Redhat goes CLOSED SOURCE?

This is a MAJOR development with Redhat NO LONGER giving public access to the base RHEL source code. .
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[@ChrisTitusTech]

UPDATE: YOU CAN NOT USE DEV ACCOUNT FOR UPDATING - Alma's update: almalinux.org/blog/impact-of-rhel-changes/ Rocky Update: etherpad.opendev.org/p/r.24fab14385c0aa2db6fa7340a8b2aae7 - TLDR - NOT GOOD! The official statement from redhat was "CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public @RHEL-related source code releases. Read more about this change. red.ht/3XoUOYP" We will have to wait and see how this plays out, but I imagine they want to make it very hard for RHEL 1:1 Distros like Alma, Rocky and Oracle.

[@0xc4ae1e5]

In redhat's mind, for Oracle, I'd imagine it's a problem, but for Alma and Rocky, not so much.

[@juld55]

Read the last sentence of their official statement in your link: "Red Hat customers and partners can access RHEL sources via the customer and partner portals, in accordance with their subscription agreement."

[@warthunder1969]

I'm curious how they think they will be able to do this persay - I presume that RHEL is still under the GPL license. Also curious what will happen to the Fedora/Rocky/Alma distros of the world. Will be interesting to see how it plays out but I can't say that I approve of IBM's decision.

[@warthunder1969]

Interesting though I guess if RHEL goes completely off the rails the likes of Rocky and such could base off of older Fedora releases but still... kind of wild

[@nomadhgnis9425]

I do not consider rhel secure. Debian is just as secure. What you are paying in rhel is for support. There is no security advantage. This is going to cause rhel to be full of security problems like microsoft. Debian will gain ground on this area.

[@themistoclesnelson2163]

Was very disappointed by Red Hat's decision. Not completely surprised this happened after IBM took over.

[@F0XH0UND007]

IBM employee retention rate has gone to shit too, most devs and server admins left for Lenovo.

[@marcosoliveira8731]

same

[@Alegzander1990]

Oh, so CORPOS have now stepped in... Yeah, that makes sense !

[@musicalneptunian]

I knew that IBM would stuff it up. That's why when I went 100% Linux in 2019 my shortlist was Ubuntu Studio, LinuxMint and Zorin. I didn't *think* about going RHEL, Fedora etc.

[@cameronbosch1213]

​@@kurtm.7494Especially with the GPLv3 GNU coreutils.

[@JK1028]

I used to work at IBM... I predicted this as soon as the Red Hat acquisition was made. Everything IBM touches goes to crap.

[@tihomirrasperic]

my father's colleagues always knew how to say: "there is a proper way to do something and there is an IBM way" but at this moment we cannot know if this is good or bad but it is definitely the IBM way

[@wayland7150]

That's not true, they saved Lotus, no wait.... they killed Lotus.

[@smith4591]

They basically invented everything we use in computers now and laid the foundation to what we archived so far.

[@hypnoz7871]

If everything IBM touches goes to crap then why are they still valued at 120 Billions ? Also you should ditch your keyboard since every modern layout is derived from their Model M.

[@wayland7150]

@@hypnoz7871 I type on a chording keyboard.

[@bialcus69]

Moral of the story: EVERY publicly trading company goes to shit. No exceptions.

[@MadMathMike]

Completely agree!

[@mystixa]

yup

[@RossDrum]

I'm surprised the corporate Chief Diversity Officer doesn't make them change the racially insensitive name.

[@baumkuchen6543]

I am kinda scared for OpenSuse now ...

[@francismendes]

Agreed

[@CristobalWatsonHernandez]

I'm picturing Debian and Suse getting decent boosts in popularity in the future.

[@Nurse_Xochitl]

Good news for Debian :)

[@GafftheHorse]

One major company having so much control over Linux was always a potential issue.

[@Abhinav_Nayana_Sailen]

​@mawkzuckabewg232Will Canonical be any better?

[@benign4823]

​@mawkzuckabewg232that doesn't make it better

[@fulconandroadcone9488]

@mawkzuckabewg232 wouldn't Debian be better for enterprise and server space?

[@FlexibleToast]

SUSE is the next best alternative imo.

[@ricardoaugusto2333]

The problem is IBM, who now owns Red Hat. Red Hat's strategy was always open source code and companies would always want support so always would buy subscriptions. That's how Red Hat was successful. The clones would assure interest and accessibility for the platform. When IBM aquired RH a couple years back everyone said this would happen, that IBM would ruin Red Hat. IBM only wants tech for their big customer accounts, they don't care about open source.

[@digitalsparky]

I'm honestly not surprised, Redhat is owned by IBM now. Another reason why CentOS was shut down.

[@hawk_7000]

I think this probably is the perspective that makes the most sense. RH/IBM killed off CentOS, but that just resulted in more clones popping up all over the place. So now they are going for the "root cause" instead, making RHEL sources less easily available.

[@gorillaau]

Redhat and IBM were doing okay from people patching drivers that were used by their distro. This move is flushing that goodwill down the toilet.

[@JeffGeerling]

Thanks for bringing this to my feed during a busy week last week. This is extremely saddening for me, as I was *this* close to being a Hatter myself 5 years ago (I was contracting with them, and had an employment contract ready for signing, but their laywer would not strike a noncompete, so I didn't sign). I feel like Red Hat has fallen away from the open source ideals and foundations they built their entire business and goodwill from originally, and are trying to define some new "corporate friendly open source" world so they can protect their profits with some licensing quirks and subscription guidelines.

[@memovilmx6239]

Well Redhat is not actually Redhat (the company) now it's just another IBM's brand

[@thepathnotfound]

IBM

[@C007dudz]

RHEL was bought by IBM years ago. this was expected to happen.

[@millosolo]

It was sold really

[@jttech44]

Surprised it took so long tbh

[@computernerd8157]

Why isnt IBM getting sued by GNU? This was a violation of the copy write . This is why money matters because without it, it seems ya cant easily defend thr copywrite.

[@PenguinRevolution]

I considered running Rocky Linux for my personal server, but I chose Debian for several reasons. Now this is making me glad I chose Debian, I just did a Dist-upgrade to Debian 12 on it and it still works great (I've been doing dist-upgrade on this server since Debian 9 and I've never had an issue).

[@jttech44]

Debian has always been rock solid and boring, which is exactly what you want in prod. And, if you need to, you can just add the repos you need and run spicy software when you have to, and usually it works out just fine.

[@typhuseth]

IBM continuing to make the wrong call continuing their streak. I suspect they think this will make CentOS/Rocky/Alma business jump to RHEL whereas they'll likely jump to Debian, maybe Oracle or Ubuntu depending on who undercuts best/availability of budget to pay for support which is a big gamble.

[@kuhluhOG]

or they jump to SUSE/openSUSE

[@qwerdsffds]

Whoops, i installed fedora linux at the wrong time

[@WorkBundle]

Do support of a business want to deal with Oracle?

[@musicalneptunian]

@@kuhluhOG Suddenly Four German dudes are sexy again 😆😆😆

[@KeithBoehler]

@@kuhluhOG I'd like to see SUSE make a come back. No reason other than i like the mascot.

