Jesse Brown
Jeff GeerlingI never thought I'd see the day where I agree with Oracle on some #opensource matter more than Red Hat, but, well... https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/blog/keep-linux-open-and-free-2023-07-10/
oops!all_manzanitas@geerlingguy Wow me neither. I'd never have imagined Oracle would be the "good guy" in any situation.
Tovi@geerlingguy I‘ll add another ‚wow‘. Just wow!
polographer@geerlingguy great pr campaign, but also IBM/RedHat is not helping at all
Abhijit 
> "By the way, if you are a Linux developer who disagrees with IBM’s actions and you believe in Linux freedom the way we do, we are hiring."
Hehe that's definitely aimed at RHEL devs.
Ohad Lutzky@geerlingguy The sheer *shade* being thrown!
Chris Bensen@geerlingguy Edward and his management tream are top notch. The one you all didn't like is over ar Google now...
rustybikes 🐧@geerlingguy We are, indeed, living in interesting times.
fuomag9@geerlingguy Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden
This BURNSSSSS
John Lusk
Little Mike 
@geerlingguy Wow. Just wow. This made me laugh out loud at Edward's temerity. But I whole-heartedly agree with him. What IBM is doing is atrocious and I don't understand why they thought this was a good idea.
Michael Stanclift
John Francis
Paarth 
@geerlingguy
> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden.
Shots fired + nicely exposes IBM's lack of understanding here. There were so many ways for them to cut costs (and/or the quality of their product) without destroying their goodwill.
Robert @ Tech Addressed@geerlingguy my favorite part:
"Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden."
piofthings@geerlingguy rofl… quite the cheek from Oracle… 🤣🤣🤣. Loving this pi**ing context from outside because I don’t have a skin in the game 😝.
Mike@geerlingguy I had to add to the thread just to say I feel ya! Your sentiment is exactly mine!
I still wouldn't say Oracle are good guys, but in this instance, yes
Freelock@mlippert @geerlingguy While #redhat may have completely bungled their message, having listened to some of their reasoning, it doesn't actually sound that anti- #opensource.
It sounds like they mainly want people to just use their upstream directly, instead of taking their curated release and having to strip out all the branding/etc. I think all that's added to #redhat is specific version pinning/testing and branding -- if that's the case, #oracle is just piling on misinformation.
@freelock @mlippert That's not how #opensource (free software) works, though.
That's called closing the valve at the end of the line, and trying to capture the value stream of free software.
With GPL, the idea is the software is free, and you provide value on top of it. They want the software to be free only insofar as it's free when it benefits them.
@freelock @mlippert @geerlingguy
Red Hat add some code and Branding to the Linux kernel, makes RHEL. That's ok.
Alma/Rocky makes a RHEL flavour. That's not ok?
That's like taking free food from a public food bank, labelling it as your original product while not distributing it to those in need and then selling it for a profit instead.
I *had* a lot of respect for Red Hat.
@abhijit @mlippert @geerlingguy What I've heard is they want people to fork off CentOS Stream instead of RHEL -- and they're not adding any code to RHEL that isn't already in CentOS Stream.
In any case I don't have a horse in this race, I don't use RHEL and don't care that much -- and generally I don't like seeing IBM taking over RedHat, or any of the long term changes that we'll probably see as a result -- but I do think the reaction to this is a bit overblown.
Holly Schilling@mlippert @geerlingguy I find it interesting how people are flocking to support Oracle’s perspective. Regardless of the larger picture, Oracle’s statement is entirely self-serving. They want RH to continue to build those packages for its own RHEL knockoff. Their distro is only viable because of RH’s work.
Even their challenge/threat/offer to RH to make RHEL downstream of Oracle serves only to increase potential value of Oracle’s distro.
What I’m saying no one should align themselves with a position based on an argument that is not impartial.
@TheCodeLorax @mlippert A broken clock is right twice a day.
Agreeing with the statement doesn't imply any support of the group making it! (I think most would agree Oracle has a loooong way to go before trust is on the table).
Most of us are just enjoying the 🍿 now.
Adil Arif@TheCodeLorax @geerlingguy Finally, a fair assessment. Oracle is just using this for publicity. If the roles were reversed, they would have never allowed the source code to be available anywhere as long as Red Hat did.
Daniel O’Oracle: *does nothing*
RHEL: *shoot’s themselves in the foot*
Oracle: “Look how great we are! Just don’t rock the boat”
@GrixisGuy haha basically. Red Hat had a gravy train. I think at this point they didn't realize how important downstream was to RHEL ecosystem... not to mention how their behavior would be judged in the FOSS ecosystem.
Josh Austin@geerlingguy even how Oracle treats the Java community right now is better than RedHat treats the Linux community, and that's a pretty low bar!
Chris M@geerlingguy wow! You know you've got issues if you lose the moral high ground to Oracle.
Syd@geerlingguy XD
LOTR-Gimli meme:
I've never thought I fight side by side, with a coporation.
How about fight side by side with an open source ally.
Tomáš Markus@geerlingguy @stefan Even trees do not grow to heavens, dear IBM - enough (growth) is enough (growth) - please learn that, and fast!
Scott@geerlingguy so Oracle say it’s important to keep Linux open source and free. Why don’t I actually believe them? This is the same company that bought VirtualBox and then changed the licensing terms so it was not free for commercial use, and started shaking companies down who were using it (even earlier non-licence-encumbered versions), and are now doing the same with Java. I don’t trust Oracle, ever since they tried this on with our company with VirtualBox. Open source and free? Maybe for now …
Jason Tubnor 🇦🇺@geerlingguy It would be interesting to run the hypothesis of Alma and Rocky pivoting and pinning against Oracle Linux. Oracle products certified against OEL and downstream, RHEL flapping around in the wilderness. #redhat
Matt "msw" Wilson@geerlingguy this post makes me sad.
@msw Me too. Red Hat and Oracle both make me sad.
But people doing good things and sharing free software makes me happy. So I choose to continue doing that.
@msw - And if someone wants to take some of the free software I share and sell it, I'm also happy with that, because that makes them richer and my software get used more widely.
As long as they also share alike ;)
@geerlingguy let's highlight hackers and enthusiasts doing awesome things! All the vendor nonsense is exhausting and depressing.
@msw Yes.
Like Rick, who built this neat little 'Pocket NAS' that I tested today using OMV, built atop Armbian, a community distro for SBCs that don't get much support from their vendors! https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/building-tiny-6-drive-m2-nas-rock-5-model-b
kevin@geerlingguy umm, maybe? with a million caveats?
John Bekas Jr@geerlingguy I feel the same way. I kind of feel dirty. But, good on Oracle for calling out IBM/RedHat on this matter.
EVHaste@geerlingguy “Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden.”
I felt the impact of these lines almost physically. That’s good shit.
Flowermob@geerlingguy thanks for that. Another shitty IBM move.
gus3000@geerlingguy Remember, words are cheap.
Someone at Redhat could have written something like this a few years ago.
Someone at Redhat could have written something like this a few years ago.
@gus3000 they could've written this last month too, but they chose the other way :(