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Keeping Open Source Open

rockylinux.org

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Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#211

Post by Brian_K_White »

mackca wrote: post #171
Brian_K_White wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

Nope. Centos Steam is merely upstream of RHEL. GPL stipulates that when you give someone else a binary, you also give them the source to that binary, not something similar.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#212

Post by luma »

bonzini wrote: post #205
luma wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And without the GPL and all the code that came with it, there would be no RH. Rocky is making use of the same legal protection that RH is. Yes, RH spends more on development but they are doing so using the tools and existing codebase given to them, for free, by others. Rocky is doing something no different than what RH is doing, and if this is problematic for RH's hopes of sucking in a few $B, that's more a problem w…

> Rocky is doing something no different than what RH is doing Count the contributors to Rocky and RHEL. Then tell me how they can be "doing the same thing".

Taking open source code, some large part of which wasn’t authored by them, and bundling it for others? Same thing, with one notable difference: one of them is trying to extort everyone into paying for code they themselves got, in part or in whole, for free.

RH didn’t write all of linux, but they’re trying to put a price on it like they have.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#213

Post by omniglottal »

josephcsible wrote: post #177
pipo234 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Their business model allowed for greater ease to actually download and run unregistered/unlicensed copies, but higher costs with per-core licensing and clauses which required (i.e.) the per-core licensed OS plus the per-core licensed database if you wanted to use the latter. It was both easier to run for free and way more expensive to run in legal compliance.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#214

Post by Brian_K_White »

bonzini wrote: post #114
Brian_K_White wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the term for those paid actors placed in audiences to cheer for patently terrible things? Found one.

"Free software contributor of 25 years"?

RedHat themselves are a free software contributor of 25 years. So the point still stands.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#215

Post by mackca »

cesarb wrote: post #176
bonzini wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That repo would undercut the entire purpose of Rocky, which in their wiki state

> Rocky Linux is a community enterprise Operating System designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Enterprise Linux. [1]

[1] https://wiki.rockylinux.org/

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#216

Post by omniglottal »

piaste wrote: post #136
titannet wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's a large part of the appeal. "Binary compatible with RHEL" sells Rocky, not "another Linux".

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.

The majority of value comes from noncommercial activity with commercial interest. More songs sell after people hear it for free on the radio. More people buy a package only after the free samples. More license seats sell, but only after 100x more seats were free. Contribution to FOSS is not just the (SS) code, but the act of making/keeping it genuinely Free and Open. I don't care about McDonalds or Burger King when someone's going around with free hamburgers handouts - but if I'd been eating free Burger King burgers all along, it's a pretty clear choice where I'll go to buy my business burgers on the VC's dime. "Mere users" know very well, with less confirmation bias or sunk-cost rationale, what makes a good product. I trusted Red Hat more when they supported CentOS - these recent actions are clearly user-hostile and eschew the main value of FOSS being its network effects.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#217

Post by dev_daftly »

cesarb wrote: post #176
bonzini wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

At that point, why wouldn't the user just be using centos stream?

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#218

Post by piaste »

omniglottal wrote: post #216
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.

The majority of value comes from noncommercial activity with commercial interest. More songs sell after people hear it for free on the radio. More people buy a package only after the free samples. More license seats sell, but only after 100x more seats were free. Contribution to FOSS is not just the (SS) code, but the act of making/keeping it genuinely Free and Open. I don't care about McDonalds or Burger King when s…

First, you are making a completely unrelated argument. "Rocky helps sell RHEL": assuming it to be true, that is not a contribution to the open source world. It does not bring new software into the world. It is only a marketing help to IBM's balance sheet, and it helps only insofar as the open source world benefits from IBM making money from RHEL.

Second, the sole direct beneficiary of this hypothesis, IBM, apparently thinks it isn't true, and from what little comments they have released appears to have come to this conclusion after quite a bit of analysis.

Third, from my position of ignorance, I think IBM is probably correct. Why? Because the free burger in your analogy isn't Alma/Rocky, it's Fedora. A user who runs Fedora on workstations or small production servers is very likely to consider RHEL when choosing an enterprise distribution for large deployments, because they are already familiar with the ecosystem but they want stronger stability guarantees than Fedora Server. But a user who is running Alma/Rocky has much less reason to move to RHEL: they gain nothing but the license hassle.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#219

Post by newaccount74 »

mackca wrote: post #191
geerlingguy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote this a couple days ago, sums it up: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/gplv2-red-hat-and-you tl;dr - GPLv2 requires no restriction on free/paid recipients of binaries to also freely redistribute source code. Red Hat EULA says your subscription will be canceled if you redistribute the source code. Is that a restriction? A couple OSS laywers I spoke to said no. Common sense says it feels an awful lot like i…

I am amazed that multiple OSS lawyers gave you the same answer and you still don't believe them. > (what Fortune 500 company would like to have their Red Hat servers all go dead because some employee downloaded sources and uploaded them somewhere?) What does this mean? Are you implying that RHEL has some sort of kill switch per customer embedded in it's source code that someone could exploit? I am not following this…

Losing access to Redhat services won't immediately bring down your servers, but if you are unable to install security updates or new software without switching to a different distro they might be as good as dead.

Re: Keeping Open Source Open

#220

Post by bonzini »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #214
bonzini wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Free software contributor of 25 years"?

RedHat themselves are a free software contributor of 25 years. So the point still stands.

I was a hobbyist contributor for 10 years before joining Red Hat and still do occasional contributions to random projects I use.
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