[@lockhak33]

The source code is still available to RHEL customers which is what is required by the GPLv2. That should allow the clones to continue.

[@jamescampbell6728]

If they find out a customer is redistributing their code my guess is they'll stop doing business with them. I'm sure the source code will get out there, but it doesn't seem like fully compiled Projects like Rocky will be able to exist

[@zehph]

@@jamescampbell6728They just need to have different placeholder people purchase licenses with different companies and make a new contract once one is “refused service”. There isn’t really a way to stop if they are motivated enough, the race will probably make they up licensing prices to try to deter the clone projects and that would probably piss their legitimate costumers, maybe some opinionated folks would stop doing business with them for this too… It is going to be a Rocky transition, potentially quite bad for them or extremely profitable. Complacency and the need for a backup plan on their engineers might be enough to keep people paying.

[@geraldhenriksen3664]

A lot of code isn’t GPL and thus covered by the RHEL agreement to not redistribute

[@cameronbosch1213]

​@@geraldhenriksen3664Actually, the GNU coreutils are GPLv3, so those must be allowed to be redistributed under that license, which is a much stronger copyleft.

[@abhabh6896]

No. There is an agreement that you need to agree to about not redistributing.

[@sjzara]

I find it hard to understand how a closed source system can be based on such vast amounts of open source. It must be a legal nightmare.

[@ChrisFaulkner]

Also why so many distros have a "nonfree" descriptor so you won't install any proprietary software. The "nonfree" descriptor was added when RedHat went support subscription a long time ago so admins could make sure they weren't running nonfree software on their servers. I do remember a time Linux was truly open and I do realize that people have to be paid for their work but Redhat really didn't care what anyone thought, just as they're doing today, I'm surprised it took them this long to go fully closed source, but I'm not surprised.

[@kuhluhOG]

well, you only need to give access to the source code (in case of Copyleft licences) when you also give people access to the software in Red Hat's case they only need to give access to the source code to their subscribers, but not to the general public (and also only for the Copyleft licenced software) obviously, their customers could give these changes to the public (again, for the Copyleft licenced software) for non-Copyleft software, it's hard to say

[@dimitris470]

As far as I remember, the kernel licensing allows the user-land part of the OS to be licensed separately. What they cannot do, is include the whole thing under their own license.

[@senacht]

Be interesting to hear what if anything Torvalds thinks about this. I’m guessing he won’t care since it’s a userland decision - and an oh so typical move for IBM who still thinks it invented computing.

[@AquariusTurtle]

@@ChrisFaulkner I'm sure they care, but not about you. They only care about their top tier customers. Everyone else can use another linux distro.

[@TheLittleAlien]

That has been coming since Red Hat Linux went fully commercial. Before that (pre-2003) practically all my servers were RHL. They tried to do an image correction with Fedora but it wasn't what enterprise / ISPs needed. Luckily I had some really good Debian guys in my company that brought Ubuntu to the desktop and Debian to our servers which apart from FreeBSD is driving all the racks. When Canonical forced the desktop users to go Unity and then Gnome 3 we moved to KDE and when they brought snap we went to Flatpack but that said Canonical isn't IBM and they do tend to learn from unpopular decisions that failed in the community. Generally, large corporations that strategically acquire user bases for sectoral footprint are rarely doing anyone a favor - no matter open source or not. Let's think of Oracle killing MySQL and Dyn - they just shut down millions of older devices still using their service. How about Internic becoming what Network Solutions is today? How about Macromedia products after Adobe took over or Solidworks after Systemes Dassault? And yeah that will be the year of Debian since Debian 12 is awesome at the right time.

[@jonperryman6477]

IBM will take you from "all your servers" to "your server" by eliminating the software design that restricts you to less than 100 core CPU to IBM computers that can exceed 32,000 cores by implementing software design concepts that exist in their flagship OS.

[@TheLittleAlien]

These are very different use cases and enterprise / corporate isn't automatically HPC for massive parallel computations or consolidated clusters. A very high concentration in highly specialized hardware isn't feasible nor recommendable for all applications. I would go so far as to say that the majority of use cases doesn't really benefit from anything with more than say 64 cores after which only space constrained operations would see a real cost benefit. After that it's more reasonable to cluster and if space is such a problem you have other planning issues. But IBM still has a lingering RS6000 paradigm somewhere at the back of the corporate mindset. It's were some people don't see that the world can't run all on CPUs that cost USD 5k. So my point here being that CentOS wasn't only used by people that have a huge pocket book - aka money no problem because I am a crypto-millionaire - and for whom subscriptions or expensive licensing never were a problem in the first place. And that's from someone who came from the DB2 side ...

[@Siskiyous6]

Every Linux Programmer who ever contributed to the OS needs to sue Red Hat saying they violated the terms of their contribution, trust me, there is a class action lawyer ready to roll on this.

[@VladiFx]

@@saipulivarthi fsf?

[@AshlyView]

The problem is they haven't violated anything. If they give you Rhel to use they also provide you with the source code. The GPL only requires you to share the source code with those using the code. They are. To be clear I am not happy about the move and worry about the implications and other Linux distributions and developers following but they haven't broken the GPL.

[@thomiatyww]

You fundamentally misunderstand the GPL if you think this is the case.

[@mytech6779]

@@AshlyView You misunderstand the GPL, You are correct that the physical resources of distributing source are only required for providing source to binary customers, however they can't prevent the source from being redistributed or compiled and used

[@0xc4ae1e5]

People say Debian has about 3 years of support (next release year + 1 year), but they provide an LTS, so you get 5 years, instead of the usual 3 years. So you can use Buster and be fine until 2024.

[@zparihar]

They also have ELTS - "Extended Long Term Support" however, its backed by a commercial company and you'll need to pay support.... not bad...

[@GegoXaren]

There are three Stable versions:Stable, Old Stable and Old Old Stable. (Current Old Old Stable is Buster (Debian 10))

[@Waitwhat469]

Support from whom? And what does the SLA look like?

[@zparihar]

@@Waitwhat469 Look up Freexian for Debian.

[@bippaasama]

This is why the importance of having different distros cannot be overstated. Fragmentation is a good thing.

[@Maisonier]

While some level of distro fragmentation can be advantageous, there comes a point where excessive fragmentation becomes counterproductive and a time sink. Rather than channeling efforts into refining and building upon a solid foundation, individuals often find themselves investing time in numerous short-lived distros that quickly become obsolete and lack ongoing maintenance.

[@Vide501]

@@Maisonier Yes, ideally there is debian, arch and then all of the forks of those two.

[@thejoneseys]

I'd sooner give cash to Canonical than IBM

[@Ghfvhvfg]

Why….

[@hypnoz7871]

lol said no one ever. At least IBM do amazing stuff for corporate. Canonical does nothing good.

[@alaunaenpunto3690]

​@@hypnoz7871found the IBM shill

[@Nurse_Xochitl]

better to give the cash to Valve by buying a Steam Deck and some games lol.

[@uniqueprogressive9908]

@@Ghfvhvfg Canonical work with microsoft

[@developerpranav]

Great time for the Debian 12 release

[@lenoohpuls]

You cannot "close" a GPL licenced software. It's the whole point of GPL. It has to stay open if it's GPL.

