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Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

phoronix.com

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Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#91

Post by garbagecoder »

fragmede wrote: post #82
brnt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the idea, but Red Hat is making that ever more difficult. And I can understand why. Why would you build your world on such shifting sands, when all those forks could pitch in on Debian long term support instead? Or just shell out for RHEL?

Because it hasn't hurt Apple to have their proprietary garden and Red Hat has learned from that. Once you're big enough, people are going to do the work to support your nonsense (eg Asahi Linux) and build their world on your shifting sand. So why would you, as Red Hat, put in extra effort and not be capricious and hard to work with? It just costs you money that you apparently don't have to spend. Call it the Elon Mus…

The gratuitous anti-Apple remark. Walled gardens are at least as old as video game consoles and I can run whatever I want on macOS even if I can’t on my phone.

Somehow, whenever anyone spots a flaw in the FOSS model, it’s Apple’s fault. This is what people wanted, this is libre. Red Hat can sell for money. Remember, kids, CC violates a freedom!

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#92

Post by creatonez »

Twirrim wrote: post #78
balou23 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debian LTS only has 5 years of support, without guarantees, on a volunteer basis. RHEL has 10 years of support, with the option of 13 years. I like debian, but sometimes you have to have long term support. And I fully understand why you wouldn't support 13 year old software without getting paid for it.

> Debian LTS only has 5 years of support, without guarantees, on a volunteer basis. Less than that if you care about security patches. Debian's Security team stop after ~18-24 months, at which point it transitions off to, quote, "Debian LTS is not handled by the Debian Security team, but by a separate group of volunteers and companies interested in making it a success.".

In practice I don't think this is a huge problem. It seems the Debian LTS team only gives up on maintaining packages once it becomes nearly completely impractical to do so.

For example, here are the unsupported packages in Debian 10. These are the sorts of packages that don't get included with RHEL or SLES in the first place. https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debian-security-support/-/bl...

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#93

Post by maffydub »

tsimionescu wrote: post #42
maffydub wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any other references on this? It seems that it all hinges on what a "modified version" of Ubuntu is. Is redistributing their packages outside of a full disk image a modified version?

Don't have more sources , but my understanding is that Canonical considers that anything other than downloading an Ubuntu disk image from Canonical and hosting that on your own site constitutes a modification. So, for example, if you take an Ubuntu image, change the default username and password, and re-export it as a new ISO, you have modified the Ubuntu image and can't redistribute it with the *buntu trademarks unl…

Thanks! I agree with your reading that changing the default username and password and re-exporting would count as modification.

However, it seems there are plenty of Ubuntu .deb mirrors out there... and there are even instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Debmirror.

Your previous post said "you can't redistribute Ubuntu binaries or sources as-is, since they contain registered trademarks of Canonical" (emphasis mine), which I think isn't quite true - there has to be some modification involved to fall foul of Ubuntu's IPR.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#94

Post by geerlingguy »

cramjabsyn wrote: post #28
Twirrim wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "problem" with Debian is the lifecycle. You get about a 12-24 months at most of security patches, and that's effectively it (the patching model after that is unreliable). That means you've got to allocate resources for upgrading/validating far more regularly than you would with other distributions. Depending on the size of your business, that could get really expensive and disruptive, for negligible benefit. Cano…

I tend to agree, if Debian embraced a longer term support model it would attract a lot of enterprise deployments. RHEL is something like 10 years while Debian is more like 2, 3 if you push it.

And that is why RHEL is so valuable in enterprise.

