Final thoughts on the Red Hat thing: every supporter of the Red Hat move told me that "it's normal to want to prevent people from stealing the hard work and making a clone of it".
If you think grabbing the code and reusing it is "stealing", you don't understand FOSS.
No matter what RH clones contribute, or if they're worth it. That's not the point. The point is, RH builds their stuff using the GPL, and they have to redistribute using the GPL.
Making access to a specific part of that code harder on purpose goes against the principles of Free Software.
Period. Money doesn't factor into this, value, contribution, they don't matter. FOSS is free to use, whether you contribute or not. FOSS is for everyone, "freeloaders", developers, anyone. That's the very point.
Yes, the code is still technically available with a bit more work in Stream's repos. That's not the issue. The "people are stealing from us" talk is the issue.
When a company that works in FOSS, and depends on it to operate, calls people using their GPL rights "freeloaders", you know they've lost the plot.
That's the problem. The value, the contribution, the development, the clone or not, the business: it DOESN'T MATTER.
@thelinuxEXP That's a good point, the actions are defensible, but that attitude isn't.
It would be so easy to communicate in a nicer way.
@thelinuxEXP As long as nothing else happens besides outrage, Red Hat/IBM has won with their strategy. A global protest including boycotts and cancellations by as many people and companies as possible is needed.
But only people from the open source environment with the appropriate reach can successfully call for this. But this is exactly what I miss... Just being outraged will not change anything. 🙁
@bjoernricks I’m sure it doesn’t. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying their reaction and “solution “ is wrong and doesn’t even fix the issue.
Basically, they still have the same problem, but now their image is in ruins and they’ve outed themselves are following the letter of the GPL but not it’s spirit.
Disastrous move.
@fossrob @a1ba All of it if that’s what happens. It’s on RH to provide better value for their service so people use it.
Also that’s the absolute wrong way of looking at it. The issue isn’t monetary at all, it’s a matter of ignoring the principles of free software. What RH did doesn’t stop clones from taking their business either. It’s just pure pettiness. It makes their work harder but it won’t stop them.
@thelinuxEXP You're probably right it won't stop the clones. But calling a business's decision to at least try, "pettiness"?
You seem really upset that RH doesn't want to make it easy and gift wrap the entire package anymore because of the "spirit of free software" (as you interpret it).
And those FOSS principles, to you, also mean they have to pay people to do the gift wrapping (and de-branding)?
@a1ba actually, the "free software" is built around the idea of the freedom of the user. It has zero things in terms of "protecting" the developer.
Free Software is actually about restricting the developer so they don't infringe on the freedoms on the users.
@a1ba the point is, that by the GPL, you have to get the source code to the exact product you're given, not a "find it over in that garbage pile, it's there somewhere".
and by the gpl, then you are allowed to get that source and redistribute it. If redhat has a problem with that, they have a problem of one of the cornerstones of software freedoms. This is not an opinion, this is a fact.
@a1ba yeah. And this is what they do and they have the right to do that and technically they could give the source printed on toilet paper, so I guess they aren't doing the worst possible thing.
But when they go on air disparaging one of the fundamental software freedoms (redistribution), I can't take their "we're fully committed" message seriously.
@thelinuxEXP And Mike McGrath's justification is something of ridiculous and insubstantial... and even if he has been and is with Fedora and Red Hat for such a long time - in the end he has sold his soul to the masters of IBM and betrayed the ideals of Open Source.
I was a Red Hat fanboy for more than 2 decades, but this betrayal to the community now leaves me with only more anger in the end. I want nothing more to do with this company and their products.
I found this interview a useful companion to the blog posts:
https://podcast.asknoahshow.com/343
Mike asserts IBM had nothing to do with the decision. He says
1) RH wants to prevent people from selling the #RedHat promise of compatibility and long term support without paying into that ecosystem,
2) the CentOS repo is not part of their GPL compliance plan,
3) source remains available to the community in CentOS Stream + they will continue to upstream patches.
Mike McGrath joins the Ask Noah Show to discuss the changes Red Hat is making in how they make their source code available.
@thelinuxEXP exactly my thoughts.
It is just so disingenuous to say they are "committed to open source" in the title, and then in the penultimate paragraph basically say that one of the four core freedoms of #FreeSoftware is bad. 
Then just say we are committed to 75% of open source or something.
@thelinuxEXP I have to say that I agree with your take on this matter.
It wouldn't have really mattered if all they did was move the source code and then make it available to only their paying customers.
This is an issue because they are inhibiting their subscribers as well from exercising the rights given by the GPL and other open source licenses.
At this point, RHEL is just "source available" and not "open source". 😞
@thelinuxEXP It's hard to imagine that they will actually make a complete turnaround right now.
The best we can hope for is that they will at least amend the terms of the agreement to allow subscribers to modify and redistribute the source code.
This redhat news coincidentally happened just after a project considered the CommonsCause to be open source. Which basically adds the same restrictions.
Attached: 1 image A project I contributed a small amount to, recently added a license: #CommonsCause and I thought no much of it, until they started claiming that this license is “open source” I created a pull request to replace it with “source available” but was rejected https://github.com/mormaer/Mlem/pull/240 (Dead link) A warning to anyone who is interested contributing that this is not GPLv3 software it’s CommonsClaused 🔒 #foss #licensing #opensource #osi #mlem #mlemapp #lemmy
@jumper775 @thelinuxEXP I consider myself on the RH side of things in this but I can understand peoples dissatisfaction.
What gets me is RH has 2 upstream fully open distros, 1 downstream that is free to use but licensed via an account wall. Contributes upstream first, but they make cloning their tree more inconvenient and the community cries that they're suddenly anti-open source.
The likes of SUSE and Canonical are no better in rebuilding their commercial offerings, yet RH is the bad guy..
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