3 ms·

Clearing up FUD surrounding Red Hat's actions

23 points by thepbone 3y ago

elmerfud 3y ago
I agree with most points in this article but there is clearly some FUD being passed off as fact as well. Specifically that Red hats EULA around free use of GPL code is valid. The author's previous post that indicated far less certainty around that is actually the more correct position. Simply because some company can write a Eula does not mean that those terms are always enforceable. Simply because companies can choose to terminate a business relationship does not always mean that it's legal to do so. This is really a question that the courts would have to decide if the threat of termination of a business relationship constitutes an additional restriction. Looking at similar things what the courts could decide is really a toss-up and no one knows because if you can show that the exercise of Rights granted to you under the GPL were the reason for the termination of the business agreement for a company that is utilizing GPL code you have a strong argument that they have now placed additional restrictions by their business practices. There are arguments to be made the other way as well. Despite what corporate lawyers would tell you this is not clear-cut at all. The thing is the GPL is largely a "gentleman's agreement" as there is no large single entity with the deep pockets willing to dump money into enforcing it at every possible point. The move by IBM and red hat is a violation of this gentleman's agreement in principle and their position is if people don't like it "fight me". With their restrictive EULA they are essentially calling the bluff that the GPL puts out there because they know there is not going to be anyone who fights them on this. So their legal position maybe a 50/50 shot in the courts but it goes up to a 90/10 win for them simply because GPL enforcement is so problematic.
deredede 3y ago
I really want to be on the community's side here. But when I read "I profit off Ansible as a downstream user, and I have never funneled a penny of that profit back to Red Hat. " followed shortly after by "As for me, I'm running Debian on all my servers now, and have donated to Debian's SPI. Support the open source communities and developers you rely on!" I can't help but feel like there is some sort of disconnect here. Is the idea that a project that's backed by a company doesn't deserve support even if it provides free value to people outside the company, or is there some context I'm unaware of?
- fatfingerd 3y ago
  It is a basic tenant of society not to cross the line and just give money or support to a project that is basically owned by a company, we have other structures for this that don't result in some company being able to launder donations into profit and a commercial asset. We don't really have the legal system to prevent the problems that inevitably arise like commercial buyouts or stock holders demanding a company behave as the for-profit it is.
  - deredede 3y ago
    People do support projects owned by companies through code contributions like, all the time (otherwise CLAs wouldn't be a thing). I'm also not talking about making donations to Red Hat, I'm sure there are ways for people that benefit from their products to contribute back financially - some companies do this through a "partner" program of sorts, but I don't know if Red Har does; barring that, buying their official offering of the products you benefit from doesn't seem that out-of-touch.
    - fatfingerd 3y ago
      In some situations a renter may decide to improve a property at their own cost, when the property is sold it has a higher value and the new landlord is likely to want to recoup that cost.. So they are buying and renting their contribution. There are some people with limited choices where that is rational but for a lot of people that is a wake up call to stop improving things they rent.
xet7 3y ago
What did this clear up ?

23 points by thepbone 3y ago

I agree with most points in this article but there is clearly some FUD being passed off as fact as well. Specifically that Red hats EULA around free use of GPL code is valid. The author's previous post that indicated far less certainty around that is actually the more correct position. Simply because some company can write a Eula does not mean that those terms are always enforceable. Simply because companies can choose to terminate a business relationship does not always mean that it's legal to do so. This is really a question that the courts would have to decide if the threat of termination of a business relationship constitutes an additional restriction. Looking at similar things what the courts could decide is really a toss-up and no one knows because if you can show that the exercise of Rights granted to you under the GPL were the reason for the termination of the business agreement for a company that is utilizing GPL code you have a strong argument that they have now placed additional restrictions by their business practices. There are arguments to be made the other way as well. Despite what corporate lawyers would tell you this is not clear-cut at all. The thing is the GPL is largely a "gentleman's agreement" as there is no large single entity with the deep pockets willing to dump money into enforcing it at every possible point. The move by IBM and red hat is a violation of this gentleman's agreement in principle and their position is if people don't like it "fight me". With their restrictive EULA they are essentially calling the bluff that the GPL puts out there because they know there is not going to be anyone who fights them on this. So their legal position maybe a 50/50 shot in the courts but it goes up to a 90/10 win for them simply because GPL enforcement is so problematic.

deredede 3y ago

I really want to be on the community's side here. But when I read "I profit off Ansible as a downstream user, and I have never funneled a penny of that profit back to Red Hat. " followed shortly after by "As for me, I'm running Debian on all my servers now, and have donated to Debian's SPI. Support the open source communities and developers you rely on!" I can't help but feel like there is some sort of disconnect here. Is the idea that a project that's backed by a company doesn't deserve support even if it provides free value to people outside the company, or is there some context I'm unaware of?

fatfingerd 3y ago
It is a basic tenant of society not to cross the line and just give money or support to a project that is basically owned by a company, we have other structures for this that don't result in some company being able to launder donations into profit and a commercial asset. We don't really have the legal system to prevent the problems that inevitably arise like commercial buyouts or stock holders demanding a company behave as the for-profit it is.
- deredede 3y ago
  People do support projects owned by companies through code contributions like, all the time (otherwise CLAs wouldn't be a thing). I'm also not talking about making donations to Red Hat, I'm sure there are ways for people that benefit from their products to contribute back financially - some companies do this through a "partner" program of sorts, but I don't know if Red Har does; barring that, buying their official offering of the products you benefit from doesn't seem that out-of-touch.
  - fatfingerd 3y ago
    In some situations a renter may decide to improve a property at their own cost, when the property is sold it has a higher value and the new landlord is likely to want to recoup that cost.. So they are buying and renting their contribution. There are some people with limited choices where that is rational but for a lot of people that is a wake up call to stop improving things they rent.

xet7 3y ago

What did this clear up ?