[@jimmyneutron129]

someone explained to me that you can still use a EULA to forbid redistribution of the software? But that does not make sense, it seems like it would just violate the GPL??

[@Nurse_Xochitl]

Forks, forks everywhere lol

[@locatemarbles]

Yes and no. GPL forces you to give source code to your customer. However as I understand it redhat signs a contract with its customers forbidding them to redistribute the GPL code they received to the public. The customers could do it anyway because it is GPL after all, but once redhat finds out they no longer wish to do business with you and thats how you "close source" an open source code.

[@wisnoskij]

Looking on the wiki, it says RHEL used "various licenses" They also have some completely proprietary blobs. Presumably the much of rhel is still make up of free open source code, but thier secret sauce was alwasty proprietary adjacent and as just more all the way to proprietary.

[@PenguinRevolution]

As long as the source is available somewhere, it doesn't violate the GPL. They still have to allow anyone who has the source to modify RHEL software and be able to distribute copies of the modifications if they so chose (and they can't stop them legally). It's shady, but IBM isn't violating the GPL (technically).

[@jemag]

Canonical is already big in the Cloud. A move like that will reduce people's confidence in Redhat and will strengthen Canonical's position

[@elijah_9392]

Canonical isn't exactly free of problems within FOSS.

[@Masters-rc9sc]

How can they actually do this? Isn't this against GPL? I mean all the people who've contributed can just revoke their code. Unless Red Hat has just removed all that, which seems unlikely.

[@Spitfire5592]

Won’t sue you, but will also not renew their contract

[@Drazil100]

As long as the people who download your software can also download the source code it's fine under GPL. GPL doesn't specify how you have to give it to them and it is perfectly allowed to only distribute to people who pay for the software (as you wouldn't be able to download the software to get the right to the source otherwise). Also I don't think you can just revoke code unless the license gives that right. If you could just revoke contributions, the open source community would be a hot mess of developers revoking critical portions of code over political disputes and people struggling to replace that code with something functionally similar but not infringing on the revoked version. There are definitely cases of projects getting deleted, but I dont think I have seen individual commits get deleted because the contributor disagrees with the project.

[@BeyondPC]

What control mechanism allows you to revoke code? What prevents the other party from rewriting the code so it is now theirs? How would you even go about proving that they used your code? Are you willing to foot the bill to prosecute even with a good chance you can't prove your case? Once someone possesses the source code all bets are off; all fictional binding agreements are out the window and they are free to do whatever they want with it, as if - gasp, they own it. If you put code in the wild there's no take backs, no oopsies, no I'm revoking access - that's all too little too late. If you want to protect your code you're going to have to work a lot harder than just including a note begging compliance. It's a fools idea that once you release something allegedly 'open source' that you could even claim that you still own it - it becomes collective property and you don't really have a say anymore.

[@Masters-rc9sc]

@@BeyondPC I was speaking more in a legal kind of way. Since many people contributed to Linux, and in a sense they "own" the code they contributed, but use GPL to license it out for free, as long as it's used in accordance with GPL. If a company tried to improperly use it, couldn't they revoke their permission?

[@vegetotownley]

​@@Masters-rc9scI'm bumping this cuz I also wanna know the answer.

[@ericdaniels4650]

I'm still a novice in the linux community but here is my perspective: I never was attracted to RHEL, for me it defeated the entire purpose of escaping microsoft to pursue open source and free software. I've really sought a path of true freedom both in terms of money and transparency. For me it's less about the money and more about the transparency. RHEL decision to go closed source means transparency is gone and for me that was the largest driving factor that attracted me to linux in the first place. However it plays out for RHEL I will remain focused on the freedoms of open source and will shun all closed source software.

[@jonperryman6477]

RHEL is not about being free. It's about becoming the best for businesses. It's about taking a Linux distribution past the 25 to 64 core CPU limitation because of software design and embracing IBM computers that currently have a max exceeding 32,000 cores.

[@ericdaniels4650]

@@jonperryman6477 As far as I'm concerned RHEL can do whatever they wish but it's not a good look to build upon open source and then close the source to protect new source code from being revealed. IBM tried and failed with OS2 years ago and I'm sure they will regret their decisions. I wish them the worse for what I consider a betrayal to the linux community.

[@mytech6779]

​@@jonperryman6477 OMG you've been frozen since the '90s. Quick somebody play some Ace of Base to sooth the beast before he gets agitated by our modern world! The vanilla kernel [compiled for AMD64. CPUs arch is involved with core managment.] could handle 4096cores well over 10 years ago.

[@jonperryman6477]

​@@ericdaniels4650 IBM OS/2 is a different story and you forget that Microsoft began with DOS from IBM. As for closing RHEL source, that allows IBM to bring Linux into the 21st century by protecting their trade secrets from z/OS. While there will be hurt feelings over closed source, business leaders will go with best of breed. Open source is cheap. Only time will tell if those distros can compete with RHEL.

[@jonperryman6477]

@@mytech6779 OMG get your head out of the sand! There is a fatal flaw in Linux software design. Google has over 5,000,000 servers. Tell us why none of their servers has more than 24 cores when Linux can handle 4,096 cores? Show us a real world Linux distro production server farm with servers using more than 100 cores.

[@phoenixrising4995]

I could see OpenSUSE taking advantage of this by saying. With SUSE we keep the source loose. 😂

[@musicalneptunian]

Four German dudes FTW!💚🟢💚

[@themadoneplays7842]

Except that openSUSE is planning to abandon leap and potentially switch to an immutable base.

[@friedrichhayek4862]

Wrong, there has been never a CentOS for SUSE. SUSE never disclosed their SLES codebase.

[@friedrichhayek4862]

@@themadoneplays7842 I don't think that they will abandon Leap, at the end of the day their "ummutible" system is based on that.

[@Qyngali]

@@friedrichhayek4862 Leap is built on the corresponding Enterprise Server code base.

[@sullivan912]

This move on the part of IBMHat was only to be expected, a matter of when and not if. This is going to have a significant impact on the HPC community.

[@jasongalloway4645]

Welp since IBM acquired Red Hat I was afraid this was coming.we're gonna be in for a bit of a pain period as business and what not evaulate thier options...but I think Debian and Ubuntu Server are probaly gonna see a massive uptick as a result of this.

[@josiahm6720]

Companies are now targeting the open source world for profit, control and data mining. In the Linux world, if they just get control over both Debian and Arch, it’s pretty much game over as these two are the most popular base distros most other distros are based on. By then, BSD will be the way to go.

[@ryanhere7693]

Hahahahaha clearly you haven't been using Linux for very long, there's a total of 3 distributions based on Arch that have any meaningful user base and Arch has only been around for the last ~6-8 years, the main distros everything is based on are Debian and RedHat (originally) which became Fedora, outside of that SUSE and Gentoo are the longest lived distros and Arch is just built from compiled binary sources

[@akisarazbu7473]

@@ryanhere7693 There's dozens upon dozens of distros built on arch, almost every single super-user who is on Linux runs some form of arch. It's a very specific group of people but the big three are undeniably debian redhat and arch. you can't deny arch's prevalence without being delusional

[@ryanhere7693]

@@akisarazbu7473 you are hilarious. Go try LFS or Gentoo and then tell me how it takes a super user to run Arch. Side note, yes Arch is popular, but it's definitely not one of the original distributions, trust me I have been in this space for a very long time. And even if there's 'dozens' of distros based on Arch there's only 3 that have any meaningful user base, my point is that if you think Arch is an original base distribution from the early days of Linux you have not been around Linux long enough to know very much about Linux at all historically. Also if you think any desktop Linux distribution is even a blip on the radar compared to corporate server deployments, you are also very naive.

