May I remind everyone that these weird steps that the open source community is doing are not the result of Redhat per se but are a result of IBM that wants his investment back.
Keeping Open Source Open
51–60 of 253 posts
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain what you think Rocky are giving back to the community?
CentOS? A usable downstream distribution? Further: https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/has-red-hat-just-killed-rock...
And why does it matter, anyway? The GPL exists for a reason and RedHat knew what they were getting themselves into.
It's just so stupid people are gonna have to jump silly hoops to get the source code.
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#53I really hope sanity breaks out at Red Hat.
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The public cloud route is pretty elegant. Red Hat is restricting source code to subscribers only, so Rocky contributors will just subscribe for an hour at a time when they need to download source code. There’s no way for Red Hat to stop this without terminating all public cloud licensing everywhere.
I'm not a lawyer, but that's definitely not their only recourse here. Lawyers are not going to look at this coordinated attempt to subvert a EULA and say "oh well, nothing we can do here".
[deleted]
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#55If RedHad don't like what Centos (of old) does, then why do they still insist on mooching off of GPL software? If they don't accept the terms of GPL, good news! They don't have to use it!
Surely such hard working and deserving guys could write their own software and sell it honestly without needing to debase themselves by stealing from filthy hippies.
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#56> "Consequently, we now have to gather the source code from multiple sources, including CentOS Stream, pristine upstream packages, and RHEL SRPMs." Oh no! How dare they make us do the work? It feels tiring to hear these arguments that they must be provided with everything bundled neatly with no questions asked and no contributions to the actual upstreams.
Yeah, that's not what any of us are saying. We already _do_ a lot of work. This is _more_ work.
So who should be doing that work? On whose payroll? Should Red Hat engineers be spending their time de-branding and wrapping things up neatly for rebuilders to use? Note that every minute they spend on that is a minute they're not spending on adding features, fixing bugs, or backporting fixes to the last ten years' worth of releases. You know, the things they're actually obligated to do by their contracts with customers. Why should they continue letting free work for non-contractual partners - who seem increasingly inclined to be competitors - displace or delay that?
This is the rebuilders' burden, and always has been. It should be their engineers doing that work, just as with other open-source project. If you want to rebuild TensorFlow or React, slap on your own branding, maybe sell support or consulting for it or enable others[1] to do so, do you think those teams will go out of their way to repackage stuff for your convenience? That's above and beyond common open-source practice. Expecting Red Hat to continue going above and beyond forever just seems awfully entitled.
[1] "Team members don't do X but sponsors do" deserves its own thread.
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The public cloud route is pretty elegant. Red Hat is restricting source code to subscribers only, so Rocky contributors will just subscribe for an hour at a time when they need to download source code. There’s no way for Red Hat to stop this without terminating all public cloud licensing everywhere.
I'm not a lawyer, but that's definitely not their only recourse here. Lawyers are not going to look at this coordinated attempt to subvert a EULA and say "oh well, nothing we can do here".
> I'm not a lawyer, but that's definitely not their only recourse here.
Agreed - Rocky Linux probably has other options, but these seem like decent ones.
> Lawyers are not going to look at this coordinated attempt to subvert a EULA and say "oh well, nothing we can do here".
It does seem like Red Hat wants to subvert the GPL, but I'm not sure who would be suing them for doing so.
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#58> 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. > Another method that we will leverage is pay-per-use public cloud…
I wonder if Red Hat will provides sources for the rpms in the containers (or actually installed) and nothing else.
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#59I was poking around the Rocky Linux website, and wondering where to download the latest source code for Rocky 9.2? Let's say IBM decides not to burn up the ecosystem, will Oracle / Alma start using the source that Rocky exfiltrates? Related question, as a Red Hat subscriber can I still distribute Red Hat ISO and source code? It seems like I should be able to distribute ISO images and source after obtaining them.. but…
Red Hat can't stop you from exercising your rights under the GPL to redistribute the code. You also can't compel them to do business with you. They've structured their support agreements such that if you do exercise your rights under the GPL they will stop supporting you (and decline to offer you future subscriptions). The value proposition for RHEL is ostensibly support (and a "throat to choke", for whatever that's…
Much like GPLv3 was written to counter tivoization, I’d love a GPLv4 to kill what RedHat is doing before they do irreparable the entire free software ecosystem.
Re: Keeping Open Source Open
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's mostly from people with a commercial interest. I can't take Rocky seriously when they are selling support for a thing they don't make, but demand it's readily provided for free and no hassle.
According to Rocky Linux devs they aren't: https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/vague-accusations-about-shad...
Developers? What do they develop? If they have upstream contributions great, but if they are just adjustments to their build pipeline they are not developing... That is tweaking.
Read this post from Carl who works on CentOS and Streams: https://old.reddit.com/r/redhat/comments/14jq5i7/red_hats_co...