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Of course, take the free bugfixes but no longer give back. I'm aware of the long public good history of Red Hat, so I say the above with a measure of respect.
by vertis 3y ago
Of course, take the free bugfixes but no longer give back.
I'm aware of the long public good history of Red Hat, so I say the above with a measure of respect.
I don't see this working out long-term for Red Hat. The "free loaders" will have to gravitate to another rigorously tested and long-term supported setup. It's unlikely to be RHEL because of the bad taste (i.e it won't force people onto RHEL). So someone else will step up (My guess either Rocky or Alma, next time Red Hat changes the rules).
I also can't for the life of me work out how this gels with the GPL. Correct my understanding -- I thought as long as it was licensed GPL if you changed it you had to provide the source code with it (etc etc). So that means if you backport a upstream contributed patch to an older version of RHEL you're bound to release said fix under the GPL.
- linuxftw 3y agoYou're incorrect on what the GPL 2 and 3 require. You should read them, it's pretty approachable language. Actually enforcing the GPL, that's an entirely different issue. Some jurisdictions have found that only the original authors of a line of code have standing to file suit under GPL, not end users. The VMware case also demonstrated that even if you have an original author, at least in Germany, the bar is very high to prove that the work is infringed, basically to the point of impossibility. I don't believe any court has found in favor of the GPL in regards to end user being harmed.
- rwmj 3y agoCentOS Stream changes have to go upstream first so the whole community (including other distros) benefit from having changes go through CentOS Stream. Downstream rebuilds of RHEL never contribute anything back to the community, since they are just rebuilding RHEL packages.
- vertis 3y agoYou're incorrect, it benefits the community, it just doesn't benefit Red Hat. From the early days of CentOS, rebuilds of RHEL contributed stripping the trademarks. It's a significant effort in it's own right -- ensuring that you're doing 1 for 1. Edit: I would argue that it also does benefit Red Hat in second-order effects. An increased community using Alma/Rocky (and previously CentOS) means more finding bugs and fixing bugs. I know at least two companies that would still be on Debian if not for CentOS circa 2010-2011. I'm out of touch with them so I have no idea where they went after CentOS stopped being CentOS, but I doubt it was RHEL.