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Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

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Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not true with Ubuntu Pro, which includes support for way more packages than RHEL, 10 thousand to be exact, and is much cheaper with more features like included kernel Livepatching.

I was referring exactly to Ubuntu Pro. They can support more packages for cheaper exactly because Red Hat won't ever have the same YOLO approach to support that Canonical has.

Did you try their support before coming to such opinions?

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand what game IBM is playing with Red Hat. And this is yet another part of the reason why I don't understand the big push for RedHat specific tooling. Podman comes up a lot. But, just like with everything RHEL it seems as though RedHat / IBM wants to be the Apple of Linux. I'm not a fan of that. I also don't believe IBM is a good steward of OSS based on how I've seen them try to sell it in the enterp…

> I don't understand the big push for RedHat specific tooling I'd wager it is driven by RH simply being "least worst" of the options which can be relied on to stick around long enough for enterprise users. Canonical are doing their best to screw the pooch with snap and similar nonsense, leaving the only other option being cobbling together a collection of tools from fly-by-night small projects - which might go full u…

Debian? Maybe SUSE?

Offhand I don't know enterprise level support for any of them, but I expect 'support' solutions are offered for all of them, even if not first party as an outside source.

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#233
Something worth mentioning, is that RHEL has a free Developer subscription, which includes 16 free dedicated devices.

The only issue is that many cloud providers don't have RHEL as an OS option, so you can't use it on your average cheap VPS.

That assumes you trust them not to do another rug pull (CentOS 8)

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand the big push for RedHat specific tooling I'd wager it is driven by RH simply being "least worst" of the options which can be relied on to stick around long enough for enterprise users. Canonical are doing their best to screw the pooch with snap and similar nonsense, leaving the only other option being cobbling together a collection of tools from fly-by-night small projects - which might go full u…

Debian? Maybe SUSE? Offhand I don't know enterprise level support for any of them, but I expect 'support' solutions are offered for all of them, even if not first party as an outside source.

SUSE is the other one I thought about mentioning - but I have only really seen it used with SAP.

A big part of the problem is ISVs refusing to test their software on more than just RH - which is not in itself a totally unreasonable position - but it does now give IBM too much clout.

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free implies open source. Open source does not imply free.

Name an open source license that you don’t consider free software, then. Note that “source available” (Business Software License, etc.) is not the same thing as “open source”.

Any non-copy left license is not free software.

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#236
post #137

I wonder if you're RedHat Subscriber and Customer and have access to the source what is the license ? In general though it is clear what RedHat does not seems to want to play Open Source game any more, at least when it comes to RHEL. Similar to Amazon/AWS RedHat seems to be moving to Open Source of convenience, where you have portions of your software Open Source when it helps your business, and not so much if it doe…

I'm interested in how IBM will try to refuse selling to Alma/Rocky/Oracle. You'd think those guys would already have a paid Red Hat subscription. The lawsuits between Oracle and IBM will be epic.

Most T&C have a clause allowing them to simply end any subscription without needing a clear reason. And I doubt rocky or almalinux want to start a cat and mouse game of opening accounts and these accounts getting banned by Red Hat.

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#237

Looks like this will be the end of the road for RHEL based distros for me... I love using AlmaLinux, always super stable and everything just works (at least for what I use it). I guess the next best option will be SUSE?

I suppose SUSE makes a lot of sense. Until some time ago SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and openSUSE were related, but not exactly the same. That changed with Leap 15.3, since which openSUSE is now based on the same packages as SLE. I've been personally using Tumbleweed on my personal devices and it's been great. I've not had a single issue with stability and almost always gotten extremely recent versions of software.

My main issue with SUSE is 3rd party support. For example docker doesn't have an official repo for openSUSE/SUSE, so you are stuck with their outdated version or Podman, which is also outdated.

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#238
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to call Rocky or Alma "dirtbags" (does anybody use that phrase these days?) but comparing what Red Hat does to Rocky is misleading. RHEL Clones: Take finished source code, rebuild, test, release. RHEL: Work upstream to develop features / submit features upstream before inclusion in RHEL, maintain specific versions of upstream, test hundreds of upstreams together to make sure they can be shipped together…

Rocky and Alma are doing exactly what CentOS pre-Stream did for _six_ years. Now they're frustrated that their decision to kill the CentOS idea didn't stick? Red Hat might have the legal right to gate their product, but it seems really slimy to build RHEL on the work of who knows how many people that publish it for free and then to put road blocks around their derivative. I don't really like reductionist blaming, but…

Take a look at this [1] and tell me one company that comes close. RH has surely made questionable decisions, and yes that seems to be increasing since IBM. But the heat they get is precisely because people are used to having free lunch and then feel it's been taken away. I don't see AWS, Oracle, and others getting the same treatment for benefiting immensely from open source, without contributing much in return. Would you rather have an industry dominated by RH-like companies or the others?

[1] https://www.redhat.com/en/about/open-source-program-office/c...

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Free Software and Open Source are essentially the same, No ... no they are not >>despite the philosophical differences. And those differences are HUGE and make them incompatible

> no they are not Yes they are, according to people who use both terms. All “free software” licenses are also “open source” licenses and vice versa.

Free Software is Open Source, but Open Source is not necessarily Free Software.

Re: Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

#240

I wish this encourages companies to look for more alternatives to RHEL and its clones. There are certainly cases where the stability of RHEL makes sense. But too often teams use them when they need latest versions of software, resulting in pointless packaging work. The worst part about the packaging work is, the tools used to create RPM packages is showing its age. RPM macros, the language for describing packages, is…

> I wish this encourages companies to look for more alternatives to RHEL and its clones. The issue is that there is no alternative. I'm not aware of any distro with its base and all its packages working seamlessly with SELinux enabled. Setting up SELinux in any other distro is, in my experience, an uphill battle. You need to become an SELinux expert to do so. > The worst part about the packaging work is, the tools us…

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