nixCraft 🐧Red Hat’s commitment to open source: A response to the git.centos.org changes https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hats-commitment-open-source-response-gitcentosorg-changes What do you think? PR speak or genuine commitment? #linux #opensource #rhel
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@nixCraft I know my profile picture and bio might mark me as "The Enemy" here in some people's eyes, but from the inside, I can tell you... It's genuine. Take that for what it's worth.
Sheogorath@gangrif @nixCraft Uff, I mean, let me put it this way: It's not that people are necessarily angry, I think at this point people are mostly disappointed. At least I am.
I think the language used in this and other recent Blog Posts by RH don't sound like something one would expect from an open source company. Not today and especially not 10 years ago.
@sheogorath @nixCraft I think the issue is with the realization that all that open source companies do costs money.Decisions about how we publish our source is way above my pay grade. But i can tell you that everyone i’ve worked with at red hat is committed to the the freedom that comes from open source software.
The problem is, we’re a company who has employees to pay. And the contribution of those employees to the projects that make up rhel is significant.
@sheogorath @nixCraft and i’ve got to be honest. waaay back when i was still a young sysadmin. before i ever joined red hat. i was a centos user. and i could never quite figure out why red hat would make it so easy for people to rebuild rhel for free.
it was a “good thing” for a long time. and we know what happens to all good things.
our upstream is still accessible. i guess that’s going to have to do.
mask-wearing, socially distant entity
Tom Albrecht@[email protected] @nixCraft ah yes. The technical marketing manager. Not totally full of shit
@[email protected] @nixCraft or biased in any way shape or form
@[email protected] @nixCraft sure, but expect people to know how slimey looks
flere-imsaho 🇺🇦@nixCraft yeah, that's bullshit, this one is even more disastrous than the previous one.
Linh Pham@nixCraft PR thinking that they are trying to put out the flames, but end up fanning them or dumping more fuel into the fire.
Thoralf Will 🇺🇦🇹🇼@nixCraft Lots of words.
What did he really say?
I didn’t read anything along the lines „of course the RHEL source code remains freely available“.
All I read was a lot of marketing, rambling about unfair treatment and the free developer licenses (which are a pain to set up and maintain).
So, what’s changed?
Melroy van den Berg@melroy @nixCraft So, it is exactly what has been critiqued and what drove people like @geerlingguy to do support for RHEL.
Right?
I said it a couple of times already: Red Hats downfall began when IBM bought them. This is just another nail in the coffin.
I used to be a Red Hat fan. Years ago.
Mikael Hansson@mikael @melroy @nixCraft
I still think that it is exactly what is happening.
The reference to CentOS is just a deflection.
The topic is RHEL, not CentOS.
In my eyes, RedHat is betraying the idea behind Open Source.
Yes, they are in accordance with the legal requirements.
But the core idea of Open Source and the idea what RedHat was founded around was something different.
And that's why this is blowing up.
Essentially, every point raised by @geerlingguy is still valid.
@thoralf @melroy @nixCraft @geerlingguy I still have a hard time viewing it that way: if the source code is contributed back to the upstream projects and all development happens in Stream, and you can get (but not repackage) the specific source code that went into a given release of RHEL and verify it’s in Stream, then how is this a problem? The problem I see is specifically in the handling of the 8 and 9 versions.
@mikael @melroy @nixCraft @geerlingguy
2 problems:
1. I (or rather Jeff) cannot easily verify problems with RHEL, because he needs to get the developer license and all the process associated with it instead of simply testing it with a freely available binary compatible solution.
2. RedHat was founded with a different focus. They used to make EVERYTHING available in source code they ever built. No artificial barriers. No weird registrations. That was their mantra.
This has obviously changed.
@thoralf @melroy @nixCraft @geerlingguy Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I see how that is problematic.
@nixCraft I will ask my company whether we still should use Redhat. I don't like Redhat Enterprise at all. Especially what they are doing now.
Arne Blankerts@nixCraft I think it's genuine and to me, it makes perfect sense from a business perspective.
I honestly never understood why Redhat accepted and even supported rebuilders like they did in the past. It made no sense: When my business model is about selling a license and support to customers why would I actively support 1:1 rebuilds by others that give away my product for free and maybe even sell competing services?
I'm still happily using Fedora and CentOS Stream and will continue doing so.
@nixCraft I’ve been changing my mind as I’ve read more about this issue, and definitely understand and respect the points made in this post. Free as in beer is a tough way to a long-term sustainable product. What worries me slightly is the dependency of research IT systems on RHEL derivatives, and the thought that things may slow down if academic funding must be spent on operating systems at scale. For home labbers or companies, this seems to be a non-issue.
Quejonidas
isul@nixCraft Does it mean that CentOS to be open source?
Daniel Bartholomew@nixCraft Red Hat has a genuine commitment to open source. They just don't want to make it easy for Rocky and Alma to rebuild, and they have no legal or moral obligation to.