When you see people still running PHP 5, or Python 2, and not for tiny little nonprofits either... there are large sums of money being thrown over the wall to support that.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#95

Post by tsimionescu »

maffydub wrote: post #93
tsimionescu wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have more sources , but my understanding is that Canonical considers that anything other than downloading an Ubuntu disk image from Canonical and hosting that on your own site constitutes a modification. So, for example, if you take an Ubuntu image, change the default username and password, and re-export it as a new ISO, you have modified the Ubuntu image and can't redistribute it with the *buntu trademarks unl…

Thanks! I agree with your reading that changing the default username and password and re-exporting would count as modification. However, it seems there are plenty of Ubuntu .deb mirrors out there... and there are even instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Debmirror . Your previous post said "you can't redistribute Ubuntu binaries or sources as-is , since they contain registered trademarks of Canonical" (e…

Oops, you're right, I misspoke - I was thinking about the modification step as a given, but that's not what I said. Apologies for the confusion.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#96

Post by Kwpolska »

brnt wrote: post #54
Kwpolska wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want Debian, just use Debian. The idea behind CentOS and its successors is to have a free distro that is bug-for-bug compatible with RHEL, so that you can support users of your software who are on RHEL, or use software supported only on RHEL for free.

That's the idea, but Red Hat is making that ever more difficult. And I can understand why. Why would you build your world on such shifting sands, when all those forks could pitch in on Debian long term support instead? Or just shell out for RHEL?

> Why would you build your world on such shifting sands, when all those forks could pitch in on Debian long term support instead?

Because RHEL is considered a standard in the enterprise circles, and software may not support distros that aren’t RHEL.

> Or just shell out for RHEL?

Why would you do that for smaller projects? Why would you do that for ephemeral containers? Why would you do that if you don’t care about RHEL support but want RHEL’s stability or are tied to RHEL for some reason?

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#97

Post by rurban »

NegativeK wrote: post #9
traceroute66 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now with the release of Debian 12 ("bookworm"), Debian is now sufficiently up-to-date for most users.

Has RHEL ever been about being up to date? I thought their selling point was maintaining ancient ass software.

You are mixing that up with Debian

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#98

Post by Tepix »

elteto wrote: post #72
Tepix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RedHat is unlikely to do that. After all, why would anyone still use RedHat if their competetive advantage (i.e. open source) is lost? As a RedHat customer i want to be able to take their packages (which include the open source software and their changes to it) and rebuild them from source with both their and my patches whenever i feel like doing so.

If you are a paying customer you can get the SRPMs, so nothing has/will change for you. This will definitely be one of their possible next steps, as they seem bent on locking down RHEL. I see people frequently disparage the GPL here in HN and promote less encumbered alternatives. Well, _this_ is why the GPL is important, and it will become even more relevant in the future.

The parent poster was suggesting that RedHat stops releasing the non GPL source code: "Red Hat currently releases all sources as if they were GPL sources, but that may stop in the future."

This would mean no more SRPMs.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#99

Post by Tepix »

tsimionescu wrote: post #29
Tepix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RedHat is unlikely to do that. After all, why would anyone still use RedHat if their competetive advantage (i.e. open source) is lost? As a RedHat customer i want to be able to take their packages (which include the open source software and their changes to it) and rebuild them from source with both their and my patches whenever i feel like doing so.

Their competitive advantage compared to whom, Windows? Their competitive advantage compared to other Linux distros or to the BSDs is enterprise support, not being open source (all of them are). Apple doesn't even sell their OS at all. So who are you comparing RH to?

Yes, the competitive advantage when compared to non-open source operating systems.

If they stop publishing non-GPL source code, they have a distinct disadvantage when compared to open source alternatives.

Re: Rocky Linux shares how they may continue to obtain the RHEL source code

#100

Post by Tepix »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #71
Tepix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RedHat is unlikely to do that. After all, why would anyone still use RedHat if their competetive advantage (i.e. open source) is lost? As a RedHat customer i want to be able to take their packages (which include the open source software and their changes to it) and rebuild them from source with both their and my patches whenever i feel like doing so.

>After all, why would anyone still use RedHat if their competetive advantage (i.e. open source) is lost? Who do you think finds that a competitive advantage? What company is saying "You know what, we can use Red Hat spend millions and worst case we just hire some devs to continue the work?" I doubt any are. Their competitive is what support so many packages and companies can not worry about issues. Open source has no…

In my experience there are edge cases every now and then where a company needs a custom solution and achieves it by patching open source software.

The RedHat support will fix issues, they will not add new features only you need.

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