[@Moon-v5x]

Expect built-in back-doors enforced by the NSA

[@thecandyman9308]

Indeed. Ol' "Big Blue" in bed w/ some very untrustworthy entities...

[@speedibusrex]

It was the first thing that came to mind.

[@MichaelSullivanCincinnatux]

They must have concluded that there aren't enough CentOS users who matriculate into RHEL to prohibit the company from force-converting those users to RHEL or off Red Hat products altogether. This way, Red Hat's revenue stream should see at least a modest bump (and it may be a significant bump). I can't imagine existing RHEL customers are going to drop Red Hat over this change. That being said, it will be interesting if the lack of a free release thins the pool of entry-level SysAdmin talent who have RHEL-specific skills. I'm an educator in this space and we're currently still using CentOS 7 and AlmaLinux due to the tight similarities with RHEL, but I imagine we'll switch over to a different release for educational purposes moving forward. Ultimately, I don't think this move will really hurt Red Hat but it will shake up stuff all around them.

[@jonperryman6477]

We see Linux server farms because Linux software design doesn't work well on CPU's with more than 48 cores. IBM's flagship OS currently runs on IBM computers that can have more than 32,000 cores. It will be very expensive for IBM to implement these changes that will take businesses from thousands of servers to a couple of servers. There are many Linux distros available. While RHEL will probably remain functional on smaller servers, it should be the first to take businesses from server farms to a couple of easily managed large servers. It will take a few years because of the complexity but closed source protects their investment. Remember that their flagship OS was originally open source but no longer. Also remember that they developed much of the technology you now get for free (E.g. databases, SQL and more). Even HTML was a concept from IBM that they used for printing.

[@MichaelSullivanCincinnatux]

@@jonperryman6477 regardless of IBM's contributions to modern computing, my point is that the percentage of entry level system administrators with RHEL experience is going to drop precipitously. This may not end up affecting Red Hat at all, but we'll have to wait and see.

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

Lots of shops use a mix of RHEL and CentOS/Alma/Rocky. That ability to have RHEL for production or sometimes just because third-party soft requires it, is essential. If they can't have that mix in the RHEL ecosystem then it becomes time to reevaluate and maybe go with the SLES/OpenSUSE LEAP combination instead. We didn't go down this route 18 months ago when RedHat pulled the ending CentOS 8 stunt because it quickly became clear that there were going to be alternative rebuild options. This time it is all the more serious and I am looking again at the SLES/OpenSUSE LEAP combo. If we go down this route then RedHat will lose subscriptions, and the fallout could be large. Further, they are destroying the community around RHEL. Most of the time I can just Google stuff and find random third party web pages that help me out. These won't exist without free rebuilds so the value of a RHEL subscription goes down.

[@speedytruck]

The title is misleading. Just because your open source software is paid doesn't mean it's closed source. In fact, one of the main requirements for a software license to be certified as Open Source or Free Software is being able to commercialize it.

[@costafilh0]

I can only imagine the pressure. From big corp to abusing it from trying to adquire it, to a huge user base using it for free.

[@benstechroom]

Debian 12 is a great contendor. Maybe its time to consider it more for the server side.

[@ex0ja]

I first used Redhat back in 2001, I remember the main distros were Redhat, Mandrake and Debian. I think Suse was starting to get popular at the time. 22 years later I'm still just dabbling with Linux and don't really know wtf I'm doing haha.

[@locatemarbles]

I first got introduced to Linux by a Suse guy. Didn't like it and neither did I like redhat. But was happy with Debian. Figured if I was going to commit to Linux I would not go with a corpo-distro. A few years later met him again. First he was happy that he converted me to Linux, but when I told him that I'd stick with Debian his face turned sour. He insisted but all I said was: "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm good".

[@katrinabryce]

All the servers I run are either FreeBSD or Debian Stable (or Windows Server) + 1 Ubuntu because the software on it is only supported on Ubuntu. Don't think I've touched an rpm-based distro in about 15 years since Mandriva died.

[@jimmyrichards5595]

I could be wrong, I could totally wrong… But I am thinking that you meant to say, “because the hardware on it is only supported on Ubuntu”. Because, well, of course the software on Ubuntu is only supported by Ubuntu.

[@katrinabryce]

@@jimmyrichards5595 No, the specific software that server is running is only supported on Ubuntu. Probably it would actually work on Debian, but we wouldn't get support for it in that scenario.

[@sstillwell]

I'm wondering what'll happen to Oracle Enterprise Linux now, since they're also downstream from RHEL, plus their own Unbreakable kernel. This is gonna rattle some cages in lots of places.

[@GeneralHazerd]

don't care too much for debian personally but I think this will be the year of debian. Especially with debian 12 looking objectively good

[@RHTORAS]

Devuan too...

[@redroleplays]

Chris this suck but then again we shouldn't expect any less from large companies

[@murtadha96]

Any company* that actually wants to turn a profit

[@redroleplays]

@@murtadha96 Very true

[@Nurse_Xochitl]

@@murtadha96 there's a difference between turning a profit, and being greedy. they already turn a profit, now they just want to be greedy.

[@choons]

I live in Raleigh. I'll egg their building on behalf of everyone effected by this change.

[@somesalmon5694]

My biggest question with this change is how it will impact them contributing upstream to all the projects that they consume and include in RHEL

[@dentarinc7214]

This is a huge mistake by Red Hat. They are going to anger many Linux admins who are going to switch from RPM based distrubutions to Debian based.

[@RahmanDwi]

IIRC ironically Debian is designed to be more consumer-oriented, but that is the easiest way to switch enterprise users away from Red Hat.

[@Ghandara-hg1gc]

Can somebody explain to me where all this indignation is coming from, as I find it hard to believe that many Linux admins ever look at the source code, so how does this affect them at all in a practical sense?

[@flarebear5346]

​@@Ghandara-hg1gcthey don't want to convince their boss to pay red hat for the software they use

[@Ghandara-hg1gc]

@@flarebear5346 as far as I understand it, they are not paying for the software that they use, only for system support from RedHat or if they want to look at the source code. what are you saying exactly?

[@thennicke]

@@Ghandara-hg1gc It's an ethical and political issue, it's not about day to day practicalities. Look up the free software movement and listen to Richard Stallman speak to get an idea of why this is a major issue.

[@wjack4728]

That sucks!!! I'll have to switch from Rocky to Debian. Debian is great, but I've gotten used to Redhat off chutes. Thanks much for the heads up! Wonder if Debian will do this too?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

No way will Debian do this. Its a community run distro, it would be like arch doing it... The downside to Debian for business is they don't have support offerings like Redhat does, which some businesses want for insurance.

