definition you're a slave driver.
| anthk wrote:
| This is not gratis but libre.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > Apparently anyone that charges money for their products is
| evil, and those who work for free have 'values'.
|
| The linked post says nothing of the sort.
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| _" Nothing more than slavery, don't contribute to gratis
| software"_
|
| So no RHEL then?
|
| (Where is their 'upstream' if not libre? What kernel would they
| run?)
| INTPenis wrote:
| AlmaLinux should just start their own RHEL, with blackjack and
| hookers...
|
| They have a company behind them, they have values, so why ride
| Red Hats coattails? Start your own distro.
|
| They could even try and make it somewhat compatible with RHEL, in
| the sense that famous proprietary software like EMC and Dell
| stuff could run on it. A lot of times it's just a matter of
| having the right RPMs, environments and strings in all the right
| places to get them to run.
| jacooper wrote:
| You mean cloudlinux? They are already forging their own way,
| giving up on RHEL 1:1 compatibility in the process.
|
| https://blog.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux-os-8-and-9-in-post-re...
| gbraad wrote:
| that is with a big 'if'. but honestly, they should.
| differentiate and add value. not just copy and reproduce
| something you can't control
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Nobody needs yet another linux distro. People want free RHEL.
| davisr wrote:
| Red Hat's Mike McGrath explains [1]:
|
| > _Anyone is allowed to create an account, get GPL 'ed code
| and redistribute that code as much as they want according to
| the license. But they don't actually want the code because as
| I've said over and over, its not about the code (Free as in
| freedom). The code is out there (as proven by the fact that
| none of these rebuilders stopped nor will they stop)_
|
| [1]: https://teddit.net/r/linux/comments/14l2t86/im_done_with
| _red...
|
| It's clear that all the misinformation about RHEL,
| misinterpretations of the GPL, et al. are not actually about
| those issues. There is a concerted effort to attack Red Hat.
|
| Become familiar with the "Twenty-Five Rules of
| Disinformation" [2] and you will see them everywhere.
|
| [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20221215015113/https://paste
| bin....
| burnte wrote:
| > There is a concerted effort to attack Red Hat.
|
| Not really, RedHat started this. They're in the
| enshittening phase now. Management has run out of ideas for
| real growth, so they are instead squeezing the customer
| base.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| > There is a concerted effort to attack Red Hat.
|
| Red Hat is the one who put it behind a wall to begin with.
| You reap what you sow.
| davisr wrote:
| They haven't put anything behind a wall. You want CentOS
| Stream and RHEL source code? Then go get it! Here it is!
| [1]
|
| [1]: https://git.centos.org/
|
| When you buy RHEL, you even get the entire source code on
| a DVD for the exact binary distribution that you
| download.
| grosswait wrote:
| https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-
| centos-s...
| creatonez wrote:
| The repository you linked previously contained RHEL
| source code, but it is no longer being updated as of a
| few weeks ago. This is the entire thing being discussed.
|
| Really weird for you to be grandstanding about how
| misinformation is bad, while spreading it yourself.
| davisr wrote:
| Sorry, here you go [1]. Last activity 28 minutes ago.
|
| [1]: https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream
|
| Additional docs: https://docs.centos.org/en-US/stream-
| contrib/techinfo/builds...
| creatonez wrote:
| Close, but this is not RHEL source code.
| detaro wrote:
| Of course claiming that everyone who disagrees with you is
| part of a concerted attack campaign is also an excellent
| example of those rules.
| davisr wrote:
| > claiming
|
| I'm not claiming. I am linking to relevant sources
| directly from Red Hat staff. That is an authoritative
| source.
|
| > that everyone
|
| No, not everyone, I never said that, and you
| misrepresenting what I said and distracting from the main
| issue.
| [deleted]
| starttoaster wrote:
| It's not obvious to me that the user you're replying to
| believed that these were your opinions. It seemed more
| obvious to me that they were replying indirectly to the
| comments made by the Red Hat staff member.
