4 ms·

What a ridiculous take. There is a concerted attack on RH, but that’s because RH is making a concerted attack on open source and was hoping we’d all just stand

• davisr 3y ago
  Will you please explain how Red Hat is making a concerted attack on open source?
  • Dalewyn 3y ago
    2023 is the year of the freeloaders finally getting demands to pay up or GTFO.
  • mistrial9 3y ago
    as a copyleft supporter + never-been-a-customer, what I see is .. there was an existing agreement with the "community" that spread across access, updates, license terms for the code, license terms for market exchange of services. IBM purchased RH and are now changing those relationships (maybe) staying within bounds of the code side, but definitely changes to the other parts. I guess the there is money that can be extracted from customers for formal business agreements, because the companies that themselves have contractual relationships with their own customers, care about having paperwork intact; similarly with insurance or compliance contracts. At the same time, this is a squeeze play against at least two downstream distros, Alma and Rocky. So the attack is not complete, nor all in one place. I am interested to hear if this is accurate, from others with more skin in the game.
• jzb 3y ago
  Hardly. Making RHEL harder to clone isn’t an attack on open source. It may be Red Hat is slightly less open, but calling it a concerted attack on open source is silly. RHEL isn’t a project. It’s a product. All the actual work is still happening + being released (albeit less conveniently & not as timely). If Red Hat comes up with a fantastic new feature in RHEL the source will still be released - but it’s up to others to reassemble it. That’s hardly a concerted attack on open source. It’s a jab at copycats.
  • mistrial9 3y ago
    the loaded words "freeloader" and to a lesser extent "copycats" .. misses an important aspect of the real lifecycle of GNU/Linux software.. maybe you have heard of a book about tech markets called "crossing the chasm".. one part of that book says that there are easily four layers to participation and customers with tech in some markets.. you can imagine those four yourself because there is more than one valid diagram, but basically developers and their employment or income is innermost, their immediate dependancies for inputs, and their most rabid consumers are second, most customers and business relations of varying flavors third, and then "the Chasm" .. a catchy term to say that getting to those outside the regular channels, is very challenging. So in the RedHat so-called "copycat" case, the immediate downstream fill an important role in getting to the fourth+ layer.. there are more informal, unexpected, temporary or otherwise oddball cases than anyone can imagine. So in a growing and evolving network, the full, paid product from the original brand name source is aided and abetted by these immediate downstream distros. Thats not the same as simply counterfeit on black markets. Neither is it low effort, since these two distros Alma and Rocky, show long-term commitment and good skill levels. Those are valuable growth themselves. What this squeezeplay on the copycats does is remove growth at the edges for lots of people, and consolidate revenue in the center, at RedHat. This is common knowledge among MBAs, and they do it all the time.
    • jzb 3y ago
      That’s a lot of words that in no way actually support what Red Hat is doing as a concerted attack on open source. Attempt at consolidating revenue? Ok. Attack on open source? No. The rest of the community and industry can route around Red Hat and it’s not trying to prevent others from doing anything with, to, around or on open source development or business models except straight up copying RHEL - which is supported by the licenses anyway.
• LexiMax 3y ago
  Red Hat is adhering to the letter of Open Source and Free Software. If this makes you unhappy, we need better definitions and licenses.