What do you all think of the Red Hat drama a few months ago? I just learned about it and looked into it a bit. I’ve been using Fedora for a while now on my main system, but curious whether you think this will end up affecting it.
My take is that yes, it’s kinda a shitty move to do but I get why RH decided to stop their maintenance given they’re a for profit company.
What do you guys think? Do you still use or would you consider using Fedora?
I don’t think that anything is wrong with Fedora. They are related to RedHat but nothing was changed that affects Fedora, so I’ll continue to use it on a system.
I agree that RedHats changes aren’t good and it might be a bad decision long term, seeing how Suse and Oracle are working on their solution.
In my view, the “community” reaction was terrible. Regardless of if you agree with them or not, the response should be honest and rational. I found the reaction, emotional, political, and frankly dishonest. The response was that Red Hat was suddenly going proprietary, that they were violating the GPL, and / or that they were “taking” the work of untold legions of free software volunteers without giving back. They were accused of naked corporate greed by companies whose whole business is based on using Red Hat’s work without paying ( peak hypocrisy ).
Let’s start with what they actually did. Red Hat builds RHEL first by contributing all their code and collecting all the Open Source packages they use into a distribution called CentOS Stream. Once in a while, they fork that and begin building a new release of RHEL. That requires lots of testing, packaging, configuration, documentation, and other work required to make RHEL above and beyond the source code. Previously, they made the output of all this work publicly available. What they did was stop that. So, what does it look like now?
Red Hat now only distributes the RHEL SRPM packages to their subscribers ( which may be paying customers or getting it free ). The support agreement with Red Hat says that, if you distribute those to others, they will cancel your subscription. That is the big controversy.
What you cannot do now is “easily” build a RHEL clone that is guaranteed “bug for bug” compatible with RHEL and use it to compete with Red Hat. You will notice that those making the most noise, like Rocky Linux, want to do that.
So, are Red Hat violating the GPL? No.
First, Red Hat distributes all the code to make RHEL to the actual people they “distribute to” ( to their subscribers ) including everything required to configure and build it. This is everything required by the GPL and more.
Second, less than half of the code in RHEL is even GPL licensed. The text of the GPL itself says that the requirements of the GPL do not extend to such an “aggregate” ( the term the GPL itself uses ). So, Red Hat is going quite above and beyond the licensing by providing their subscribers code to the entire distribution. Yes, beyond.
Third, CentOS Stream remains open to everybody. You can build a Linux distribution from that that is ABI compatible with RHEL. That is what Alma Linux is doing now. Red Hat contributes mountains of free software to the world, both original packages and contributions to some of the most important packages in the free software world. Red Hat is not required to license packages they author under the GPL but they do. They are not required to make all of CentOS Stream available to the public but they do. They are certainly not freeloaders.
But what about this business of cancelling subscriptions? Isn’t that a restriction in violation of the GPL? Not in my view.
The GPL says that you are free to distribute code you receive under the GPL without fear of being accused of copyright violation. It says you can modify the code and distribute your changes. It says you can start a business in top of that code and nobody can stop you. Do RHEL subscribers enjoy all these freedoms. Yes. Yes they do.
What happens ( after the change ) when a RHEL subscriber violates the terms of their subscriber agreement? Well, they cease to be a subscriber. Does this mean they lose access to the source they got from RHEL? No. Does it mean they can be sued for distributing the code? No. I mean, you could risk trademark violation if you sell it I guess.
So, what does it mean that RHEL cancels your subscription? Well, it means they will no longer support you. I hope people see that as fair. It also means as bs they will no longer distribute their software to you IN THE FUTURE.
That is it. That is the outrage.
If you give away the results of Red Hat’s hard work to productize CentOS Stream into RHEL, they stop sending you future releases.
Again, that is it.
You can do whatever you want with what they already sent you. You have all the rights the GPL provides, even for software licenses as MIT, BSD, Apache, or otherwise. Nothing has been taken from you except access to FUTURE Red Hat product ( other than totally for free via CentOS Stream of course ).
Anyway, as you can see, they are the devil and we should hope their business fails. Because, why would we want a commercial successful company to keep contributing as much to Free Software and Open Source as they do?
So, are Red Hat violating the GPL? No.
But what about this business of cancelling subscriptions? Isn’t that a restriction in violation of the GPL? Not in my view.
