3 ms·

I always assumed it was possible to spin up an AWS instance or DO droplet with RHEL and licensing was baked into the hourly rate. Is that not the case?

jacooper 3y ago
Yes, he can even use the free RHEL Dev licenses, he just doesnt want to bother with any kind of licensing system.
- rednerrus 3y ago
  Isn't he trying to make a stand against the silliness that Red Hat is doing?
  - tssva 3y ago
    He is but should be more honest about it instead of claiming that the reason is not being able to test.
    - solarkraft 3y ago
      Not being able to test conveniently is enough of a reason. The guy did free work for their platform.
      - tssva 3y ago
        It can still be conveniently tested. He is making a statement and should be more clear that is what is happening here. He didn't do free work for their platform. He did work using their platform which he made freely available to further his own situation. I don't say that in a judgemental way. There is nothing wrong with that, but let's not misrepresent it.
- monkey26 3y ago
  I do the RedHat side of support for our open source project. And when I do have to spin up real RedHat for something, it’s always a pain of fixing up some licensing or another.
  - ilc 3y ago
    If it is any comfort, while I was at Red Hat... I used CentOS for testing, for this exact reason. Alas, this was before Red Hat bought CentOS :(.
- yrro 3y ago
  To be fair dealing with subscription-manager is agony
jareds 3y ago
Why should you have to spin a VM for Redhat up in the cloud with the associated cost if no one is paying you for supporting it? If you already ahve the hardware at home to run other Linux distributions I understand not wanting to jump through hoops to support Redhat if you don't have a contract with anyone to do so.
bamfly 3y ago
Why would anybody put even one second of volunteer effort into helping RHEL, let alone pay to do it, when Red Hat's locked off access to their system? If they're taking and not contributing, what possible reason would anyone have for doing stuff for them for free, or voluntarily paying to help them out? Let them test it, if they care.
- Spooky23 3y ago
  Red Hat contributes a ton. Companies like Oracle basically sponge off of their work.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    RHEL specifically is now fenced off. Supporting it's barely any different than supporting macOS or Windows—do it if you are targeting it in particular or personally use it, sure, then you get benefits, but otherwise, why give them free labor? Contribute to projects Red Hat uses on which they contribute back, sure, by why straight-up work for them for free? That's what supporting RHEL on a volunteer basis is, now (again, unless you personally use it or care about specifically supporting some users who do).
- kriberg 3y ago
  I dont want to shill for redhat, but stating they are taking and not contributing is quite unfair. At least in the context of open source.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    RHEL specifically is no longer contributing back. Helping that particular distro is just giving them free labor and getting nothing in return.
    - kriberg 3y ago
      That's an absurd generalization. They contribute upstream. They aren't forking every project and keeping changes for themselves and customers. Just the sheer amount of development and testing RedHat puts into the kernel alone, funded by RHEL, should be sufficient to disprove this argument. There's nuance here. TFA has a legit complaint that supporting RHEL puts extra hassle on you as an open source contributor. RedHat is also fully in their right to strictly adhere to the license of the software they distribute. Supporting RHEL as a distribution for your software means access to users on that distribution. That might mean nothing, but that depends from project to project. For the article's author that has little worth and that's a cost-benefit analysis for him. That might not be the case for other projects.
ranting-moth 3y ago
Probably. It's also possible just to outsource the whole testing process to to someone else. He could even contract RedHat to do it. I'm pretty sure even Microsoft would test it for him if the money is right.

jacooper 3y ago

Yes, he can even use the free RHEL Dev licenses, he just doesnt want to bother with any kind of licensing system.

rednerrus 3y ago
Isn't he trying to make a stand against the silliness that Red Hat is doing?
- tssva 3y ago
  He is but should be more honest about it instead of claiming that the reason is not being able to test.
  - solarkraft 3y ago
    Not being able to test conveniently is enough of a reason. The guy did free work for their platform.
    - tssva 3y ago
      It can still be conveniently tested. He is making a statement and should be more clear that is what is happening here. He didn't do free work for their platform. He did work using their platform which he made freely available to further his own situation. I don't say that in a judgemental way. There is nothing wrong with that, but let's not misrepresent it.
monkey26 3y ago
I do the RedHat side of support for our open source project. And when I do have to spin up real RedHat for something, it’s always a pain of fixing up some licensing or another.
- ilc 3y ago
  If it is any comfort, while I was at Red Hat... I used CentOS for testing, for this exact reason. Alas, this was before Red Hat bought CentOS :(.
yrro 3y ago
To be fair dealing with subscription-manager is agony

jareds 3y ago

Why should you have to spin a VM for Redhat up in the cloud with the associated cost if no one is paying you for supporting it? If you already ahve the hardware at home to run other Linux distributions I understand not wanting to jump through hoops to support Redhat if you don't have a contract with anyone to do so.

bamfly 3y ago

Why would anybody put even one second of volunteer effort into helping RHEL, let alone pay to do it, when Red Hat's locked off access to their system? If they're taking and not contributing, what possible reason would anyone have for doing stuff for them for free, or voluntarily paying to help them out? Let them test it, if they care.

Spooky23 3y ago
Red Hat contributes a ton. Companies like Oracle basically sponge off of their work.
- bamfly 3y ago
  RHEL specifically is now fenced off. Supporting it's barely any different than supporting macOS or Windows—do it if you are targeting it in particular or personally use it, sure, then you get benefits, but otherwise, why give them free labor? Contribute to projects Red Hat uses on which they contribute back, sure, by why straight-up work for them for free? That's what supporting RHEL on a volunteer basis is, now (again, unless you personally use it or care about specifically supporting some users who do).
kriberg 3y ago
I dont want to shill for redhat, but stating they are taking and not contributing is quite unfair. At least in the context of open source.
- bamfly 3y ago
  RHEL specifically is no longer contributing back. Helping that particular distro is just giving them free labor and getting nothing in return.
  - kriberg 3y ago
    That's an absurd generalization. They contribute upstream. They aren't forking every project and keeping changes for themselves and customers. Just the sheer amount of development and testing RedHat puts into the kernel alone, funded by RHEL, should be sufficient to disprove this argument. There's nuance here. TFA has a legit complaint that supporting RHEL puts extra hassle on you as an open source contributor. RedHat is also fully in their right to strictly adhere to the license of the software they distribute. Supporting RHEL as a distribution for your software means access to users on that distribution. That might mean nothing, but that depends from project to project. For the article's author that has little worth and that's a cost-benefit analysis for him. That might not be the case for other projects.

ranting-moth 3y ago

Probably. It's also possible just to outsource the whole testing process to to someone else. He could even contract RedHat to do it. I'm pretty sure even Microsoft would test it for him if the money is right.