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I'm Done with Red Hat (Enterprise Linux)

jeffgeerling.com

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

#371

Post by diffeomorphism »

iscream26 wrote: post #237
diffeomorphism wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a quick note: debian stable has a new release every two years. So in the very worst case "decades" means like three years. The horror, the humanity, just remembering how software used to be three whole years ago causes me to shudder.

> just remembering how software used to be three whole years ago causes me to shudder Well, yes. I agree with that statement even though you made it facetiously. Backporting security fixes only for bugs that have made enough noise to warrant it is a horribly janky hack. And, just thinking about all the time that has been, in my opinion, wasted on custom code that Debian maintainers have had to write in order to backp…

Eh, there is huge demand for that static-ness, see windows ltsc, red hat, suse, debian stable, ubuntu lts etc. . Those customers actively don't want unstatic releases and pay lots of money for people to "waste" their time. So it doesn't matter whether it is a "janky hack" or what your personal opinion on that is.

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

#372

Post by nine_k »

phone8675309 wrote: post #350
adrian_b wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly this. Maintaining any kernel modules that are not in the Linux kernel tree is extremely painful. Almost every new kernel version breaks the older kernel modules, e.g. device drivers, by moving definitions between kernel headers, by adding or deleting function parameters, or by adding or deleting structure members. Most of these changes are very poorly documented, so anyone who does not follow daily the k…

The kernel devs argue that the goal should be to get in-tree so these changes are taken care of for you by the people driving the ABI changes, and I happen to agree with them in that regard.

Being admitted to the tree is not treevial, so to say, and may take years for more complex stuff.

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

#373

Post by happyjack »

I think this is just the beginning of a whole wave of open source behind paywall type of deal. Ubuntu put the Amazon store app in their distro, for Christ's sake.

The only downside I see to this (I don't care to get involved in the ethics or centos or "freeloading" debates/conversation) is gatekeeping / whistleblowing may get much harder. Granted, I don't care to or have ever looked at RHEL source code, but there is a lot of independent observers out there looking at code that runs servers and desktop software for very important things. Projects in my area that come to mind are scientific Linux and those spins that were directly supported by fermi and the like, and were based on RHEL. That code got put on all kinds of servers and desktops in very important applications.

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

#374

Post by hs86 »

phone8675309 wrote: post #350
adrian_b wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly this. Maintaining any kernel modules that are not in the Linux kernel tree is extremely painful. Almost every new kernel version breaks the older kernel modules, e.g. device drivers, by moving definitions between kernel headers, by adding or deleting function parameters, or by adding or deleting structure members. Most of these changes are very poorly documented, so anyone who does not follow daily the k…

The kernel devs argue that the goal should be to get in-tree so these changes are taken care of for you by the people driving the ABI changes, and I happen to agree with them in that regard.

Nearly every Android device ever made runs on an outdated kernel that can't be upgraded anymore. From a platform perspective, I think they made the wrong choice when the majority of their install base has turned into abandonware.

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

#375

Post by pabs3 »

ptoal wrote: post #324
Pet_Ant wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That pretty much sounds like freeloading to me. I'll bite. The value in RHEL was supposed to be in the support. CentOS helped establish and maintain RHEL as the defacto standard that everyone targetted and prevent the development of another. I mean if Debian becomes the default that actual reduces RHEL's value proposition for their paying customers. Reinforcing a platform's dominance is contributing value.

The value in RHEL is not just in the ability to call Red Hat for support. I submit that much more of the value of RHEL is in the packaging and maintenance processes. Selecting software, making sure it's enterprise ready, patching it, backporting fixes, QA and regression testing, etc. From my view inside the machine, Red Hat is still committed to an opensource development model, and I don't see that changing any time…

Interesting you link to opensource.com, I read that RedHat fired the entire team behind that site during the recent layoffs. I see that they might have found an alternative funding source though:

https://opensource.com/article/23/6/new-developments-opensou...

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

#376

Post by pabs3 »

LaSombra wrote: post #347
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Auto makers, TV makers, and others use GPL software left and right and they don't, or rarely, offer a easy way to obtain it. To be clear, if they don't provide source code of GPL software to customers, that's an actual outright violation of the license.

Correct. But don't you have to be an owner of their products to ask for the GPL'ed code?