|
| But now that you've gotten to the point of having your
| own opinion and take: what is "the main issue" as you've
| mentioned here?
| davisr wrote:
| The main issue is that people in this thread, and
| elsewhere in related threads, are coming to believe that
| Red Hat is somehow doing something illegal or improper --
| due to inaccurate and misleading headlines, and
| misinterpretations of the requirements of GPL licenses.
|
| Which, of course, is untrue since Red Hat has stated
| several times, in the links I've posted above, that Red
| Hat are (a) STILL providing complete corresponding source
| code, which one will still receive when they are
| distributed a binary by Red Hat, and (b) FULLY complying
| with the terms of GPL and other FLOSS licenses.
|
| These are the two issues that people are misrepresenting,
| by saying either that Red Hat is (a) locking-down or
| otherwise disallowing access to complete corresponding
| source for binary recipients, which is untrue, or (b)
| that Red Hat is not complying with the FLOSS licenses
| their software are used under, which is also not true.
|
| The next issue that is raised, one that was mentioned by
| the Software Freedom Conservancy [1], is that Red Hat is
| somehow extorting their customers by either making them
| choose between exercising their GPL rights, or continuing
| to receive support.
|
| [1]: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-
| analysis...
|
| Red Hat is free to terminate support with any of their
| customers--that is not a GPL issue. The transaction the
| GPL covers is: Red Hat gives (or sells) the user a
| binary, the user can request the complete corresponding
| source code (not need to be immediately provided with),
| and once requested then Red Hat must provide that code.
| That is the end of the transaction. The GPL does not
| cover any additional period, or force Red Hat to continue
| business with a particular user.
| cmdrk wrote:
| while RH may follow the letter of the GPL, many people
| feel it is an attack on the spirit of copyleft.
| LexiMax wrote:
| The spirit of copyleft has no weight in a courtroom. If
| people are unhappy with the way Red Hat is legally using
| the GPL, we need better licenses.
| cmdrk wrote:
| Completely agree.
| rilindo wrote:
| > many people feel it is an attack on the spirit of
| copyleft.
|
| What exactly is the spirit of copyleft? I see this said a
| number of times, but it doesn't appear to be fully
| articulated.
| cmdrk wrote:
| I'd start from the defintion of Free Software per GNU:
| https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#four-freedoms
|
| Personally I consider GPL an _implementation_ of copyleft
| rather than copyleft itself.
| davisr wrote:
| It is in the spirit, and here it is straight from the
| horse's mouth:
|
| > _Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project
| is that you should not charge money for distributing
| copies of software, or that you should charge as little
| as possible--just enough to cover the cost. This is a
| misunderstanding._
|
| > _Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free
| software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a
| license does not permit users to make copies and sell
| them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems surprising
| to you, please read on._
|
| https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
| cmdrk wrote:
| It's all well and good that RH follows the legal
| requirements of the GPL by providing the sources to their
| customers. All above board there.
|
| The problem is that, as a downstream customer of that
| software, RH threatens to terminate my business contract
| with them if I exercise my own freedom to redistribute
| that software. It's completely in bad faith.
| davisr wrote:
| Yeah, Red Hat is free to terminate their business with
| you. And you are free to get that software from somewhere
| else. To quote again from the Selling Free Software
| article (linked above):
|
| > _With free software, users don 't have to pay the
| distribution fee in order to use the software. They can
| copy the program from a friend who has a copy, or with
| the help of a friend who has network access. Or several
| users can join together, split the price of one CD-ROM,
| then each in turn can install the software. A high CD-ROM
| price is not a major obstacle when the software is free._
|
| And so all these arguments, once all the misinformation
| is expelled, eventually boil down to this "it's in bad
| faith" schtick. Well, what is the faith of Rocky Linux
| when they are purveying a bug-for-bug clone of RHEL,
| selling support contracts on top of that, and directly
| competing with Red Hat's business?
