GlyphJun 29, 2023
I do agree with Red Hat that we ought to ensure that the people who *really* make open source software need to be fairly compensated
Show threadGlyphJun 29, 2023
It is just *wild* to me that the people who built a business on a linux *distribution* are trying to die on the hill that "people who just take source code and build it aren't adding any value".
Show threadShawn Webb

@glyph though, I suspect RH does a bit more than just repackage things. I think it would be worthwhile to look at diffs comparing upstream and downstream and contributions to upstream.

It might also be worthwhile to look at direct and indirect contributions made as a result of RH involvement. How many people unaffiliated with RH sent patches to some random project because of their use of RH? hard to quantify the butterfly effect.

Jun 30, 2023 at 1:37amWeb
Show thread0xC0DEC0DE07EAJun 30, 2023
@lattera @glyph they do have a fair bit of work in there. If you crack open a Red Hat source RPM, there’s usually a dozen or so patches, often back-ported bug fixes (I assume that these don’t get accepted upstream because the version is EOL).
Show threadGlyphJun 30, 2023
@c0dec0dec0de @lattera on the one hand, RH does do a lot of good work upstream. What I’m mad about is not a lack of overall contributions, but bad governance and unilateral decision making. On the other hand, this practice of pretending to support EOL’d software by deploying patches unreviewed by upstream, is actively bad. See this post from nearly a decade ago, which I’ve linked a few times in this discourse already: https://alexgaynor.net/2015/mar/30/red-hat-open-source-community/
Red Hat and the Open Source Community · Alex Gaynor

Show thread0xC0DEC0DE07EAJun 30, 2023
@glyph @lattera I’m not a fan of RHEL, really. I don’t like using an old, slightly off-brand version of my whole software stack and having to maintain concurrent knowledge of how the actual, current versions work and are configured versus the Red Hat time-shifted versions. But they offer someone to point to blame for my employer and that means more than these arguments (and harm to the larger ecosystem that we depend on) for them.
Show thread0xC0DEC0DE07EAJun 30, 2023
@glyph @lattera I’ll grant them the stable kernel ABI is pretty cool if you’ve got proprietary kernel modules that you need to keep working, though.
Show threadBenjaminJun 30, 2023

@lattera @glyph This may not be common, but at my previous employer, we used RedHat. When I asked why, I was told it was so we had someone to blame/get-support when something goes wrong.

Their role in the ecosystem is to be paid to fix the weird bugs that the free maintainers aren’t interested in fixing.

Show threadDmitry TantsurJun 30, 2023
@birwin @lattera @glyph as both an upstream maintainer and a Red Hat employee, can confirm. I would not touch some bugs I fix with a long pole, if I wasn't paid for that. It may not sound nice, but that's the reality of open source project maintenance.