Oh. Snap.
"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."
https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/blog/keep-linux-open-and-free-2023-07-10/
@troed No, this blog post is at best posturing and at worst misinformation.
I really suggest reading @gordonmessmer 's reply to this blog post on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/14vws22/comment/jrex42p/
And his explanation here of what CentOS Stream actually is: https://medium.com/@gordon.messmer/in-favor-of-centos-stream-e5a8a43bdcf8
@cxiao @gordonmessmer If the downstream projects Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux says the change complicates for them to be binary RHEL compatible I think that validates Oracle's claim.
(I have no problems with Red Hat's decision from a business perspective myself)
@troed @cxiao I'm not sure which of Oracle's claims you mean...
It's simply not true that using RHEL's major-release branch (Stream) as the basis for a derived distribution makes *compatibility* more difficult. It only creates slightly more work to create bug and security fixes for the relatively small number of packages that get rebased in the major-release branch
@gordonmessmer @cxiao So, again, I agree with Red Hat's decision from a business point of view. However, it's exactly that view Oracle targets.
Red Hat stated in no uncertain terms that some downstream projects leeched off their work and made 1:1 repackages that eat into Red Hat's margins.
Oracle is saying "we would be fine with that, our margins can handle it".
Troed Sångberg
Cindʎ Xiao 🍉
Gordon Messmer