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I've been watching this "crisis" unfold since the original announcement from Red Hat and I think most people are. Not giving Red Hat carte blanche here but fundamentally they are one of the largest contributors to open source, they're not violating the GPL (yet), and they're unhappy with Oracle and VC funded rebuilders using Red Hat's brand value for a free ride. Anyone with a foot in the business world at least kind of understands their position.

What seems to have happened is "influencers," including many who have no skin in the game and shallow takes, have seen an opportunity in this topic to make a few bucks by churning out populist clickbait. It's a discussion about business and licensing which has been perverted into a culture war. As usual all the nuance is lost and the loudest personalities have ended up dominating. /barf

I'd view it more similarly to the whole Reddit fiasco.

There is a valid problem. The business has tried to solve that immediate problem without worrying about the knock on.

In this case blocking large funded competitors ripping off your work is valid. The way they've approached it has cut off a large number of valid use cases that have arguably driven adoption of RHEL in the first place.

In Reddits case for profit firms were hammering APIs and costing Reddit significant amounts. 3rd party apps also cut off ad revenue. A flat high fee cuts off those 3rd party apps entirely when your own product has significant deficiencies it upsets your most valuable users (contributors and mods).

In both cases there was potential for a more nuanced change that works for both sides.

I don't think Red Hat's been quite as thoughtless as Reddit, but you have a good point. Personally I have a vested interest in FOSS, I'm a big proponent of it and I operate a business around it, consulting/integrating/extending etc.

From my view, Red Hat is a company which is doing something similar and as long as they comply with the GPL (which in fairness may be a bit of an open question with Red Hat now, but we'll see), then I don't really care what else they do, they have a business to run, and in the grand scheme they're still one of the good guys compared to companies with proprietary business models.

There is a lot of outcry among the "FOSS community" which frequently seem to be people that I don't relate to (and some don't really contribute to any FOSS projects or run any FOSS businesses, they just make content). This reminds me of the time that Canonical added an Amazon lens to Unity. It was in poor taste, there was some subset of the FOSS community which went apeshit over it. It took me all of twenty seconds to uninstall that lens and move on with my life and I continue to wish Canonical all the best in terms of making money in a GPL-compliant way. Businesses sometimes do things that are in poor taste but as long as they continue to contribute they are still part of the team as far as I'm concerned.

One of the biggest problems with open source, is no one wants to pay for it. It is time to charge for great work and people need to stop expecting excellent software being delivered to their doorstep for free. The whole idea behind open source is knowledge sharing, not free work.

It's especially funny when some people complaining about this probably make 200k a year in silicon valley, then think that someone else should work for free to supply their company with software that they can use to make a profit.

Same here, doubling down with Red-Hat on this.

Those that don't want to pay have lots of options on Distrowatch.

Even if they want an Enterprise RPM Linux, why not SUSE?

Red Hat share everything they do, the entitlement stinks.

> Besides, FSF/GNU never said that you can't charge money for FOSS or that the source code must be published for anyone in some git repository.

The issue is, IMO, that they are saying they are terminating access to those publishing those sources. I don’t know if that goes against the letter of the GPL (IANAL), but I’d say it certainly goes against the spirit, they are denying their users a freedom to publish those sources, in a way.

No, I don't think it is against GPL, certainly not the letter, and not even the spirit. GPL gives you source. GPL does not give you stream of updates.

> GPL does not give you stream of updates.

What? GPL gives you the source if you receive the compiled form. When the source changes, you get those as well if you receive the compiled form.

Edited in if you receive the compiled form twice for clarity.

>When the source changes, you get those as well.

No, it does not say this. It says that if someone gets a piece of software, a binary for example, they must be given the source code it was built upon on request. It does not say that they have to receive all future source code updates even if they don't get future versions of the software.

Yes, that is my point. They terminate your subscription (stopping you from receiving "the binary"), for re-publishing the source code which you are allowed to re-publish, but they don’t want you to.

Terminating the subscription and preventing you from receiving the binary is Red Hat's prerogative. GPL does not say why Red Hat should not do so, and philosophically, it also does not contradict any software freedom.

