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> Red Hat still has to release the patches, right? I think that's a gray area. For example RHEL has some support branches where they'll produce security update
by vbezhenar 6y ago
> Red Hat still has to release the patches, right?
I think that's a gray area. For example RHEL has some support branches where they'll produce security updates for minor updates. For example you can pay a lot of money and you'll get RHEL 7.2 with security updates. They won't release sources for those packages unless you'll ask for those packages (you, as a paid client, not you as nobody in the Internet). But if you'll ask sources and then publish those sources in the internet again and again, so other entity like CentOS or whatever could pick them up and build CentOS 7.2 LTS, they will terminate your contract.
So that's a weakness in GPL. You won't break any law, but they'll just terminate contracts with those who publish those sources. So those sources are effectively unavailable for a large public.
Currently they publish their mainstream branch sources to the public. But they could stop doing that any time and only provide those sources to their clients on request.
- ossusermivami 6y agoI'll be uninstalling my fedora laptop if they do this!
- enz 6y agoWhy?
- ossusermivami 6y agobecause everything red hat is pissing me off right know maybe get better in the future.
- wang_li 6y ago> They won't release sources for those packages unless you'll ask for those packages (you, as a paid client, not you as nobody in the Internet). If the code in question is licensed under the GPL and Red Hat isn't the owner of the code, then I as a rando on the Internet can ask them for the source and if they don't provide it, the person who does own the code can sue them and revoke their license to distribute said code. And I'd say that the majority of code in RHEL is not owned by Red Hat.
- bonzini 6y agoYou can only ask them for the source if you already have the binaries and you've gotten them from Red Hat. If you got the binaries from someone else, you can ask that someone else.
- wang_li 6y agoCan you help me understand why GPL v2 3(b) doesn't obligate Red Hat to provide source code for the kernel, as an example, to anyone who asks? >3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: > b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
- bonzini 6y agoBecause Red Hat offers source code following section 3(a) instead. Thus, section 3(b) does not apply.
- wang_li 6y agoReally? When I do a yum update on my rhel systems to get the latest updates from rhn, they never download the source code. Now that I think about it, I don't think RH has even sent me any kind of medium which is commonly used for interchange.
- vbezhenar 6y agoI think that access to the private repository is considered a distribution. You have access to the sources with `dnf download --source` or something like that. The fact that those sources originally are on the remote server probably is not significant in 2020.
- whereistimbo 6y agoThis is what grsecurity has done as well and I don't understand with people that against the current grsecurity way of licensing.