[@wjack4728]

@@ChrisTitusTech Thanks for the reply! Happy to hear Debian won't do this. That's why I always used Redhat off chutes like Centos and Rocky, I always heard they were the best for business.

[@vaisakh_km]

​@@wjack4728😂 Even if linus says it, Debian neckbeards don't giveup their freedom..

[@wjack4728]

@@vaisakh_km Glad to hear that!

[@AB-ot3bm]

@@ChrisTitusTechRed Hat “support” is abysmal. You put in a ticket or a bug report and they find the quickest way to blame you to close the ticket. Funniest go-to they have is if you’re running a non-GNOME desktop or have anything from EPEL installed - that must be the problem. Hell, even if you have your own internal RPMs installed - they can’t support your software company’s RHEL machines. Stop paying for this crap.

[@fuseteam]

Upstreaming is a thing; patches from downstream can very well make it's way upstream. There may be cases where it doesn't make sense (such as upstream moving past needing the patch) hence the name "bug for bug compatibility", however it is not impossible. That's how ubuntu contributes back to debian

[@jimmyneutron129]

the GPL only allow people who have been given the binaries - i.e. the users - to view the source code anyway

[@daves.software]

yes, but those users can then re-distribute the code to anyone else, even non-customers.

[@jimmyneutron129]

@@daves.software uh but they have to sign a EULA that prohibits this. Thats feels weird to me

[@Afsafs123]

So long as they allow users to request the source code, this shouldn't violate the GPL. In a way, it's kind of a nothing burger story, even if it _feels_ alarming.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Right now it doesn't matter, but when designing systems that impact thousands of people this could be a MAJOR thing. If the new stance restricts 1:1 Bug RHEL Distros from operating or copying their code... this ends up being the biggest Linux story of all time. Its impacts will be far reaching and devastating for a LOT of businesses. I just logged in to check my RHEL Dev License and it renews for free in 12 month contracts. I'm not sure if the terms of service changed or if copying or replicating the RHEL source is against its terms of service and could get that subscription terminated... This is something to watch if you deal with RHEL or RHEL-based servers.

[@darksoul7]

​@@ChrisTitusTech LOL no. If this impacts Rocky and Alma users, then Rocky and Alma are at fault for not having the know-how to build a distro that is close enough without taking RHEL's code directly. They can still use the CentOS Stream code. Red Hat still contributes and makes that code public.

[@ChrisTitusTech]

​@@darksoul7 Its come to light that you sign up to NOT redistribute the RHEL code, so this impacts ALL downstream RHEL distros (Alma, Rocky, and Oracle) Centos Stream is upstream meaning it is NOT the same code. There are variations and patches so just using CentOS stream isn't the same. It would be like calling ubuntu and debian the exact same code.

[@bot-h2h]

​@@ChrisTitusTechso if u distribut the code they will terminate your license?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

@@bot-h2h Correct and get sued as well if they wanted to go that far.

[@ThisOldManOfTheSea]

This is more of a question than a comment. IBM announced its IBM Artificial Intelligence Unit processor recently. Is it possible that by not open sourcing the RHEL Kernel which will support this processor family they are protecting their unique hardware?

[@wayland7150]

Yes you could probably figure out how that processor worked if you read the source code for it.

[@mudi2000a]

That is not possible if the kernel is derived off the Linux kernel, otherwise they would violate the GPL

[@eatenorange]

We use Oracle Linux which is based on RHEL. I wonder how this will affect that.

[@stevewillard8212]

Is it possible that Oracle is a driver for this? I believe that Oracle Linux is RHEL with a different update source.

[@jimmyneutron129]

@@stevewillard8212 i think they just don't like everyone is moving to Rocky/Alma/Oracle freeware RHEL clones rather than going to RHEL. Especially big companies. Especially when they also provide support.

[@WeencieRants]

I wonder what the Linux Bible author is going to say in the 11th Edition in reference to this. He's been working at RHEL for over a decade now and every edition of his manual spends at least a few pages singing the praises of opensource software.

[@kimandre336]

My programmer friend directly witnessed the CentOS fiasco and moved to Rocky Linux. He said to me a few things about this. 1. IBM really wanted to kill Red Hat and its Linux fundings. 2. IBM hates Oracle too much to the point that it decided to disrupt the whole Linux ecosystem. 3. When IBM relinquishes their own Linux projects like systemd, there will be massive forks of them afterwards. The Fedora Project might be forked into an different organization. 4. Rocky Linux and Alma Linux will eventually stop any reliance on Red Hat codes and become independent RPM-based distributions like SUSE or OpenMandrivia. 5. Rocky Linux and Alma Linux will be the de facto successors of RHEL and their development directions will be slightly different. The writings are on the wall for this.

[@kimandre336]

While at it, my company uses Oracle servers and software. Apparently the Korean salesperson said to me that the head honchos in IBM seem to express how IBM's future is centered on AI development and cloud services. No surprise that they really want to get of Linux.

[@0ctatr0n]

Fine if that's how they want to play, Id rewrite the GPL license on all Fedora / Centos distros to specifically ban IBM and Red Hat Enterprise from being allowed to use patches or code from those projects.. What's that? You're supply of free developing is gone??.. They'll become the Openoffice of the Open source world. On a side note, the amount of Microsoft Execs running inside high levels of the linux foundation is a bit concerning.

[@MiseryFarm]

This!

[@angulion]

openSUSE is a fine alternative that has Leap which is like CentOS, but also SLES that is like RHEL with commercial support. Best is that these are 1:1 of each other.

[@jimmyneutron129]

Don't take this title seriously. There seems to be people who think that the licenses changed and RHEL suddenly became proprietary. This is a little bit more complex than simply that.

[@evans8024]

Can you explain how Red Hat is “close sourcing” RHEL? All of the source is available per the terms of the GPL

[@cameronbosch1213]

Ever since IBM/RH killed CentOS 8 in the most Darwin award winning way possible for consumers, I have been avoiding RHEL and its derivatives. Now I'm done with Fedora too. And I won't be back. (Arch user currently.)

[@dcoderjr]

This is click bait. Too many people are misrepresenting what Red Hat did. They are approaching it different from historical precedence but I don't think it's inconsistent with the goals of open source nor violating licensing. The code is all available. Red Hat pushes changes upstream anyway so all the code contributions for the community are still there and the RHEL packaging/ QA specific ro their subscriber products shouldn't be something competitors try to claim without contributing back which is what was happening. Now those orgs have to either contribute more to the process or they get the code without trying to claim the non-code certifications Red Hat does.

[@DasIllu]

Been using Debian for 20 years. And now i feel so vindicated 😛

[@eman0828]

Yeah I heard about that. I'm both a Desktop Support Tech and Linux Admin all in one as we still deep in the Red Hat eco system but I'm starting to see some organizations uses Ubuntu. There even a certification exam for Ubuntu.

[@matthiasbenaets]

First CentOS and now this. It all makes sense now

[@musicalneptunian]

IT'S A TRAP!