Of course it is, legally. But they are threatening termination specifically to prevent people from exercising their freedom. How that can’t be seen as violating the spirit, I don’t know.

People are not prevented from exercising their freedom.

Sure, not legally. Just de-facto. Or to use some reductio ad absurdum, you can exercise all your freedoms, but you will be killed for it, is not very free, is it?

That comparison doesn't work in exactly the way that illustrates Red Hat's compliance with the GPL.

Yes, if the consequence of excercising freedom is death(or imprisonment) then you aren't actually free, because killing (or imprisonment) stops you from excercising freedom. Red Hat terminating your license does not stop you from excercising the freedom the GPL gives you.

Okay, I can see that argument. So let me rephrase: "You can exercise freedom 4, but only if you never use any updated version of this software again", would you say that leaves you just as free as normal GPL software does? A licence like that would not even be GPL compatible, but Red Hat is essentially prescribing just that in a roundabout way.

I don't see how that is equivalent to what Red Hat is doing. They never restrict your freedom 4 with their EULA. Only availability of future binaries. All already received binaries have their licenses intact and unrestricted, even if you break the EULA.

To clarify, you think a license saying "You can exercise freedom 4, but only if you never use any updated version of this software again" is just as free and GPL compatible?

No, I'm saying your formulation doesn't match Red Hat's EULA.

How? You just said it does. Assume I’m dumb and explain to me the difference, please.

No, I didn't. I'm not sure where you get that from?

Anyway, Red Hat's EULA doesn't restrict freedom 4. You asserted an alternative formulation where it does infringe to be equivalent.

I reject that equivalence assertion. Does that make it clear?

What I don’t get is the difference between

> They never restrict your freedom 4 with their EULA. Only availability of future binaries. All already received binaries have their licenses intact and unrestricted, even if you break the EULA.

And

> You can exercise freedom 4, but only if you never use any updated version of this software again

To me those seem 100% equivalent in what they do, I’m asking you to explain the difference which is obvious to you, but not to me.

I never say already received binaries have their licence violated. I actually never ever said the licence is violated at all, that was in my premise before the IANAL part.

Your version rescinds freedom 4 upon using an updated version. Red Hat's EULA doesn't do that.

Okay, so you are saying you are just nitpicking? This is still the same in pretty much every way:

You can exercise freedom 4, but only if you never use any version of this software released after exercising that freedom.

I'm not nitpicking, what I've said is the difference between GPL compliance and not. This next version of yours is different to Red Hat's EULA in the same way.

Yes, you are. I repeatedly said it’s about the spirit, not about some lawyer compliance stuff. You either tell me how our versions differ for the user of the software effectively, or you don’t need to bother answering, I won’t.

The spirit of the GPL is the user being able to exercise the four freedoms, not more nor less. Red Hat's EULA allows that; your version doesn't.

Well, if you take it so far as death, I can even argue that even death does not stop you from exercising your freedom. You just don't deserve to live if you dare to redistribute my software in a way I don't like. The problem is defining what a "restriction" is. As an example, The Government of India pulled the same tactic as Red Hat in this case. Enrolling in India's biometric Aadhar program is "voluntary", but it is mandatory to do a lot of basic things - like filing taxes.

Red Hat is doing the same thing, threatening to cut off the relationship if you decide to exercise one of the GPL's freedoms. Counts as a restriction in my book.

Of course you are correct. The people you are discussing with and who pretend not to understand may be several of the numerous outsourced employees in the Czech Republic or Germany who are awake now.

No, 100% not. When you change the source, you are not obligated to give the change to anyone else.

GPL gives you the source if you receive the compiled form. When the source changes, you get those as well if you receive the compiled form.

I thought this was clear, but as 2 misunderstood me already, I guess not.

No.

GPL means I can’t distribute GPL software or its derivatives without its source. It doesn’t mean i have to distribute it to you for ever.

So if I don’t distribute the software to you, I don’t need to give you updates. Just like if I download some gpl code and change it locally, as long as I don’t distribute any part of it, i also don’t have to publish its sources.

