An exceptionally well explained rant that I find myself in total agreement with.
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Jeff is 100 spot on. IBM/Redhat is really shooting themselves in the foot for some short term profits.
This was his first reaction, just as satisfying to read: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/dear-red-hat-are-you-dumb
I’m so annoyed with this. We were using CentOS, which was effectively killed, then I did a lot of research and spent time moving everything over the AlmaLinux.
Having to now do it all again another time is so frustrating; the only pragmatic long-term option is to bite the bullet and get things working on Debian.
I can’t believe how many people fundamentally misunderstand the spirit behind the GPL.
It helps to consider “the software” as a single snapshot in time, with the GPL’s intention that the consumer may make their own fixes, rebuild, and redistribute. Check.
Remember: “Free as in freedom, not free as in beer.” Selling open source software has always been explicitly allowed, as long as you make the source available to those who receive it. Check.
What the GPL does NOT provide is guaranteed access to maintenance and future versions of said software. Again, it applies to a snapshot, as delivered.
In a nutshell, the customer receives open source everything they FOR A PARTICULAR VERSION.
I see no problem — either in spirit or letter — in Redhat’s approach here.
This is debatable. The GPL allow redistribution of a given version of the software without additional restriction. If the user receives that copy knowing in advance that redistribution will lead to retaliatory actions this can be treated as an additional restriction.
The GPL requires that you do not put additional limits on a user’s rights to redistribute.
Saying “you have the right, but we’ll cut ties” isn’t really in keeping with the spirit of that.
I suspect, if it ever ended up in court, they’d agree yhat there’s no guarantee of access to future versions, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a shitty and cynical take that flies against what FOSS has traditionally stood for.
We can agree to disagree. “The Software” was delivered, source included. And you as end consumer are free to redistribute and maintain as you wish.
However, I cannot see any contract law judgement that would force continuation of a subscription model on the vendor (in perpetuity!) if they do not wish to remain under contract.
Guess they really wanted to be the Reddit of Linux
2019-07-09: The death knell of Red Hat
Honestly, I am not surprised. Red Hat’s parent company IBM is an absolute joke. Almost as bad as Oracle.
Don’t worry, Redhat was garbage anyway. It’s going to pale in comparison to Watson Enterprise Linux.
I dont understand how redhat is going to police this policy of “we’ll keep source code open to paying customers, but reserve the right to cancel a customer that shares said source”.
Toss in GUID’s or randomly place identity files to anyone that downloads the RHEL source hoping they get accidentally published as an identifying attribute if someone does decide to publish it elsewhere.
This is not about an individual sharing the source. This is about near verbatim copy distributions like Oracle Linux. And they can easily see who contributes code from RHEL into those distributions.
I think Jeff has a point that a Linux distribution is a collective effort, but I honestly don’t see why he can’t just target Fedora which is for all intends and purposes the testing release for RHEL and most of the development work that Red Hat does goes directly into Fedora. RHEL adds little of value to that other than some compliance BS for large companies.
This said it all perfectly. Think I’ll check out more of his videos.
If you like raspberry pis, SBCs, or Linux you’re in for a decent time. Although he did get a bit of flack for his Eben Upton interview. Though I felta lot of that was overblown.