You are just repeating the exact narrow definition that Redhat/IBM’s lawyer leeches found to justify what they did. Yes it’s legal - but by no means in the spirit of GPL or any FSF or OSI approved license.
Starting with the FSF definition, ANY software from OUTSIDE that RH builds on (this includes the kernel and numerous other parts) comes to them with 4 assured freedoms. One of them is the freedom to distribute the software or the modified forms of it. To put it in short, what RH says is - “You’re still free to exercise the freedom - but we will stop doing business with you if you do”. While this is not against the letter of the license, this is most certainly AGAINST the INTENT of the license.
One might ask, if that’s the intent of the license, why does the license allow such a loophole? To put it simply, the creators of the license created it based on certain guidelines. But they couldn’t foresee all the ways in which the license would be twisted, violating its intent. This happens from time to time - causing the licenses to undergo revisions. For example, GPLv3 was created due to what FSF calls Tivoization - a practice that violates the intent without violating the license. Hell, this is against even OSI’s intent.
However, just because there are loop holes in the license to violate its intent, doesn’t mean that it’s ethical or moral to take advantage of it. When some company does so, it’s nothing short of parasitism. In this case, RH managed to suppress GPL after profiteering for decades from it.
In my view, the “community” reaction was terrible.
Clearly, your view is heavily colored. Remember that the community’s reaction was only a response to what RH did. You clearly are not seeing the possibility that what RH did is way way worse and extremely damaging towards the community and FOSS principles.
If you give away the results of Red Hat’s hard work to productize CentOS Stream into RHEL,
This is a very myopic, one-sided and biased take. A lot of people who are complaining are contributors to the work RH uses. This isn’t just about some bit of work. This is about trust that forms the foundations of the FOSS movement. People will be hesitant to contribute to any project that RH may take and profit like this. RH is using their code in a way that they were not expecting. What RH did is to fundamentally exploit that trust and then betray it.
Nothing has been taken from you except access to FUTURE Red Hat product ( other than totally for free via CentOS Stream of course ).
The same narrow definitions to justify the malicious intent. Remember that distributing the recipe for ‘FUTURE Red Hat product’ wouldn’t be wrong in any way if RH hadn’t created the new clause - that they will stop supplying if you did. They had to invent a way to override the intent of FOSS.
So, Red Hat is going quite above and beyond the licensing by providing their subscribers code to the entire distribution. Yes, beyond.
They don’t have a business if they didn’t distribute the source code. There are numerous other offerings that give you the same services without the source code. They are doing nothing beyond what it takes for them to make money. So, their moral superiority arguments are based on false premises.
I’m honestly very tired of people shilling the false arguments of corporates that exploit regular folks to make money. The stories of how RH damaged the entire Linux ecosystem for supporting their business is too long for me to even get into. For now, I will just say that RH’s entire business model has been to make the Linux ecosystem too complicated for anyone else to reasonably manage or modify. So, please stop giving this greedy corporation more credit than what it’s worth and stop demonizing the people who complained when their reasonable expectations were violated.
And all the people that provide the free software RH is using and making money with don’t count?! How about RH subscribe to all their projects to be able to repackage and redistribute their code, and if one of them doesn’t like RH then they’ll just cut them off like RH is doing to their customers. Does that sound like a good direction for the OSS ecosystem to you?
Of course RH does also provide back to the community, but that is the whole deal! You get free and open code, you give back free and open code. And they are a big company making a lot of money, so of course they should also contribute much more than a handful of devs would. That shouldn’t give them the privilege to unilaterally change this deal.
I get that it’s technically within the bounds of the GPL, but it’s a loophole and not how an “OSS company” should act imo! The whole OSS ecosystem as we know it would collapse if all projects started doing this.
By the way, I do not use Fedora or RHEL and have no connection to Red Hat of any kind ( though I used to use their distros before Fedora existed and for a bit after — all long ago ).
Well said, and this should really be the top comment. Yes, I am mostly a Fedora user these days, but I also love Arch and Debian. I have a lot of respect for the significant contributions that Redhat have given to the community time and time again, and I had zero issue with their recent stance.
Fedora is still solid and will likely be solid for a long time. Redhat can’t afford to kill it as it is basicly the desktop version of redhat
I personally don’t like what RH did, but their goals were pretty clear and I don’t see how that has anything to do with Fedora. It’s still a very good community project that also provides great value to RH themselves, so I don’t have any fears that they might stop support, start restricting access or interfering with their work.