|
| Trick question, because "faith" doesn't matter. It's all
| legal, and these are businesses. They are making business
| decisions. If one thinks that some corporation-- _any_
| corporation--owes "faith" or loyalty to their customers,
| then I got a bridge to sell you.
|
| You're free to hate Red Hat--no one is forcing anyone to
| _like_ them--but I hope you have some substance somewhere
| within, and can articulate why.
| starttoaster wrote:
| I feel that I've very rarely actually heard people
| complain that what Red Hat is doing is illegal. The
| overwhelming majority of negative opinion takes that I've
| heard has been, "Red Hat is trying to squeeze out money
| from users which is against the spirit of Linux." Which
| is to paraphrase the generally ineloquent takes I've
| heard on the matter. Though there's a point to be made
| there, why did Linus Torvalds start the Linux project? To
| make a free alternative to the expensive Unix of the
| time. I think that point falls a bit short, there are
| plenty of completely free Linux-based distributions out
| there to choose from. People just wanted an "Enterprise
| Linux" for free, which for years had been CentOS, and now
| Rocky/Alma Linux. People feel like they're going to have
| to change to a new OS or pay Red Hat money, which given
| the spirit of RHEL, change probably isn't something these
| people are accustom to.
|
| In short, I've heard of people being generally annoyed by
| the change, which may be fair. I haven't heard too many
| people seriously trying to make the claim that what Red
| Hat is doing is illegal.
| luma wrote:
| What a ridiculous take. There is a concerted attack on RH,
| but that's because RH is making a concerted attack on open
| source and was hoping we'd all just stand by and let it
| happen.
| davisr wrote:
| Will you please explain how Red Hat is making a concerted
| attack on open source?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| as a copyleft supporter + never-been-a-customer, what I
| see is .. there was an existing agreement with the
| "community" that spread across access, updates, license
| terms for the code, license terms for market exchange of
| services. IBM purchased RH and are now changing those
| relationships (maybe) staying within bounds of the code
| side, but definitely changes to the other parts.
|
| I _guess_ the there is money that can be extracted from
| customers for formal business agreements, because the
| companies that themselves have contractual relationships
| with their own customers, care about having paperwork
| intact; similarly with insurance or compliance contracts.
| At the same time, this is a squeeze play against at least
| two downstream distros, Alma and Rocky.
|
| So the attack is not complete, nor all in one place. I am
| interested to hear if this is accurate, from others with
| more skin in the game.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| 2023 is the year of the freeloaders finally getting
| demands to pay up or GTFO.
| LexiMax wrote:
| Red Hat is adhering to the letter of Open Source and Free
| Software. If this makes you unhappy, we need better
| definitions and licenses.
| jzb wrote:
| Hardly. Making RHEL harder to clone isn't an attack on
| open source. It may be Red Hat is slightly less open, but
| calling it a concerted attack on open source is silly.
|
| RHEL isn't a project. It's a product. All the actual work
| is still happening + being released (albeit less
| conveniently & not as timely). If Red Hat comes up with a
| fantastic new feature in RHEL the source will still be
| released - but it's up to others to reassemble it. That's
| hardly a concerted attack on open source. It's a jab at
| copycats.
| silisili wrote:
| Ubuntu tried that, with AFAIK limited success. Yet another
| player would inevitably fizzle.
|
| Distros for a lot of corps are sticky. People just want their
| RPMs/scripts/etc to work, and not have to pay Red Hat.
|
| Hopefully this changes more with time to a more best-man-wins
| system, as there are a lot of really good distros out there
| already.
| deaddodo wrote:
| > Ubuntu tried that, with AFAIK limited success. Yet another
| player would inevitably fizzle.
|
| They also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars shipping
| free install CDs to people all over the world and piggy-
| backing off of the Debian community's progress. All so they
| could (almost two decades later) put small dent into Red
| Hat's enterprise entrenchment.
|
| You would need to offer a significantly better product than
| RHEL, if you hoped to unseat them.
| sliken wrote:
| Why split the community? Alma has been helping to improve the
| upstream already, why double the work to improve two distros
| instead of one?
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