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Keeping Open Source Open

rockylinux.org

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Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#171

Post by mackca »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #47
mackca wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a thought, maybe Red Hat was being honest when they said that they were not under an obligation to make it easy for rebuilders, and that's it? Maybe they weren't out to immediately kill the clones because they know that they can't? We have actually heard very little communication from Red Hat most of it has been speculation from people on what they might or could do, but as you point out there are ways around…

They are actually under exactly that obligation. It's very explicit in the gpl not only what the terms are, but what their intent is, precisely so that no one can ever claim any other possible interpretation.

But according to Red Hat in the interview linked below all of RHEL is built from CentOS Stream, is having the source code available in CentOS Stream Gitlab not adhering to GPL ?

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#172

Post by captn3m0 »

lars_francke wrote: post #126

> One option is through the usage of UBI container images which are based on RHEL and available from multiple online sources (including Docker Hub). Using the UBI image, it is easily possible to obtain Red Hat sources reliably and unencumbered. We have validated this through OCI (Open Container Initiative) containers and it works exactly as expected. They have phrased this very carefully but there is a caveat here. U…

Another similar question I have is around license requirements for various packages. How many of the packages in RHEL are actually GPL/copyleft, where RH must share sources?

Could it decide to stop sharing source for non-copyleft packages next?

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#173

Post by mst »

nhanlon wrote: post #165
totallywrong wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing, Rocky simply can't grow in that way, because they're not trying to do their own thing, they just aim for bug-for-bug compatibility. They are not pushing out new code and helping advance the ecosystem.

Except, we are?

Then it may be worth asking yourselves "how do we get this fact publicised more widely?" since I don't recall reading about Rocky's contributions either.

(I'm not a heavy user of RHish distros, mind, I only ever anticipate using Rocky if somebody else already decided to deploy a particular project on it so you probably shouldn't put significant energy into whether -I- notice, but there seems to be a perception issue here that's sufficiently widespread that you might get a decent ROI in terms of community growth from doing something about it and I'm pretty much always in favour of community growth whether I anticipate being one of the happy users of the project or not)

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#174

Post by luma »

bonzini wrote: post #148
account42 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to have been able to fund development before. So what changed? Just the new corporate overlord that wants a return on their investment?

Quoting Reddit: "The problem of rebuilders has been around forever. Things heated up a couple of months ago when we detected what we think was a continued bad-faith action from one of the rebuilders, not on the code/engineering side but on the commercial/money making side of their house. That's as far as I'll go publicly. After that it was just a matter of discussion on what to do about it, so we landed on the announ…

Post-IBM RH always falls back on this: we took a free operating system and made billions from selling it to others, and now we're extra-mad that somebody else is doing the same.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#175

Post by bonzini »

geerlingguy wrote: post #159
bonzini wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying you don't have any material on AWX? https://www.youtube.com/live/iKmY4jEiy_A

That video has earned me a grand total of $500. And most of that earning happened a couple years ago. I have never run AWX for any of my own projects (or deployed it for any clients), so I have not materially benefitted from it in that way either. I can guarantee you that video and my short chapter on AWX in my book have earned Red Hat many, many multiples of that through companies adopting an AAP subscription. I als…

Sorry about that. I should have tried to keep the conversation level higher instead of playing with the time zone difference.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#176

Post by cesarb »

bonzini wrote: post #99
jillesvangurp wrote: post #92

The solution here is forking and accepting that IBM just doesn't want to share. The whole value of the Red Hat eco system is lots of people using the down stream variants. Actual direct licensees of Red Hat are not where most of the action is. The value creation is actually distributed across the ecosystem. People encounter issues, report them, and fixes are distributed. If you break that cycle and get IBM out of the…

> IBM will grumble a bit and then ultimately join the foundation because their alternative will be just writing off the investment they made in Red Hat and watch from the sidelines how most of the ecosystem stops depending on IBM's Red Hat. You could have said that if they switched to using CentOS Stream, and that would even have been my favorite outcome as a Red Hat employee. However, Rocky Linux is neither a siblin…

> It's a debranded clone that by definition cannot even have a single bugfix that isn't in RHEL.

Not necessarily. They could easily have an optional repository for "bugfixes that aren't in RHEL". Those who want bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL for some reason could simply not enable that repository.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#177

Post by josephcsible »

pipo234 wrote: post #163
bonzini wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a view in which rebuild they saw bad-faith action from; but I have doubts something has changed at Oracle.

Disclaimer: I'm an ex-oracle employee. Making millions on DB software only withhold RedHat the pocket change they absolutely deserve is absolutely pathetic. Even with the helpful support and hand holding of then co-workers, I found that Oracle's unbreakable linux is a close to useless rip off, littered with subtle gotchas, pitfalls and please-insert-yet-another-license-key-here. Installing, tuning and maintaining an…

> Oracle's unbreakable linux is a close to useless rip off, littered with subtle gotchas, pitfalls and please-insert-yet-another-license-key-here.

I've never heard of Oracle Linux needing a license key anywhere before. Can you provide a link to somewhere that talks more about that?

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#178

Post by piaste »

raesene9 wrote: post #169
piaste wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the reasons, Rocky Linux does not contribute a single line of useful code to the world. Red Hat has benefited from previous contributors, but then added a ton of open source work of their own. RH are open source contributors; Rocky Linux are mere users.

Out of curiosity, what makes you say that Rocky Linux have never contributed a single line of code to the world? Looking at their GH profile https://github.com/rocky-linux seems to show some public repos with code in them?

I'm trusting Carl George's words here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/redhat/comments/14jq5i7/red_hats_co...

Those Rocky Linux repos are either not code (website, wiki, etc.), and a few are tools for repackaging/rebranding an existing Linux distro's source code bug-for-bug - an activity which, by definition, does not and cannot offer anything more than the original code already did.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#179

Post by piaste »

nhanlon wrote: post #167
piaste wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the reasons, Rocky Linux does not contribute a single line of useful code to the world. Red Hat has benefited from previous contributors, but then added a ton of open source work of their own. RH are open source contributors; Rocky Linux are mere users.

TIL Nothing I write is useful.

Carl George, a principal SWE at Red Hat, claimed to have found exactly one code contribution from the Rocky Linux or Alma projects back to RHEL - a two-line bugfix in a .spec post script.

https://old.reddit.com/r/redhat/comments/14jq5i7/red_hats_co...

(Which is only what I, an ignoramus, would expect - if the project aims for "bug-for-bug compatibility", then it doesn't really gain much value from fixing bugs, while a fork would.)

If you think his evaluation of Alma/Rocky contributions is incorrect or incomplete, I'd be interested in hearing your POV as a Rocky engineer.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#180

Post by throw_a_grenade »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #88

There’s one thing I don’t understand. They keep saying GPL this, GPL that. Meanwhile there has been this huge push to use permissive licenses for like two decades now, because GPL bad (you don’t have to go far, just look at any discussion around licensing here on HN). There’s nothing in .spec files that says they have the same license as the software they cover. Fedora contributions are required to come with a MIT-li…

No, it's the other way around: GPL requires that all pieces required to compile the binary (the exact binary that triggers requirement for distributing source) needs to come along. IIUC if they distribute source as SRPMs, the .spec needs to be included and without limitations (legal or technical) that would prevent user from rebuilding the original software.
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