No, anyone can definitely email them and ask for the code. If they refuse then thats a GPL violation and the copyright owner can sue them. The Software Freedom Conservancy are also working on a case using the legal theory that downstream recipients of GPLed code are third-party beneficiaries of the GPL agreement between the copyright holder and the redistributor, and as such, they are entitled to the source code and can sue for it. Hopefully they win, send them some donations towards legal costs if you want to help out.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

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

#377

Post by onedognight »

wink wrote: post #369
onedognight wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm personally impressed that Fedora is fully open source while being released by a for-profit company You shouldn’t be. Fedora is a community project. RedHat, while a huge contributor, does not maintain all the packages therein. In the end, RHEL is a fork of Fedora so it’s reasonable for the contributors to Fedora to annoyed by this change in the ability to make OS rebuilds of RHEL.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but that paints an overly simplified picture that ignores history. AFAIK RHEL came out of Red Hat Linux and Fedora came later, then at some point they made Fedora the upstream. But it has never been a "fork"[0] and there was no clean cut, it just transitioned around. [0]: OK, debatable - depends on the way you use the word fork. They're still Linux distros with common roots and packages w…

You are quite right to point out that I glossed over the RHL -> RHEL -> Fedora -> RHEL history. Thanks for clarifying. Yes, I was referring only to today’s community contribution workflow and what I considered the fair but now previous tacit agreement between RedHat and the community of spec patch contributors and packagers. We contribute to the packaging repo and RedHat makes that repo, even the “forked” RHEL branches, available in real-time, minus embargoed security fixes.

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

#378

Post by raShMan777 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #301
jrochkind1 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not just an issue of what "I" want, it's an issue of what the GPL is intended to do. If it doesn't result in the four freedoms, but the GPL allows it, then the GPL has failed to do what it was designed to do. From the text of the GPL itself: > Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive s…

> and try to prevent users from having the freedom to re-distribute the GPL software they received, with or without their own modifications. > refuse to have you as a customer if you exersize them, that's all. refuse to -continue- to have you as a customer, that is. you are still perfectly entitled to the source code of, and distribution thereof, what you purchased. The GPL doesn't create an obligation that you get c…

you've fallen for the arguments and ways of thinking of your employer which is not a good thing.

> ... to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things.

when i'm not allowed to be your customer anymore i don't have "the freedom to distribute copies". you're putting a limitation on me - that's not freedom. or specifically, regarding "that you receive source code or can get it if you want it": i can't get it if i want it when you're refusing me as a customer.

or citing https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html: > If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.

> The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you.

so: there is explicitly no limitation allowed on the receiving of the source code. Red Hat is putting a limitation on it.

so for me it's clear that Red Hat is in violation of GPL, at least how the GPL was meant. maybe it's not legally waterproof because it's not formulated in a way that's withstanding a legal case against Red Hat but still: it's meant that way. and i hope and pray that in such a case the GPL (and every other license in use) is updated specifically against that (mis)use case so that Red Hat can't do such abominations.

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

#379

Post by dralley »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #266
jzb wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also, as has been demonstrated, wildly impractical for Red Hat to continue exactly as before without others undermining its business. The thing is that everybody is only lobbying Red Hat to make concessions, but nobody's going after Oracle or Rocky or Alma or other clones to say "hey, cool it. Red Hat's trying to keep a business going here. You're undermining their business. If you keep this up, they're going to…

> It's also, as has been demonstrated, wildly impractical for Red Hat to continue exactly as before without others undermining its business. How was that demonstrated? RH became, famously, a billion-dollar company under the old model; why would continuing that not work?

CentOS never offered paid support. Rocky and Alma are trying to clone the whole package.

With that being said, I do think it falls into the category of "problems that probably wouldn't exist if CentOS was still around"

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

#380

Post by Nullabillity »

CrLf wrote: post #172

Why can't AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux drop their bug-for-bug compatibility commitment, and become stable distributions in their own right, based on CentOS Stream? I think this ecosystem would gain a lot from these distributions having their own identity, instead of being just 1:1 copies of RHEL. Change my mind. ;)

RHEL (and co) is largely a worthless trainwreck, technologically speaking. The values that the clones provide are "lets you run your old RHEL shitware from clueless vendors", and "lets you tell clueless customers that yes, against better judgement, they can run your software on their box-ticking RHEL systems".

Without RHEL compatibility, they are nothing. And without them, RHEL customers have no software to run and RHEL certification means nothing.

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