4 ms·

> RHEL just requires you to sign in to download the sources, which is making some maintainers grumpy. From what I've read, what's actually making people grumpy

by cesarb 3y ago

> RHEL just requires you to sign in to download the sources, which is making some maintainers grumpy. From what I've read, what's actually making people grumpy is that signing in to download the sources, and later giving these sources to anyone else, could risk losing your RHEL account.

simiones 3y ago
It's not that it could risk that, it's that it absolutely means you lose your RHEL account (and any other contract you had with IBM), at least if they find out about it.
- jzb 3y ago
  I don't believe this is true. It's almost certainly not true for instances of distributing a limited set of sources. That is, I seriously doubt Red Hat or IBM are looking to cancel subscriptions if I download the latest package from RHEL 9.x for Bash or even the Linux kernel and distribute those sources quietly. If I download everything and advertise a rebuild based on those sources? I'd expect that my subscription will be going away soon. There's probably a line somewhere in between where Red Hat would take notice and care. But I would wager a good bottle of Scotch[1] that line is much closer to "everything" than a maintainer grabbing Red Hat's changes to their work via a sign-in to the no-cost account and incorporating those changes or something like that. [1] Say, Auchentoshan Three Wood or something good but not like 30-year-old Speyside. I'm not made of money...
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Per the RHEL subscription agreement, you lose your subscription if you do any of this. Of course, whether they will choose to act on the letter of the contract or not is up to them, but the letter is clear.
    - ComputerGuru 3y ago
      No, per the RHEL agreement they have the right to terminate your subscription "upon review" if you do any of this. It's a subtle difference but it's also worlds apart from "you will have your subscription terminated" (i.e. automatically, as a matter of fact/contract) in the court of law (and in terms of real world repercussions for anyone that isn't building a competing distro).
      - omniglottal 3y ago
        That risk is non-zero in a world where zero of these risks exist for any other GPL software. Relying on nonenforcement is a monumentally foolish business decision.
pengaru 3y ago
Does RH not sell individual copies of RHEL to random members of the public? Is it strictly a large customer account product? Because if they distribute a copy to an individual, RHEL account access banned or not, distribution of binaries puts them on the hook for providing sources. Unless there's no way to buy a single copy as a random stranger, this all seems incredibly impractical to enforce.
- jzb 3y ago
  AFAIK, Red Hat doesn't dabble in any retail redistribution of RHEL that would work as you suggest. You can, I think, get a self-support 1-year subscription online with a credit card for about $350. You can also sign up for no-cost subscriptions. Either of those would be distribution, but also are subscriptions that provide access to binaries + source. In any case: Red Hat giving you a copy of RHEL only entitles you to source for that version and not future (or past) versions. So if you somehow receive RHEL 8.5.1 from Red Hat on media independent of a subscription, you have the right to receive the sources for GPL'ed software present in that release. Not RHEL 8.5, not RHEL 8.5.2, etc. And, technically, you only have the right to source to GPL'ed software, so they don't have to give you source for Apache HTTPD or other permissively licensed software in RHEL. An interesting wrinkle that I haven't seen addressed yet is whether Red Hat has to find a way to convey source to you after the subscription if you had access to download source during the subscription but didn't exercise it. It was there, you just didn't take it. If you want it later, do they have to ship you a DVD or something? I have no idea.

by cesarb 3y ago

simiones 3y ago

It's not that it could risk that, it's that it absolutely means you lose your RHEL account (and any other contract you had with IBM), at least if they find out about it.

jzb 3y ago
I don't believe this is true. It's almost certainly not true for instances of distributing a limited set of sources. That is, I seriously doubt Red Hat or IBM are looking to cancel subscriptions if I download the latest package from RHEL 9.x for Bash or even the Linux kernel and distribute those sources quietly. If I download everything and advertise a rebuild based on those sources? I'd expect that my subscription will be going away soon. There's probably a line somewhere in between where Red Hat would take notice and care. But I would wager a good bottle of Scotch[1] that line is much closer to "everything" than a maintainer grabbing Red Hat's changes to their work via a sign-in to the no-cost account and incorporating those changes or something like that. [1] Say, Auchentoshan Three Wood or something good but not like 30-year-old Speyside. I'm not made of money...
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Per the RHEL subscription agreement, you lose your subscription if you do any of this. Of course, whether they will choose to act on the letter of the contract or not is up to them, but the letter is clear.
  - ComputerGuru 3y ago
    No, per the RHEL agreement they have the right to terminate your subscription "upon review" if you do any of this. It's a subtle difference but it's also worlds apart from "you will have your subscription terminated" (i.e. automatically, as a matter of fact/contract) in the court of law (and in terms of real world repercussions for anyone that isn't building a competing distro).
    - omniglottal 3y ago
      That risk is non-zero in a world where zero of these risks exist for any other GPL software. Relying on nonenforcement is a monumentally foolish business decision.

pengaru 3y ago

Does RH not sell individual copies of RHEL to random members of the public? Is it strictly a large customer account product? Because if they distribute a copy to an individual, RHEL account access banned or not, distribution of binaries puts them on the hook for providing sources. Unless there's no way to buy a single copy as a random stranger, this all seems incredibly impractical to enforce.

jzb 3y ago
AFAIK, Red Hat doesn't dabble in any retail redistribution of RHEL that would work as you suggest. You can, I think, get a self-support 1-year subscription online with a credit card for about $350. You can also sign up for no-cost subscriptions. Either of those would be distribution, but also are subscriptions that provide access to binaries + source. In any case: Red Hat giving you a copy of RHEL only entitles you to source for that version and not future (or past) versions. So if you somehow receive RHEL 8.5.1 from Red Hat on media independent of a subscription, you have the right to receive the sources for GPL'ed software present in that release. Not RHEL 8.5, not RHEL 8.5.2, etc. And, technically, you only have the right to source to GPL'ed software, so they don't have to give you source for Apache HTTPD or other permissively licensed software in RHEL. An interesting wrinkle that I haven't seen addressed yet is whether Red Hat has to find a way to convey source to you after the subscription if you had access to download source during the subscription but didn't exercise it. It was there, you just didn't take it. If you want it later, do they have to ship you a DVD or something? I have no idea.