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Long time Fedora user here. Love it. It's so clean and generic. No fuss, no bullshit. The workstation build they have worked on for a few releases now was a re

Long time Fedora user here. Love it. It's so clean and generic. No fuss, no bullshit. The workstation build they have worked on for a few releases now was a real boon. Just like OSX, I just get on with it, and I don't notice it.

madez 11y ago
I thought well about Fedora until I found out that encryption was crippled in Fedora.
- teh_klev 11y ago
  Citation?
  - madez 11y ago
    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901
    - teh_klev 11y ago
      Looks fixed to me since 2013: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901#c98 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901#c98
    - dijit 11y ago
      Even if you say "it's fixed now" the fact that this problem existed for 6 years. (SIX YEARS! screams internally) and the handling of it "we'll close this ticket WONTFIX if you discuss patents here" is so terrible that it's shaken my perception of RedHat in regards to Fedora. CentOS was packaged and shipping (I know it wasn't redhat owned, but they are binary compatible, right?) with the elliptic curve options enabled. I'm still running Fedora 21 on my machine at home, I've been using Fedup to upgrade since Fedora 17 and it's still working! but this has caused enough doubt about their intentions that I may end up replacing my distro.
      - rwmj 11y ago
        Red Hat is a multi-billion dollar US corporation. They are absolutely a target for every crappy patent troll out there, and they do have to take this stuff very seriously. Plus, even discussing a patent causes wilful liability. If you don't like it, change US law.
      - teh_klev 11y ago
        > "we'll close this ticket WONTFIX if you discuss patents here" is so terrible that it's shaken my perception of RedHat in regards to Fedora. Sure, but if I was "Tom "spot" Callaway" I'd lose my patience a bit. If things are bunged up in legal what's he to do. I thought he did a reasonable job of trying to keep the bug report on-topic whilst fending off the tin foil hatters and some generally quite rude individuals adding nothing to that thread.
      - ajross 11y ago
        I'm not understanding the "doubt their intentions" bit. You're saying that Fedora deliberately did this to harm you? It's just legal fear. It may be justified or not (probably not, as this feature is now enabled), but I don't see the reason to invoke malice. Why the tinfoil hattery? This is hardly the first time Fedora has refused to ship patent-encumbered software and it won't be the last.
        dijit 11y ago
        The patent is free use- and while I understand why they'd be skittish; this particular problem has implications about weakening security for non-business customers, since CentOS (and I infer RHEL) ship with ECDSA enabled. as an aside: 6 YEARS is an insane lead time to check the patents usability.
    - brobinson 11y ago
      Wow, this is a crazy bug report thread. Does anyone know if OpenSSL was intentionally crippled in CentOS at the time of this thread?
- briarrose 11y ago
  I'm not sure crippled is the right word. I think limited might be a better choice. Redhat seems paranoid about patents and lacked the particular curve necessary to build bitcoin / ethereum without first building openssl. I'm actually mildly surprised there's not an unofficial "spin" that addresses these IP-related limitations the way various distros like Mint address various Ubuntu pain points.

madez 11y ago

I thought well about Fedora until I found out that encryption was crippled in Fedora.

teh_klev 11y ago
Citation?
- madez 11y ago
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901
  - teh_klev 11y ago
    Looks fixed to me since 2013: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901#c98 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319901#c98
  - dijit 11y ago
    Even if you say "it's fixed now" the fact that this problem existed for 6 years. (SIX YEARS! screams internally) and the handling of it "we'll close this ticket WONTFIX if you discuss patents here" is so terrible that it's shaken my perception of RedHat in regards to Fedora. CentOS was packaged and shipping (I know it wasn't redhat owned, but they are binary compatible, right?) with the elliptic curve options enabled. I'm still running Fedora 21 on my machine at home, I've been using Fedup to upgrade since Fedora 17 and it's still working! but this has caused enough doubt about their intentions that I may end up replacing my distro.
    - rwmj 11y ago
      Red Hat is a multi-billion dollar US corporation. They are absolutely a target for every crappy patent troll out there, and they do have to take this stuff very seriously. Plus, even discussing a patent causes wilful liability. If you don't like it, change US law.
    - teh_klev 11y ago
      > "we'll close this ticket WONTFIX if you discuss patents here" is so terrible that it's shaken my perception of RedHat in regards to Fedora. Sure, but if I was "Tom "spot" Callaway" I'd lose my patience a bit. If things are bunged up in legal what's he to do. I thought he did a reasonable job of trying to keep the bug report on-topic whilst fending off the tin foil hatters and some generally quite rude individuals adding nothing to that thread.
    - ajross 11y ago
      I'm not understanding the "doubt their intentions" bit. You're saying that Fedora deliberately did this to harm you? It's just legal fear. It may be justified or not (probably not, as this feature is now enabled), but I don't see the reason to invoke malice. Why the tinfoil hattery? This is hardly the first time Fedora has refused to ship patent-encumbered software and it won't be the last.
      - dijit 11y ago
        The patent is free use- and while I understand why they'd be skittish; this particular problem has implications about weakening security for non-business customers, since CentOS (and I infer RHEL) ship with ECDSA enabled. as an aside: 6 YEARS is an insane lead time to check the patents usability.
  - brobinson 11y ago
    Wow, this is a crazy bug report thread. Does anyone know if OpenSSL was intentionally crippled in CentOS at the time of this thread?
briarrose 11y ago
I'm not sure crippled is the right word. I think limited might be a better choice. Redhat seems paranoid about patents and lacked the particular curve necessary to build bitcoin / ethereum without first building openssl. I'm actually mildly surprised there's not an unofficial "spin" that addresses these IP-related limitations the way various distros like Mint address various Ubuntu pain points.