Now the issue is not that, the issue is the spirit. GPL meantions “no further restrictions”, so is “exercising your GPL rights terminates your contract” a restriction? Technically you can still do what ever you want with that software , without any law suite etc, but I wouldn’t consider it free if there’s grave, even if non legal, consequences from doing so.

Edit : written before parent clarified his comment :)

> It doesn’t mean i have to distribute it to you for ever.

I edited my comment as it’s apparently misunderstood by everyone.

Your final paragraph was exactly what I meant with going against the spirit of the GPL.

Which spirit? The spirit of the GPL is four essential freedoms. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html You should be able to cite the number between 1 and 4.

Sure. 4

How is it against freedom 4? You can distribute modified versions to the end of the world. You just don't get access to future modifications made by Red Hat. You are not entitled, neither legally nor morally, to Red Hat's future modifications.

As I said in another comment [0]:

> Sure, not legally. Just de-facto. Or to use some reductio ad absurdum, you can exercise all your freedoms, but you will be killed for it, is not very free, is it?

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36583491

It is useless trying to use either logic or reason here.

It is just legalistic rambling and I've found it better to not engage this line of (non) reasoning.

The source code requirements of licenses like GPL is fulfilled if a person who receives a component can request e.g. a tarball of the source used to build the version of the component they had received, in such a state that you can reproduce the component.

Only those whom the component was distributed to can make this demand (although GPL lets this individual distribute the source afterwards), and only for that specific source revision.

Yes, I said nothing else.

Well, you implied differently and said it was not in the spirit of GPL.

The spirit of GPL is just compliance. It predates all modern source code distribution and collaboration systems and processes - a floppy disk sent by snail mail in response to a letter is likely the original intent.

The spirit of GPL is the free software movement. Not raw compliance.

People who choose to attach GPL licenses to their code are certainly not lawyers and bureaucrats; they intend for a certain level of sharing to occur, else they'd have chosen BSD or MIT license.

So you think Red Hat's engineering efforts mean nothing because their product is licensed under many open source licenses?

That seems unfair when Rocky/CIQ explicitly uses Red Hat's 10-year support as an advertisement point and contribute nothing to that fair?

https://ciq.com/support/rocky-linux/

    With regular updates and a 10-year committed support lifecycle for each
    major release, Rocky Linux is ideal for use in enterprise environments. It
    is easy to migrate from CentOS and other RHEL-derived Linux distributions, 
    and it is secure and scalable.

Looking at this, what is the cost for CIQ here? What is the cost for Red Hat?

That's a business concern, and it's one of the common issues those who charge for services and platforms on top of GPL-licensed software run into.

That's actually not true. The whole move is a business concern, that's evident from all the announcements.

Platforms on top of GPL-licensed can promise all they want but still live under the control of the community and that's part of the business many companies like Google, Meta, Obsidian are in.

Selling, and entering into an agreement, the support you don't own based exclusively on the work of another third-party that actually promises that, that's at the very least not right. CIQ/Rocky can't do anything on top of Rocky Linux because of their bug-for-bug compatibility and this decision and message benefits CIQ and not Rocky Linux users. That's also evident.

Rocky Linux could go on using CentOS Stream as an upstream with the help of Red Hat, but CIQ made the business decision to push for a RHEL clone, not the Rocky Linux user community.

You talk about morals, but if you can't see the morals here I don't think you really understand how this whole business works.

GPL is nothing but a legal tool, and it's entire purpose is encoded into its decades old verbose wall of text - unless you try to game the license with things like GPL shims, compliance with the text means compliance with the spirit: if the product recipient can get source code access, all is good.

FOSS is not GPL, GPL is not FOSS. Licenses are a very small part of what we consider the modern free software movement.

> And RHEL even gives you 16 free installations for non-commercial use.

Actually, you can use them for commercial production purposes too. It's just a company can't use them, as they are bound to an individual.

So it's more accurate to say it's for "personal use", whatever use that may be.

