4 ms·

Rocky Linux claims to have found 'path forward' from CentOS source purge

14 points by mmrezaie 3y ago

pipo234 3y ago
Would it be possible to: 1. create a free dev account 2. get the sources 3. merge changes into rocky repo 4. have the account terminated by the Hat 5. goto 1? Subversive, but mostly in compliance with GPL and Red Hat EULA... Ish. Kinda. But I probably made an error here. Who can point it out?
- nuker 3y ago
  4. Have the user terminated by IBM lawyers.
  - catchnear4321 3y ago
    without sufficient caffeine or context, this line reads like a cyberpunk plot.
    - nuker 3y ago
      William Gibson! Lawyers are also execution branch in any corporate vassalage area. They carry the Licence, pocket Bible and FN Five-seven.
- CommitSyn 3y ago
  Possible sure. Also illegal and would get the company shut down.
  - pipo234 3y ago
    I'm not sure if this is illegal. The developer (john doe) honours the EULA up to the point where the sources are on his computer and cancels hist account (or has RedHat do that). From there, it's just GPL code that can be re-destributed freely (save for RedHat trademarks and licensed assets). The company (rocky, alma, springdale, oracle) is in it's full right to accept any changes and merge them into their GPL code base. Sure the ethics are questionable, but I suppose the IBM lawyers would have a hard time prohibiting this in the EULA while simultaneously honouring GPL and welcoming contributions from anonymous developers. But I suppose I'm just too dumb to see that my cunning plan isn't very cunning at all. :-)
    - nuker 3y ago
      > IBM lawyers would have a hard time Never underestimate your enemy. (c) Sun Tzu, The Art of War
- polski-g 3y ago
  How does RedHat know said user is the one who distributed the changes? If the changes are given to Team Rocky on CD via USPS, there would be know way to know which RedHat user is the one giving changes to Rocky.
  - zxspectrum1982 3y ago
    Red Hat wouldn't even care to identify the user: Rocky Linux, the Rocky Enterprise Linux Foundation, CIQ, etc would be brought to trial for accepting those sources.
reacharavindh 3y ago
Honestly, I’m tired of this. We were going to use Rockylinux as a base for the new version of our research cluster at a University used by researchers from all over the world. We are a tightly funded shop with money allocated as parts of research grants. We were running off of CentOS because a few tools that researchers use were built “for” RHEL by the commercial vendors. Since Redhat now considers users of CentOS “freeloaders” and “leeches”, we have to move on to a better distribution that doesn’t have greedy commercial interests and works with the open source community in the spirit of open source including redistribution freedom. To be fair, even though we were using CentOS at no cost, we have reported a fair share of bugs to RH that I hope to believe benefited the overall community. We have settled on making the effort to move to Debian for the compute nodes. One thing we could not break out of is FreeIPA :-( We are not brave enough to run FreeIPA on Debian or find a completely new alternative in Debian that wouldn’t break us while we are already changing so much. So, we are going to pay for RHEL for one server to run IDM. I will tell the researchers that come to us needing RHEL compatibility to pay for RH license out of their research grants, or spend the time and work with me to make their stuff work on Debian(I can already see what choice they will make). I hope the fine folks and management gurus at IBM/RH rejoice with their short term profit at the cost of long term loss of faith and ruin.
- nuker 3y ago
  > We have settled on making the effort to move to Debian for the compute nodes. I’d donate to Rocky and stick with it, if it were my project.
  - reacharavindh 3y ago
    I would happily donate to Rocky if I thought it would really sustain it. But, honestly, they are too dependent on RH and finding ways to subvert their restrictions (and considering RH is pretty boldly clear that they dont want to give away the sources) makes it a whack-a-mole game that is not sustainable in my opinion. Been burnt with CentOS 8 once, and I'm not willing to go through it again. Atleast I know Debian wont go this way.
    - 3y ago
socrates137 3y ago
> Setting aside the large numbers of angry people who don't really understand how open source licenses work, our impression is that the core issue here is that there are an awful lot of people who feel that simply because this is Linux, they have some kind of right to get it for free. Unfortunately, they don't. That is not what the "free" in Free Software means, and it never was. Something about this irks me. I realize there are some differences between FOSS, FLOSS, and open source. And I realize sometimes there’s some ambiguity there. But I’m still not sure I agree.
nuker 3y ago
Related: GPLv2, Red Hat, and You https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517045

