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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

by 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.

by jzb 3y ago

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.