The stupid thing is those companies using RHEL have been relying on people being able to learn those systems on the free derivatives. So has Red hat.

You can still learn it for free with the developer subscription or CentOS Stream. A company building it's entire infrastructure with the free derivatives isn't "learning" anymore.

Agreed. Red Hat is simply doing what grsecurity did in 2017. It is legal and does not violate any license.

https://lwn.net/Articles/721848/

> It is legal and does not violate any license.

That's debatable: https://perens.com/2017/06/28/warning-grsecurity-potential-c...

Yes, it was controversial in 2017, but the dust settled and in six years since it was generally accepted to be legal. My point is that Red Hat is not trying something new. There are precedents and it is an explored territory.

One big difference is that the sources are still provided. Only the "tagging" when a release happens is not.

I like this bit

> Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, study and change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.

if one user bought a copy, the license allows them (encourages them even) to redistribute it however they see fit, including say selling it for one cent less than the original, or simply giving it away for free. All the license requires is a single seminal user, and from that point onwards, “free as in free beer” is enabled by “free as in free speech.”

What a weird cosmology that leads to - you create a product, which everyone wants, and you carefully evaluate what the maximum price you can receive for it is - which is paid to you, by the luckiest person alive, who in turn distributes it to absolutely everyone for free, for the good of all.

This is feeling real worldbuildy.

Yes, someone can buy RHEL, request the source, and then share it away. And they can do nothing about it.

However, it doesn't mean that Red Hat is required to keep doing business with them, or that they are automatically entitled to receive all future updates.

As I said, GNU never said that the source code must be downloadable by anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world, from some public repository. It would be a completely valid business to sell binaries and then only provide the source code on request. This of course does not fit some people's idea of what free software is about.

There are of course a lot of ways that people can use to obtain RHEL source code even from now on, but I think that some people underestimate how much friction this can cause for the downstream derivatives.

> GNU never said that the source code must be downloadable by anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world, from some public repository. It would be a completely valid business to sell binaries and then only provide the source code on request.

The GPL says "Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code" (emphasis mine). So if one of your paying customers were to post your binary and the written offer somewhere public, then you would have to make the source code available to anyone in the world.

> So if one of your paying customers were to post your binary and the written offer somewhere public, then you would have to make the source code available to anyone in the world.

That's misreading the GPL. The person who posted the binary has to provide the source code; in your example, that's the "paying customers", not RedHat. RedHat is only required to provide the source code to persons they distribute the binary to.

> The person who posted the binary has to provide the source code; in your example, that's the "paying customers", not RedHat. RedHat is only required to provide the source code to persons they distribute the binary to.

Nope, look at this option in the GPL:

> Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

from the GPL 2.0:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

----

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

----

RedHat is only required to pick (a), (b), _or_ (c). AFAICT, they picked (a) by putting SRPMS in their repos alongside their RPMS.

> RedHat is only required to pick (a), (b), _or_ (c). AFAICT, they picked (a) by putting SRPMS in their repos alongside their RPMS.

Well they can't pick (c) because they don't meet either of the two requirements it has. And I know they picked (a) in real life, but I was responding to thedriver's hypothetical:

> It would be a completely valid business to sell binaries and then only provide the source code on request.

And that's (b).

More about it https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/12166/do-mirr...

> Yes, someone can buy RHEL, request the source, and then share it away. And they can do nothing about it.

> However, it doesn't mean that Red Hat is required to keep doing business with them, or that they are automatically entitled to receive all future updates.

That sounds a lot like they can do something about it. It also sounds like RedHat would be violating the GNU Public License by restricting what people can do with it, i.e. share it.

> As I said, GNU never said that the source code must be downloadable by anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world, from some public repository.

That's a strawman.

> That's a strawman

No it's not. It's literally what people are demanding.

There are people who think the earth is flat, but we don't take them seriously in conversations about geography, nor should we use them as examples when discussing various opinions on geography.

The legal issue as I've read it is that RedHat is trying to restrict their customers from redistributing the source code themselves; their removal of the public repos is an annoyance but not the legal issue.