I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux) • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#151

Post by FireBeyond » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #141

jrochkind1 wrote: post #15

The Software Freedom Conservancy legal analysis of RHEL and GPL that OP links to is the most interesting part to me. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis...

Wishy-washy language there about skirting lines doesn't make that a very good analysis. You can use others' GPL code in your products and charge money for it. You have to "publish" the GPL'ed sources (and any sources of yours that derive from GPL'ed code) on demand -- publish as in: if someone asks, you have to give it to them, but there's no requirement that there be a public download page or anything like that, and…

Yup. It goes from "These businesses are abusing the GPL and software freedom!" to "Well, they are following the GPL but that doesn't result in what I want!"

This is why we have GPL 2 and 3, for example.

Disclaimer: I work at Red Hat, but nowhere near RHEL.

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#152

Post by peoplearepeople » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

Redhat will simply find themselves not supported if none of the open source projects can run CI against their distro.

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#153

Post by josephcsible » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

throwawayyy9237 wrote: post #128

I hope I'm not misunderstanding this, but isn't the current arrangement perfectly valid under GPL? GPL states: - If I provided _modified_ binaries - I also have to provide the sources That's what's happening now for people that can download the binaries. What happened before was: - _Anyone_ could download the sources (Not a GPL requirement). So, now, IIUC if you can download the binaries you can download the sources.…

The issue with the GPL isn't about being able to download source code. It's unambiguous that they are complying with that requirement. The issue is the sentence "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." They're violating that by disallowing the people they do give the source code to from publicly mirroring it (on pain of terminating their contract).

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#154

Post by egberts1 » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

Embrace, engulf, extinguish.

Looking at you as well, systemd and Pottering.

I am an embedded engineer and this act of engulfing is also stifling me and my effort to provide a reliable and easy-to-maintain Linux/GNU away from the likes of RedHat.

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#155

Post by vbezhenar » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #140

freedomben wrote: post #89

I don't think this sort of emotional, loose-facted "hot take" style response is real constructive. I'm unhappy about this decision by Red Hat, and am also very concerned about the trajectory RH is on. For the first time in well over a decade I'm re-evaluating which ecosystem to base all my work (and the company(ies) for who I make decisions). I don't believe that Red Hat's leadership cares a whole lot about open sour…

Regardless whether Red Hat said it or not, why not call it what it is? Not every CentOS user was a freeloader and the same is true for its spiritual successors. However, a large majority of CentOS users were not contributing back in any way to CentOS or the larger FLOSS community. Secondly, a substantial chunk of those users used CentOS because they wanted all the benefits of Red Hat EL without paying for it. That pr…

License situation is still unclear to me. GPL explicitly does not allow to forbid further redistribution. RedHat does that. I'm not a lawyer, but from a layman PoV this seems sketchy.

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#156

Post by jchw » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

JeremyNT wrote: post #125

I'm sympathetic to Jeff's position, but this is I believe the third post from this individual about this topic to reach the HN front page in the last week. At this point I feel like there's no more blood to be wrung from this stone. Jeff is free to take his ball and go home with it - just like Red Hat, in fact - but I think we're past the "this is notable news" phase and another post from Jeff about his frustrations…

Personally, I don't mind it. It's a big deal in the world of open source, and as someone who was mostly uninitialized about CentOS and RHEL after all these years, I find these posts somewhat enlightening, even this one. I'll grant you that it's probably not necessary to have three posts or have them all go to HN's frontpage, but all-in-all it doesn't seem like such a big deal either. The people voted, I suppose.

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#157

Post by 2b3a51 » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

poo-yie wrote: post #7

I'm surprised at all of the drama surrounding Red Hat's decisions. Red Hat is a for-profit company and not a charity. They (Red Hat) don't make any claims of offering RHEL for free to the whole world. If you want that, Canonical's Ubuntu may be a better option for you. Am I missing something?

Perhaps the reaction has something to do with a product for which the USP is reliability and stability changing the terms on which the product is available very suddenly and without warning twice in the last few years?

The clones did contribute mind share to RHEL. That will now be lost. We don't know what the consequences of that will be.

PS: I think people should support Debian. A non-profit project with clear charitable status in many jurisdictions and a fully public development process. No sudden shifts if you use stable in production (or even oldstable).

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#158

Post by _ea1k » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #91

LaSombra wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red Hat offers free subscriptions to developers. How doesn't it help in this case?

The sign-up path isn’t clear: When I signed up, it took a day for all the parts of Red Hat’s infrastructure to become aware of me. That delay wasn’t made clear at the time. It expires every 12 months, and you have to take action to renew it, again with a not-very-clear path. It’s not possible to renew early (at least, I didn’t see how). It adds extra friction: You don’t get a custom ISO or the like. Instead, you have…

It is worth adding that they can also take this way or reduce it at any time.

It isn't trustworthy in the same way that the downstream rebuilds were.

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#159

Post by nazgulsenpai » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

What about the small companies that started using CentOS then grew to needing enterprise support and switched to Red Hat? I'm sure they considered this before making the change, but I always assumed this was at least part of the strategy. Now there will be no free entry point that can be converted with a simple repo-swap.

Re: I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

#160

Post by neverartful » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #121

LaSombra wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that and it feels like Red Hat never contributed a single line of code to any FOSS projects or doesn't hire any developers to work on FOSS.

It doesn't really matter if they've contributed or not. They still need to abide by the terms of the license.

In what way is Red Hat not abiding by the license? My understanding is that Red Hat is making the source code available to their users via their customer portal. I don't think that they have an obligation to make their source code available to non-users.