And I completely agree with how they handled the telemetry thing. Telemetry is important, the way they want to implement it is fine with me, and they discussed it at length with the community.
Yeah? Redhat just backs fedora they don’t own it. Fedora is completely separate and run by the community
Red Hat owns Fedora, just like how they owned CentOS. I think there’s a risk that Red Hat will make more anti user moves going forward, and I also think that it’s not worth spending time learning the “Red Hat ecosystem” now that CentOS is dead. Get away from Fedora.
Agree. I just feel bad for Nobara, a very good distro for gamers.
Fedora is a great distro, I see no reason why the stuff affecting EL would be an issue. I think if Red Hat wanted out of it (not likely since it benefits them as a downstream) they would spin it off into a foundation and it would probably maintain a close relationship. It is not a competitor like CentOS.
I had settled on Fedora but after that debacle I decided to move to OpenSUSE - no complaints there.
There’s plenty of choice, why stick with Red Hat?
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I’m making the same move, but I’d say a good option for most Linux users would be Debian or Arch. Solid distros with a ton of support.
Stopping support to competitors is reasonable (quite rude to give short notice), on the other hand, violating the GLP license is unacceptable. Red had has definitely lost my trust.
To my knowledge, they did not violate the GPL. The sources are still available. They just don’t organize it in a way that it’s easy to build an exact clone of RHEL. If you want that, you have to have a RHEL subscription.
SUSE is going in a similar direction and not getting much heat. Leap is apparently going away in favor of Slowroll, which is similar to CentOS. If you want stable, you have to pay. Meanwhile, they are taking shots at Red Hat and throwing a little money at making a RHEL clone.
They have a eula that prohibits redistribution of software that is licensed under the GPL, so they violate it. The excuse is that you can get those packages from other sources, but that doesn’t change the above.
Well, I moved away from Fedora with the licensing change and telemetry proposal. It’s a great distro and it’s pretty much the most cohesive experience I’ve had with linux, but those issues have made me wary. We’ll see where they go from here, but for now I’m looking elsewhere.
I have no problem with the telemetry, it’s anonymized and open source. It could help Fedora. Totally different from spooky proprietary telemetry
People just see the word telemetry and get frightened without looking into it in any detail.
Also you have the ability to disable it right in the installer/welcome screen, before anything is being sent. Imo having good telemetry is important, and this is how it should be done!
The problem is that lack of telemetry is one of the reasons why a lot of distros are still not as good as they can possibly be. FOSS should destigmatize telemetry, for innovation’s sake.
What was the Fedora licensing change? Are you talking about the RHEL source code now requiring a subscription?
The RHEL situation, yes.
No matter how tempting, I wouldn’t use Fedora since it ships with opt-out telemetry.
Red Hat has a right to shoot itself in the foot as many times as it wants. Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and Oracle will gladly take over their business without skipping a beat.
It doesn’t ship with opt out telemetry. You have to explicitly opt in.
They were considering changing the telemetry to opt out for Fedora 40.
And the telemetry is anonymous, the method of collection is open sourced, and has been independently verified to not contain personally identifiable information. The proposal was never for telemetry in the way that Google or Microsoft does it.
Multiple other distros already have a similar system in place and nobody bats an eyelid.
Opt-out telemetry has never been the standard for Linux distros.
If we have to bash Ubuntu for telemetry, we have to bash Fedora with the same stick.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Fedora. I’m saying I wouldn’t.
Opt out telemetry is already used by some.
Ok, if you get offended by opt-out telemetry that’s completely anonymous, transparent, and only helps developers, then that’s fine. Don’t use it. Or opt out.
No amount of gaslighting by you or excusing telemetry for good reason will change my opinion on opt-out telemetry.
I don’t think you know what gaslighting means.
But ok, I’m not trying to change your mind lol - I said don’t use it
Maybe you should look up the definition of the word and come back to your previous comments.
Gaslighting, also called coercive control, refers to extreme psychological manipulation to commit an individual to a psychiatric institution or cause mental illness with the intent to brainwash.
Yeah. That’s totally what I’m doing when I remind you that telemetry exists in multiple distros and I explained that the telemetry Fedora was considering adding has been independently confirmed as not having any personally identifiable information.
