5 ms·

For what?

by jacooper 3y ago

For what?

tyingq 3y ago
RHEL is designed to make forks difficult to do without infringing on trademarks.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
  The community has a large amount of experience with debranding RHEL. CentOS did it for decades. If there is a left over of Red Hat branding, you'd have a hard time proving any kind of purposeful infringement.
  - tyingq 3y ago
    I believe the idea is that RedHat will likely be more thorough with a commercial entity than they were with CentOS. Yes, I'm sure it's technically possible, but also possible they will get into some back-and-forth with RedHat.
    - secureleaf 3y ago
      I wouldn’t be so certain. Oracle has been doing this for years with Oracle Linux.
  - kriberg 3y ago
    Redhat debranded RHEL for CentOS. It was one of the things CentOS compalined about, so RedHat made it easier for them. Maybe it saved RedHat money overall by avoiding trademark protection (IANAL).
- Conan_Kudo 3y ago
  Actually, quite the opposite. Going all the way upstream to Fedora, the trademarks are designed to be easy to change out. Going from Fedora to CentOS Stream shows one brand swap over. And if you have RHEL, you can easily compare the package sets between CentOS Stream and RHEL to see which packages are swapped for branding. Both Red Hat and SUSE distributions make it easy because internally both companies need to do the trademark swap in their own engineering pipelines.
  - tyingq 3y ago
    The Rocky Linux folks pointing out some of the things that make it hard: https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/ https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/
    - Conan_Kudo 3y ago
      Rocky Linux is trying to specifically recreate RHEL exactly. That adds a new set of challenges that most people shouldn't care about. If you want to create a derivative of any Fedora/CentOS distribution, that's not hard. But if you're trying to recreate, that's a different story. You have to care about things like build sequencing, NVRs, etc. For example, if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a RHEL-compatible distribution by deriving from CentOS Stream, I only need to swap the branding packages and call it a day. The rest of my engineering effort can be spent in Fedora or CentOS Stream as appropriate. But if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a distribution that re-creates RHEL, then I need all the source packages to build, figure out build orders, and swap out branding. I also have to do my own lifecycling and validation. I am also now responsible for the maintenance of all the software and ensuring people get updates. One is easy. The other isn't.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        And in fact you probably won't create a perfect reproduction given you don't have access to the very complex RHEL build system. (CentOS didn't either.) Which makes some of the angst over just using CentOS Stream because it's not a downstream rebuild a bit misplaced.
      - tyingq 3y ago
        I would guess Suse is trying to do the harder one. I could be wrong, but I think the intended audience is people that want to drop RedHat and the associated cost, but with minimal changes to everything in their ecosystem other than the OS itself. If Suse thinks they are going to make money in this space via support contracts rather than licensing, it's sort of a "commoditize your complements" thing...commoditizing the paid license subscription part. That's a guess though. It's not clear to me how they plan to make money with this move.
- Spooky23 3y ago
  Better let Oracle know!
  - chasil 3y ago
    An interesting thing about Oracle Linux... $ ssh me@myol7.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 7.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.9 (Maipo) $ ssh me@myol8.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 8.8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.8 (Ootpa) $ ssh me@myol9.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 9.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 9.2 (Plow) I guess Oracle doesn't remove all the branding. I don't remember how CentOS handled this.
    - cjm42 3y ago
      redhat-release is a symlink to /etc/centos-release: $ cat /etc/redhat-release CentOS Linux release 7.5.1804 (Core)
    - pak9rabid 3y ago
      My understanding is /etc/redhat-release needs to be there because some (dumb) blob drivers specifically check that file to see if you're running a compatible RHEL system before it'll even attempt to install.
      - rincebrain 3y ago
        At a previous job, we had a wrapper script that swapped the file out before attempting to launch Dell software installers/firmware updaters, because they sometimes checked for hardcoded exact strings like that in there, and errored out, and whether or not it did that varied back and forth over the years.
- donkeyd 3y ago
  I guess the guy with 18 years of experience there might be well suited for the job then!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kijin 3y ago
Doesn't matter. IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence. Having hired a former VP who probably knows a trade secret or two sounds like a good enough excuse to cry wolf.
- skissane 3y ago
  > IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence If IBM sues SUSE, Oracle might try to intervene, on the grounds that a ruling against SUSE could negatively impact them as well. I'm not sure if IBM vs Oracle is a lawsuit either would want to have. Both have very deep pockets, and substantial corporate experience with litigation. So, that factor may help protect SUSE
  - kijin 3y ago
    I really hope that you are right. Never thought there would come a day when I must root for Oracle to help defend open source, but here we are.
    - LeFantome 3y ago
      Oracle will never second Open Source, I assure you. They will defend themselves. Occasionally that may benefit you accidentally. If so, I would not bet on it continuing.
- LeFantome 3y ago
  What lawsuits? Over what?

For what?

tyingq 3y ago

RHEL is designed to make forks difficult to do without infringing on trademarks.

PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
The community has a large amount of experience with debranding RHEL. CentOS did it for decades. If there is a left over of Red Hat branding, you'd have a hard time proving any kind of purposeful infringement.
- tyingq 3y ago
  I believe the idea is that RedHat will likely be more thorough with a commercial entity than they were with CentOS. Yes, I'm sure it's technically possible, but also possible they will get into some back-and-forth with RedHat.
  - secureleaf 3y ago
    I wouldn’t be so certain. Oracle has been doing this for years with Oracle Linux.
- kriberg 3y ago
  Redhat debranded RHEL for CentOS. It was one of the things CentOS compalined about, so RedHat made it easier for them. Maybe it saved RedHat money overall by avoiding trademark protection (IANAL).
Conan_Kudo 3y ago
Actually, quite the opposite. Going all the way upstream to Fedora, the trademarks are designed to be easy to change out. Going from Fedora to CentOS Stream shows one brand swap over. And if you have RHEL, you can easily compare the package sets between CentOS Stream and RHEL to see which packages are swapped for branding. Both Red Hat and SUSE distributions make it easy because internally both companies need to do the trademark swap in their own engineering pipelines.
- tyingq 3y ago
  The Rocky Linux folks pointing out some of the things that make it hard: https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/ https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/
  - Conan_Kudo 3y ago
    Rocky Linux is trying to specifically recreate RHEL exactly. That adds a new set of challenges that most people shouldn't care about. If you want to create a derivative of any Fedora/CentOS distribution, that's not hard. But if you're trying to recreate, that's a different story. You have to care about things like build sequencing, NVRs, etc. For example, if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a RHEL-compatible distribution by deriving from CentOS Stream, I only need to swap the branding packages and call it a day. The rest of my engineering effort can be spent in Fedora or CentOS Stream as appropriate. But if I'm creating Kudo Linux as a distribution that re-creates RHEL, then I need all the source packages to build, figure out build orders, and swap out branding. I also have to do my own lifecycling and validation. I am also now responsible for the maintenance of all the software and ensuring people get updates. One is easy. The other isn't.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      And in fact you probably won't create a perfect reproduction given you don't have access to the very complex RHEL build system. (CentOS didn't either.) Which makes some of the angst over just using CentOS Stream because it's not a downstream rebuild a bit misplaced.
    - tyingq 3y ago
      I would guess Suse is trying to do the harder one. I could be wrong, but I think the intended audience is people that want to drop RedHat and the associated cost, but with minimal changes to everything in their ecosystem other than the OS itself. If Suse thinks they are going to make money in this space via support contracts rather than licensing, it's sort of a "commoditize your complements" thing...commoditizing the paid license subscription part. That's a guess though. It's not clear to me how they plan to make money with this move.
Spooky23 3y ago
Better let Oracle know!
- chasil 3y ago
  An interesting thing about Oracle Linux... $ ssh me@myol7.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 7.9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.9 (Maipo) $ ssh me@myol8.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 8.8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.8 (Ootpa) $ ssh me@myol9.myplace.com cat /etc/oracle-release /etc/redhat-release Oracle Linux Server release 9.2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 9.2 (Plow) I guess Oracle doesn't remove all the branding. I don't remember how CentOS handled this.
  - cjm42 3y ago
    redhat-release is a symlink to /etc/centos-release: $ cat /etc/redhat-release CentOS Linux release 7.5.1804 (Core)
  - pak9rabid 3y ago
    My understanding is /etc/redhat-release needs to be there because some (dumb) blob drivers specifically check that file to see if you're running a compatible RHEL system before it'll even attempt to install.
    - rincebrain 3y ago
      At a previous job, we had a wrapper script that swapped the file out before attempting to launch Dell software installers/firmware updaters, because they sometimes checked for hardcoded exact strings like that in there, and errored out, and whether or not it did that varied back and forth over the years.
donkeyd 3y ago
I guess the guy with 18 years of experience there might be well suited for the job then!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kijin 3y ago

Doesn't matter. IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence. Having hired a former VP who probably knows a trade secret or two sounds like a good enough excuse to cry wolf.

skissane 3y ago
> IBM/Red Hat has deep pockets, they can drag competitors into meritless lawsuits for as long as they want just for the sake of deterrence If IBM sues SUSE, Oracle might try to intervene, on the grounds that a ruling against SUSE could negatively impact them as well. I'm not sure if IBM vs Oracle is a lawsuit either would want to have. Both have very deep pockets, and substantial corporate experience with litigation. So, that factor may help protect SUSE
- kijin 3y ago
  I really hope that you are right. Never thought there would come a day when I must root for Oracle to help defend open source, but here we are.
  - LeFantome 3y ago
    Oracle will never second Open Source, I assure you. They will defend themselves. Occasionally that may benefit you accidentally. If so, I would not bet on it continuing.
LeFantome 3y ago
What lawsuits? Over what?