[@benign4823]

​@@musicalneptunianbut not that kind

[@flintfrommother3gaming]

@@benign4823 🤨

[@beginlinuxguru7354]

Okay, good coverage and good comments about this situation. But, there's another aspect that I haven't seen anyone else discuss. I understand that Red Hat might be a bit upset about other projects using their source code for free, considering that Red Hat is a for-profit company. But, what does Red Hat do? Well, they also use other people's source code for free, and that free source code makes up the bulk of most all Linux distros. Yeah, Red Hat has contributed a lot of good innovations, but how much have they created themselves as compared to what they've taken for free? So yeah, I understand that they want to maximize profits. On the other hand, they're a billion-or-so-dollar corporation that has benefited from free-of-charge software from other projects. And, even though they've probably lost some sales to the free-of-charge RHEL clones, I have to believe that they've also benefited from companies that have grown too large to keep up with in-house clone support, and have switched to genuine RHEL. In the end, I think that this move will do them more harm than good.

[@deckard5pegasus673]

Please do a video on how Redhat is getting around GNU General Public License.

[@jimmyneutron129]

There are not really "getting around". The GPL only says that you have to distribute the source code to your users. For now, you can even have a dev account and access it for free

[@deckard5pegasus673]

@@jimmyneutron129 So it's not closed source,like this video says. I am confused. Anyone can clarify. Is it, or isn't closed source now?

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Its not open source to the public. You could grab the entire source from git.centos.org, but going forward they are locking the source to redhat subscriptions. This means grabbing the entire source requires the subscription and it won't be as easy to fetch as it has been in the past. We will have to wait and see how they distribute it now, but it will be behind a portal. This could be a nightmare for the RHEL clones out there.

[@jimmyneutron129]

@@deckard5pegasus673 Depends on what you mean by closed source. If it is the freedom of the user to distribute, modify, access the source code of the program, then it is open source software. I don't think any license forces to publish the code to the general public or I have no idea if this is enforceable but I may be wrong? Technically you can even take GPL code and not release any GPL licensed code to any repository what so ever. This is not the case here and this is a dick move but there are corporations that did this. What counts for the license is that there is a way for a user to get a copy of the source code if they ask for it

[@sullivan912]

@@jimmyneutron129 They are not obliged to make the source code available to the general public, but they also could not prevent someone with access to the source code from making it available to the general public.

[@gerowen]

5:38 If I had to guess, businesses that take issue with this will probably switch to Ubuntu LTS where they can pay Canonical for support. I love Debian and run it on all my systems, but there's not really a company behind it with the resources to provide paid support to companies at large.

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

Or SLES/OpenSUSE LEAP

[@jamesyoung151]

I truly can't say that I'm surprised, It was always a matter of time before this would happened. When I set up a server years ago, I wound up choosing Gentoo. That was the time I moved away from RedHat at the time. While it's a niche OS, it served me well for years.

[@esra_erimez]

Who would have thought that Ubuntu would look like a good guy (well, less evil)?

[@jugglingotaku]

The developer subscription to the RHEL sources is free. Also, both Rocky and AlmaLinux are funded by their own respective foundations. They could fund access to the sources if they decide to charge money for the subscriptions. They have access to the source code but it's just more inconvenient. So, it shouldn't cause too much of a problem for them, right?

[@kztuptuo7076]

The developer subscription to the RHEL sources is free. But will they be free tommorow. Let's say they put a pay wall500 or 600 USD a year. What then! If you think that is inposible think twice

[@jimmyneutron129]

the problem is less money than the conditions of the agreement to access the source code that forbids distribution

[@jugglingotaku]

@@jimmyneutron129 😳Thanks for pointing that out. I missed that, as it seems Chris has edited the pinned comment with the AlmaLinux statement, after I made this comment.

[@jugglingotaku]

​ @kztuptuo7076 🤔🤔 Ok, I don't think it's impossible. lol

[@GSBarlev]

This is great news for Canonical. With AWS having long offered Ubuntu AMIs alongside the RHEL and (RHEL-based) AL2 images, and with Docker images most commonly based off Debian, there's really no reason for Enterprise to stick with non-deb-based systems, which (although you're right that Desktop Linux usage is minimal) is still what the majority of IT, SWE and DE/DS nerds cut their teeth on.

[@Alexander-ix2jp]

+1

[@jasonscherer2631]

This most likely will hurt red hat a lot I would believe.

[@jimmyneutron129]

eh i doubt most red hat customers care that much

[@darksoul7]

​@@kevinm45684 Market stats tend to disagree with you, bud.

[@jimmyneutron129]

@@darksoul7 RHEL or a freeware RHEL clone?

[@BrianSimonin]

What you did not bring up is the Oracle Linux issue. A downstream spin of RHEL in which they compete with service, support, and education. The competition is cut throat and they are offering their services cheaper than Red Hat. I would say Alma and Rocky Linux are just casualties over this issue.

[@jozsefk9]

I didn't knew Linux license could allow closing the source. Anyway, I think it will be a time to leave RH alone and move to Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, ALT, or maybe even BSD actually.

[@mystixa]

Even if they arent allowed it takes someone to attempt to enforce it. Who's taking IBM to court to counter this?

[@bkw777]

It doesn't.

[@jozsefk9]

@@mystixa Then what's the use of GPL licence? Anyone can break it, and nothing happens. Weird. There is no freedom. I don't know.

[@darksoul7]

It can't. This guy's a goof who doesn't understand what happened.

[@Jool4832]

Violation of GPL.

[@ahsookee]

I was just thinking, aren't they leeching of FOSS now?

[@jimmyneutron129]

the GPL only allow people who have been given the binaries - i.e. the users - to view the source code anyway

[@Being_Joe]

As long as their customers get the source I believe that should still be in compliance.

[@katrinabryce]

@@jimmyneutron129 Yes, but if one of those users decides they want to redistribute it, they are absolutely entitled to do so.

[@jimmyneutron129]

@@katrinabryce And Red Hat has the right to terminate their account...

[@albertopajuelomontes2066]

they still have to complain with GPL, so paying costumers that go acces to the source code have the right to redistribute the source code if they want

[@classicrockonly]

They have the right to redistribute the source code, but it will be a breach of RHEL's agreement, and they will effectively terminate their contract and lose access to the source code

[@CosmicCleric]

@@classicrockonly Sounds like the RHEL agreement would be invalidated though, as its trying to eliminate the right to the source code?

[@jimmyneutron129]

@@classicrockonly so a EULA can take precedence to the GPL? Does not this render the GPL essentially useless?

[@classicrockonly]

@@CosmicCleric no. The GPL only applies to its users. Red Hat just makes it so you are no longer a user

[@classicrockonly]

@@jimmyneutron129 there is no precedence. Putting a EULA like what Red Hat has on its users does not contradict the GPL. Source only needs to be distributed to users. The GPL doesn’t mean everyone can freely have source access. Only its users

[@yvrelna]

I don't think this is as much as a game changer as you think. Nowadays, most things are in containers, and in the container world, it's much more common to see either Ubuntu or Alpine based systems than Red Hat. I don't know what your working background is but I worked with many businesses and it's much, much more common to see enterprises deploying servers that is based on Ubuntu and Debian than Red Hat. Ubuntu and Debian has pretty much been the de facto standard in the container world, much more so than Red Hat. When people build applications and infrastructure, Debian based systems are the first choices, not Red Hat. Red Hat is such a niche that most talents we employ here are much less likely to have experience deploying Red Hat servers compared to Debian-based systems. I can't remember any instance where I've looked into any popular containers that are based on rpm image, those are extreme rarities. Big systems, small systems, it doesn't really matter, Red Hat influence isn't as big as you think they are. In any case, the business model of Red Hat has long become outdated. Nowadays with containers, and orchestrators like Kubernetes, and then Cloud systems like AWS, the selling point of 10+ years of security patches just sounds very antiquated. Nowadays, businesses buy enterprise services from the likes of Red Hat or Ubuntu not because of the length of the LTS period, but rather it's more for the technical expertise. Having someone who knows the software you're using well on call is always very valuable. Backporting security updates to a 10 years old system, resulting in an chimera of a software that isn't even supported by the original author, that kind of model just doesn't really make sense when nowadays an OS upgrade is usually just updating a single line in a Dockerfile.