14 points by mmrezaie 3y ago

Would it be possible to: 1. create a free dev account 2. get the sources 3. merge changes into rocky repo 4. have the account terminated by the Hat 5. goto 1? Subversive, but mostly in compliance with GPL and Red Hat EULA... Ish. Kinda. But I probably made an error here. Who can point it out?

nuker 3y ago
4. Have the user terminated by IBM lawyers.
- catchnear4321 3y ago
  without sufficient caffeine or context, this line reads like a cyberpunk plot.
  - nuker 3y ago
    William Gibson! Lawyers are also execution branch in any corporate vassalage area. They carry the Licence, pocket Bible and FN Five-seven.
CommitSyn 3y ago
Possible sure. Also illegal and would get the company shut down.
- pipo234 3y ago
  I'm not sure if this is illegal. The developer (john doe) honours the EULA up to the point where the sources are on his computer and cancels hist account (or has RedHat do that). From there, it's just GPL code that can be re-destributed freely (save for RedHat trademarks and licensed assets). The company (rocky, alma, springdale, oracle) is in it's full right to accept any changes and merge them into their GPL code base. Sure the ethics are questionable, but I suppose the IBM lawyers would have a hard time prohibiting this in the EULA while simultaneously honouring GPL and welcoming contributions from anonymous developers. But I suppose I'm just too dumb to see that my cunning plan isn't very cunning at all. :-)
  - nuker 3y ago
    > IBM lawyers would have a hard time Never underestimate your enemy. (c) Sun Tzu, The Art of War
polski-g 3y ago
How does RedHat know said user is the one who distributed the changes? If the changes are given to Team Rocky on CD via USPS, there would be know way to know which RedHat user is the one giving changes to Rocky.
- zxspectrum1982 3y ago
  Red Hat wouldn't even care to identify the user: Rocky Linux, the Rocky Enterprise Linux Foundation, CIQ, etc would be brought to trial for accepting those sources.

reacharavindh 3y ago

Honestly, I’m tired of this. We were going to use Rockylinux as a base for the new version of our research cluster at a University used by researchers from all over the world. We are a tightly funded shop with money allocated as parts of research grants. We were running off of CentOS because a few tools that researchers use were built “for” RHEL by the commercial vendors. Since Redhat now considers users of CentOS “freeloaders” and “leeches”, we have to move on to a better distribution that doesn’t have greedy commercial interests and works with the open source community in the spirit of open source including redistribution freedom. To be fair, even though we were using CentOS at no cost, we have reported a fair share of bugs to RH that I hope to believe benefited the overall community. We have settled on making the effort to move to Debian for the compute nodes. One thing we could not break out of is FreeIPA :-( We are not brave enough to run FreeIPA on Debian or find a completely new alternative in Debian that wouldn’t break us while we are already changing so much. So, we are going to pay for RHEL for one server to run IDM. I will tell the researchers that come to us needing RHEL compatibility to pay for RH license out of their research grants, or spend the time and work with me to make their stuff work on Debian(I can already see what choice they will make). I hope the fine folks and management gurus at IBM/RH rejoice with their short term profit at the cost of long term loss of faith and ruin.

nuker 3y ago
> We have settled on making the effort to move to Debian for the compute nodes. I’d donate to Rocky and stick with it, if it were my project.
- reacharavindh 3y ago
  I would happily donate to Rocky if I thought it would really sustain it. But, honestly, they are too dependent on RH and finding ways to subvert their restrictions (and considering RH is pretty boldly clear that they dont want to give away the sources) makes it a whack-a-mole game that is not sustainable in my opinion. Been burnt with CentOS 8 once, and I'm not willing to go through it again. Atleast I know Debian wont go this way.
  - 3y ago

socrates137 3y ago

> Setting aside the large numbers of angry people who don't really understand how open source licenses work, our impression is that the core issue here is that there are an awful lot of people who feel that simply because this is Linux, they have some kind of right to get it for free. Unfortunately, they don't. That is not what the "free" in Free Software means, and it never was. Something about this irks me. I realize there are some differences between FOSS, FLOSS, and open source. And I realize sometimes there’s some ambiguity there. But I’m still not sure I agree.

nuker 3y ago

Related: GPLv2, Red Hat, and You https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36517045