SmokeInFog[YouTube] Redhat goes CLOSED SOURCE? | Chris Titus Tech
sounddrillA lot of people suggested moving away from rhel and rhel based... I did not listen and now...
CountVonYeah, the writing was on the wall as soon as IBM acquired Red Hat. IBM is going to end up hollowing out Red Hat in their drive for more revenue. They started by destroying CentOS, which used to be a community-supported binary-compatible RHEL analog but is now effectively RHEL Beta and thus useless for enterprise work. Now they're closing the source so they can kill the other RHEL analogs, like Rocky Linux.
It's such a short-sighted move though, so many things got built on RHEL and compatible because those FOSS options existed. IBM seems to think that some significant percentage of those free installs can be converted to a paid install, and they might be right in the short term but I think the long-term impact is gonna be dire. Over time RHEL could became a closed-source ghetto in the FOSS world because fewer developers will be able to test their open source projects on RHEL without paying the IBM tax. Once RHEL starts to fall behind it could cause enough friction that enterprises will start looking to other distros, and then Red Hat's primary revenue stream starts to dry up.
I’ve been a happy fedora user for some time now. Maybe it’s time to start distrohopping again.
I think Fedora will continue to be fine for the foreseeable future as it's an upstream OS. It gets changes before they go into an RHEL release, which means a Fedora user is essentially beta-testing future RHEL changes. There's nothing inherently wrong with that and if you're happy on Fedora then you can stick with it and be confident it's going to continue to operate the way it does today (barring any future licensing changes from IBM that affect upstream distros).
This change will really affect the downstream distros like Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux. I think those distros have a valuable place in the FOSS ecosystem, as they allow FOSS contributors a low-friction way to test their code on an RHEL-compatible distro without having to agree to a Red Hat license. The fact they IBM / Red Hat is making this change must mean that they see some advantage in having absolute control of the licensing terms for downstream distros, and I have to imagine that their gain will be at least partly at the community's expense.
IBM apparently didn't learn their IBM-compatible lesson.
LoafyLemonIs this the beginning of yet another corporate enshitifcation? Or are we already further in the process? I haven't been paying that much attention to Red Hat.
Is this the beginning of yet another corporate enshitifcation?
I hadn't actually thought of this as enshitification, but upon reflection... yeah, it truly is! Red Hat allowed the existence of downstream distros, and even made one of their own in CentOS, because they understood how supporting FOSS dev/test on their enterprise product ultimately increased the overall value of that product to their paying customers. Now that IBM has bought Red Hat they don't care about any of that, they just want to squeeze as hard as possible to maximize the return on their investment. I'd say enshitification started in earnest when they killed CentOS six months ago, so the current announcement is the second phase of enshitification.
IBM's Red Hat Just Killed CentOS as we Know it: With CentOS Stream, Stability Goes out of the Door
CentOS is regarded as a stable, secure and free Linux distribution for servers. The stability part of it is being jeopardized thanks to the latest changes made to this project by IBM-owned Red Hat. Here’s a quick summary: * Focus shifts from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise
That sucks. I didn't know they had already killed CentOS, but knowing IBM owns them makes this less of a surprise, last I checked, IBM has been struggling financially.
I wonder how this change will affect distros like Fedora.
animistDammit I just got used to Fedora too. Guess I have to go pure Debian now
L3ft_F13ld!openSUSE Leap or Tumbleweed is an option if you wanna stick to RPM-based.
Yes, SUSE have always been great.
Fedora is upstream from RHEL, it won't make the slightest bit of difference.
That's good to know, thank you!
staticlifetimeRight. I'm not seeing how this affects Fedora Linux.
onepinksheepIt's not going to have a direct material effect, but it's going to affect perception. There are already people cautious about corporate influence on Linux, and a Linux distro getting closed like this is going to be seen negatively. While Fedora and RedHat are separate entities, they're close enough for one's perception to rub off on the other.
Doll_Tow_Jet-skiThis is especially painful since it means you can't easily use any RHEL downstream distros like Alma or Rocky for testing or build servers for RHEL anymore. I suspect this will lead to even worse third party software support to complement RHEL's tiny selection of available packages.
That's a sensationalist take on some day old news.