[@hadeseye2297]

"Red Hat is such a niche" Well. My career experience tells me it's the other way around. All in all it alll depends on the company you are working for. What was used before, what sysadmins are familiar with and so on. Containers have their purpose, but not everywhere and not for everything.

[@BOT-er9yt]

rcos is redhat container but once u go to big org rhel has stremlined patching actitivity is big plus where in ubuntu debian aix u mainly have waybto many probelm where inyernet exposure shiuldnt be given to avoid suppy chain attacks

[@stephenreaves3205]

This is just my personal opinion, but here's my two cents. Red Hat is not going closed source. This is a blatant lie. If you pay for RHEL binaries, you get the sources. GNU defines Free Software by saying it means "the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software". It does NOT say you can demand a company give you product for free. You can purchase a license, get the source, distribute the source. Just because people have a misunderstanding of what Free Software is doesn't mean something isn't Free Software. And what security patches made it into RHEL but not CentOS/Fedora? I also don't understand the hate for CentOS. You mentioned using Rocky for a monitoring solution that's a "set-it-and-forget-it" where "you don't need a subscription", but you need the product that comes from the subscription. You need cockpit, systemd, sssd, and all these other tools that come from Red Hat. Those tools still exist in CentOS. If the box doesn't need support, use CentOS. If it does, use RHEL. As for Rocky/Alma, RHEL builds from CentOS (Stream), why can't they? What benefit do they add by taking RHEL and slapping a new logo on it? I agree Red Hat's marketing/communications is down-right terrible, but we don't need tech reviewers making it worse by lying.

[@jimmyneutron129]

"As for Rocky/Alma, RHEL builds from CentOS (Stream), why can't they? What benefit do they add by taking RHEL and slapping a new logo on it?" Well there are copycats 1:1 RHEL, so you can argue that they don't add other benefit than being freeware while not investing as much as Red Hat

[@worldhello1234]

@4:09 It is a big fat corporation doing big fat corporation things. When "push comes to shove" stakeholders come first. On the other hand FOSS is da whey and FOSS will find a whey if necessary.

[@Daggenthal]

I've moved all of my servers to FreeBSD and loving it honestly! Sucks seeing what's happening to RHEL, but it be that way sometimes

[@rafaelgil6895]

I would like to do that, but unfortunately it doesn't run a lot of the software I need :/ I tried virtualization, but didn't work well and a lot of packages I installed warned me that maintainers were needed, so I'm not sure about the future of those packages.

[@Daggenthal]

@@rafaelgil6895 Heyo! Happy to hear that you at least tried it and gave it a shot :D That's true about the need of maintainers, but the FreeBSD handbook is stupendously useful / helpful, but I also get it to where we may not have as much time as we would like to work on porting / maintaining something. Hope it changes in the future for you!

[@austin.rojers]

Here's a comment from GloriousEggroll: Just want to to note here the Developer subscription is completely free and still allows access to RHEL and its source code if you want exact package sources. CentOS stream basically serves as a RHEL upstream so I understand this change. It may seem confusing for some people. - GloriousEggroll, June 22, 2023

[@GSBarlev]

He deleted the rest of his thread though, because the RHEL license is blocking redistribution (which should be against even GPLv2 but I'm not a lawyer)

[@GSBarlev]

@malice5121 It definitely wasn't a shill--it was an honest mistake that he corrected.

[@new_moon1728]

Game changing news about the Internet Archive, Reddit and now Red Hat. I wonder what is next.

[@damouze]

So, I hope I understand this correctly: CentOS-stream is "upstream" from RHEL and does not contain all of the patches that make up RHEL. Assuming most of the packages in RHEL are still built from Open Source software sources, and that those software sources are published under the (A)GPL, Apache License, etc, to me it would logically follow that any of the in-house patches RedHat makes should also be published under the same license. Am I wrong to assume that those software packages, including in-house patches, should always be published under the same license, source code and all, without restriction? The whole concept of copyleft is centered around the idea that if I use OSS, I am also morally obliged to contribute any of the patches I made to the community as well. This means that I can build my business around my product or service and any of the OSS components I might use, so long as I provide the source code to those OSS components, including any modifications to them I may have made. What I cannot do is claim ownership, authorship for, change the licensing of a piece of Open Source software or restrict access to the software packages in a paywallesque manner. Historically RedHat has built its business exactly like that: the provide services to customers with regards to Open Source software, but would still provide packages as well as the sources for the Open Source software they support, including any patches made. I don't see how RedHat could change this and still be compliant with the concepts of Open Source and Free Software. It would probably be the largest single finger salute to the community in history. I leave it up to the imagination of the reader(s) as to which finger it concerns. It is a worrying move to say the least, though not surprising. Security wise it is far from a wise move as well, as the package sources, nor the patches to them are for everyone to review, only to people with a subscription. While obviously subscriptions are how RedHat get their revenue - and there is nothing wrong with that, mind you - RedHat chose to be a supporter of Open Source. That includes contributing back to the community what was changed, not just to people who pay for their services.

[@barneylaurance1865]

The original concept of copyleft isn't about requiring people to contribute to the community. The license say you have to give your users freedom - including giving users source code which means they can contribute to the community *if they choose to*. It's supposed to be about freely given contributions, not required contributes. I guess several of RH's customers will use that freedom to contribute code to to the public having downloaded it from RH.

[@WaterDragonGames4]

Well, I was excited for a Fedora project but considering Red Hat's decision, I'll stick with Arch.

[@coolguy-hu4ou]

fedora will be unchanged

[@ex0ja]

@@coolguy-hu4ou by using fedora are you somehow supporting redhat though?

[@robertsretrogaming]

Debian it is. Red Hat is an interesting case, and they are definitely skirting the edges of the GPL here. I don't fault them for trying to make money, but I don't have to be a customer.

[@youtubeoneverything4581]

I have been waiting for linux based youtubers to break this story & discuss

[@SunIsLost]

Yea

[@YannMetalhead]

If there's money involved it will go to shit someday. It's inevitable.

[@ChrisTheDBA]

Just need to start calling them IBM-Linux and be done with it.

[@deckard5pegasus673]

I have been using linux since 1997. I am also a developer, and administrator. I used Red hat enterprise a few times at work to set up a few servers. But also used Suse a lot. To be truthful I have NEVER needed support from Red hat in over 25 years. Being a linux "expert", ...and some help from internet, books, etc. I have been able to resolve any and all problems. I think businesses paying Redhat for support is a waste of money. Just hire someone who is an expert in Unix, BSD, linux, etc.

[@deckard5pegasus673]

Also just out of curiosity, I looked up what percentage of linux servers are redhat and it is 0.8% or less than 1%, and the vast majority of those are in the USA. Redhat in europe and the rest of the world in nonexistent. I think Redhat has put the last nail in their coffin.

[@bot-h2h]

​@@deckard5pegasus673most server runs Ubuntu or Debian right?

[@deckard5pegasus673]

@@bot-h2h most are debian based for sure. And Ubuntu is the highest at over 30%

[@RoelandJansen]

​@@bot-h2hcorporate wise? Not that I have seen that

[@cameronbosch1213]

Wait, I just realized something: Aren't the GNU coreutils GPLv3? (Unlike the Linux kernel, which is famously still on v2.) Would what Red Hat / IBM is doing violate the GPLv3?

[@tui3264]

most RHEL 1:1 clones don't contribute that much back , the hardwork and all the testwork done by Fedora Community and RHEL is huge , so I am thankful for them giving freely for so long, Fedora is rock-solid in Desktop and maybe RHEL clones can switch to Fedora as base and contribute :p

[@lacklustermathie]

The 1:1 clones have (to my understanding, I'm not in the industry) made RHEL the "standard" server distribution. So, Red Hat gets the benefits associated with controlling what the standard is, even if they're not selling support to most users of the standard. If Red Hat manages to stop the clones, they may get more paying subscribers, but the "standard" server distribution will eventually change. I don't know how valuable controlling the web server standard is compared to any extra RHEL subscribers they'll get, so I can't say if this move will make or lose them money.

[@ibm450]

Fedora is like new ubuntu Beta releases with very short support life. I would never recommend Fedora as a base for rhel. And no I personally do not agree Fedora being a solid desktop os. Far from it. Debian most definitely is more solid as a desktop opposed to Fedora

[@allhailmightyglowcloud]

Well I was switching from mint recently and got fedora 38 and man I started downloading ubuntu after I saw it crushing several times right after installation xdbut I updared everything and swapped from gnome to cinnamone and it finally became usable. But yeah it's pretty but dwfinetely not stabke xd

[@jimmyneutron129]

I kind of agree. I don't think RHEL clones can really take Fedora as a base. On the other hand, it seems that when you make open source software especially GPL, you may eventually encounter people just copying and redistributing your software, especially if it is not freeware.

[@collectorguy3919]

Is it time to consider systemic risk to Fedora? Fedora is a project under Red Hat's ultimate control. They own it. Community engagement is very high, but Red Hat has authority to make decisions.

[@MiseryFarm]

This was my initial thought. I don't understand enough, but given they have opted to play outside of the gnu terms / open source spirit, I'm being really turned off the idea of using anything to do with the company. Upstream or otherwise.

[@iscariotproject]

wtf..seriously..i remember my first linux was redhat in the 90s...it was all about a revolution against microsoft and locked in unix and how you didnt need closed code to be professional...how the mighty have fallen to greed,i feel like we are all going to end up on debian in the end,it hurts the community when this happens it weakens the argument for open source as a viable business solution,if you dont eat your own dogfood nobody will buy it.Its a clear trend my guess next they are going to focus on licenses they are going for becoming the new oracle...

[@KaltesHerz]

For me, this kills one of the greatest advantages of RedHat. This kills the business use of RedHat for me, too. I think they will loose many customers. So it comes down to canonical and suse...

[@michadybczak4862]

I almost checked if that is not April fools... Is this even possible from a licensing point of view? Linux kernel and packages should stay open, so how would it work? Ubuntu is pretty strong on servers. A few years ago, it was even more popular than Debian according to many sources. I'm not sure how it looks right now. It may be a win for Ubuntu, which is a very friendly server distro (I'm talking about server version), so either Debian or Ubuntu - those will be the alternatives. Now everyone will be watching and evaluating how RHEL is doing. If they succeed, this may mean that others will follow... Luckily, Debian as far I am aware, won't be affected by this, even if Ubuntu will do the same as RHEL.

[@MarcDunivan]

I think only sharing source with paying customers ( the people one shares software with ) doesn't violate any version of the GPL. However, if IBM is restricting whom subscribers can share with...well. Howver, this is the thing that GPL purist would say is the problem of mixing in closed-source/non-Free Software. One can't share a fully working compiled version, because of the non-Free parts.

[@jimmyneutron129]

but these paying customers have to agree to a EULA that forbids them from redistributing the source code or else their account will be terminated

[@MarcDunivan]

@@jimmyneutron129 That would be a violation of the GPL and thus IBM would be breaking the licensing agreement with the upstream software project. "Software Freedom Conservancy", "Free Software Foundation", "Open Source Collective", and others would get involved to protect those Free Software projects from violation of the GPL by IBM. Of course one should also take into account the importance of copyright assignment, like what is required with the GNU Project.

[@Waitwhat469]

@@MarcDunivan It's more like your right to redistribute is preserved, but you loose the right to future updates from them if you choose to exercise the first one.

[@MarcDunivan]

@@Waitwhat469 That would be an interesting question for the courts to resolve. Such a condition , in my opinion, is still violating the copyleft user freedoms stated in the GPL. IBM would need to be the copyright holder to dual license the software with a non-free license.

[@xPakrikx]

Well we are on Debian over 1year (~300VMs ) ... so this was expected i think. :)

[@JesseMaurais]

For my latest desktop build I switched from Debian to Fedora, and at one point requested a developers license to have access to RHEL9, and came very close to installing it for daily driving. I'm glad that I did not and I'm going to be switching back to Debian now that 12 is out because I'll be damned if I'm going to let whatever contributions I make to my desktop OS benefit a company that will not reciprocate.

[@christophermarshall8712]

I don’t really see why this is a surprise to be honest given the number of broken systems and ideas which have come out of RHEL over the years. Systemd for one. I think Redhat have a lot to answer for to be honest with the current state of the Linux community and copying Windows features. Then products such as cPanel decided to base their systems exclusively on RHEL systems such as centos for an unknown reason. Hopefully it allows the rest of the Linux community to clean things up a bit.

[@jp-ny2pd]

I'm glad I hitched my wagon to SuSE a while back. OpenSuSE and SLES are a nice mix.

[@JoshuaT902]

Time to stop using Fedora, Not gonna help support the development of RHEL through testing.

[@SalvatorePellitteri]

I abbandoned RH and Fedora 15years ago, no regrets. Longo live Debian!

[@hsoj9550]

Heh, well I guess Suse/OpenSuse will benefit from this, along with Debian too. This has been a very weird year for Corporate decision-making.

[@serenditymuse]

Glad Fedora isn't going this route as I just moved my desktops from Ubuntu to Fedora this year and I really love it so far.

[@kirksteinklauber260]

Red Hat is an IBM Company and that's the way to operate to monetize everything.

[@m.m3633]

It can be the perfect opportunitty for openSUSE leap.

[@shephusted2714]

they have always been shady - this par for the course for them - redhat is business orientated - this should not be a shock - just switch to debian, there is plenty of support