Pure Debian is the way.
vegivampIt was until they shipped systemd. Bloody mess.
systemd is one of the best things that has happened with linux. Instead of random shell scripts that work differently on each distro, now you have a single ini conf file for your service that configures automatic restarts, sandboxing and activation in a easy to use way.
NikkiNikkiNikkiAPT is the mess, I've never had more issues with broken packages and unbreakable dependency cycles than with APT
FreeBooteR69Yeah i've had problems with both Mint and Pop with broken packages. Easy to fix with synaptic package manager, but annoying.
Try NALA, it works much better in my experience compared to APT.
Big Nala fan also. Definitely a better UI experience too
BarrierWithAshesMan I'm glad I never picked up Fedora. Rocky has already put out a statement that they should be fine at least.
https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/has-red-hat-just-killed-rocky-linux/10378/3
Has Red Hat just killed Rocky Linux?
rumors of Rocky Linux’s death have been greatly exaggerated 😉 We’re aware of the situation, we’re working on short term solutions as we investigate what this means. Rest assured this is not the “death” of Rocky. I have been collecting our notes from some various meetings and conversations here: https://etherpad.opendev.org/p/r.24fab14385c0aa2db6fa7340a8b2aae7
What does this have to do with fedora? Fedora is actively supported by redhat I doubt you're going to see any changes with this. This really only affects redhat alternate distros like rocky.
Fedora's deeply related Red Hat. Every decision affects Fedora in some way. It's just another negative change IBM is doing to RH.
@BarrierWithAshes @SmokeInFog @TooL not unless they make new announcements regarding their upstream projects. This decision affects downstream projects that rely on making their code publicly available (hence projects outside of redhat).
I am apprehensive too as I just started using fedora and beginning to like it.
I'll still be using Fedora. But i'm a RHEL Engineer soo... kinda makes sense to stick with it. I don't see this really having much of an effect on me.
user8e8f87eWhat??? Is there an article rather than a video?
here's the exact post right from RH themselves
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-stream
Furthering the evolution of CentOS Stream
As the CentOS Stream community grows and the enterprise software world tackles new dynamics, we want to sharpen our focus on CentOS Stream as the backbone of enterprise Linux innovation. We are continuing our investment in and increasing our commitment to CentOS Stream. CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases.
Am I missing something? Nothing there says anything about becoming closed source?
Quoted from my other post: Well in order to access the CentOS stream repo you need to have a subscription. So really not closed source but rather "harder-to-view-the-source".
That's not closed sourced, it's just not free (or libre). I mean it still seems like a bad move to me, a retrograde step, but it won't hurt the business side of things I expect
Well, thats youtube sensationalism for you. Rocky Linux has already said it shouldn't affect them and if they're good I doubt there will be much issue.
Carl GeorgeWell in order to access the CentOS stream repo you need to have a subscription.
That's false. The sources are right here, open to the world and open for contribution. What was shut down was the automation to export RHEL source RPMs to the legacy location. The source RPM exports were pretty much useless for contributors and maintainers of RHEL and CentOS. However, they were critical for RHEL rebuilds, which is why people are upset.
BishmaI knew we were in for something like this when the Red Hat first became REHL. Even avoided Amazon Linux due to the lineage. But I have to admit that it took longer than I though it would.
We need to make "Arch Enterprise Linux".
Red Hat can't go closed source since the source they're distributing is released under the GPL. They're required to distribute code to anyone they distribute binaries to, and they can't stop anyone who has their code from redistributing it.
You are correct. They can however stop doing business with whoever is distributing their source, which makes getting new versions of the source harder.
This is what the dude selling „hardened“ versions of Linux is doing. Can’t remember the name and I don’t care to give him advertisement anyway, but he simply stops selling you new versions if you distribute old ones.
Grsecurity?
Yeah, that’s it.
There's a discussion about this on lwn (relevant part starting around this comment). My understanding is like @fayo said: you can pull this "trick" of releasing their source code, but only once (assuming they catch you).
Jeremy [Iowa]However, the open-source developer GloriousEggroll mentions that the developer subscription to RHEL is free. So, access to RHEL source code is still possible but inconvenient?
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 @[email protected] (@GloriousEggroll) June 22, 2023
Well this blows, fedora is my favorite distro