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You're not reading it wrong. The popular understanding of the GPL vs. the actual text of the GPL are two extremely different things. Red Hat is far from alone
by jzb 3y ago
You're not reading it wrong. The popular understanding of the GPL vs. the actual text of the GPL are two extremely different things.
Red Hat is far from alone in this. If I'm not mistaken, there's a whole cottage industry of WordPress plugin and theme developers who use basically this model. The plugin or theme is GPL'ed because it depends on WordPress, which is GPLed. But they gate the software and require payment to get it. They may also have an agreement that sets out a limit on redistribution for access - if you buy the theme or plugin from them and then set about redistributing it, they're not going to take your money in the future.
I can't think of any good way to close the "loophole" here in a GPL-type license that doesn't essentially force a developer to distribute to anybody they've ever done business with, forever. Any language that would force Red Hat to keep its subscription with an "offending" customer would also tie their hands for cutting off access for other reasons -- because who wouldn't claim that the reason Red Hat cut the subscription was over distribution?
- madeofpalk 3y agoWhat's the loophole? This is working exactly as intended, no? GPL is to grant the user of software freedoms. Free as in freedoms, not beer. It's origin was from the user of a printer driver being frustrated they couldn't debug and fix an issue.
- Semaphor 3y agoThe loophole is that as soon as you exercise your rights, you lose future access. So if you want access, you can't exercise your rights.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bhelkey 3y agoYou have the right to do whatever you want with the software. You don't have the right to force someone else continue to work for you and provide you with updates.
- jonhohle 3y agoI don’t understand why this isn’t blindingly obvious. A copyright holder releasing their software under an open license is a huge privilege given to their customer. It doesn’t matter what reading they are doing it - marketing, hoping for external contribution, goodwill, etc. - it is their right to choose a license. It is also their right to change their license at any time. While I’ve not chosen RedHat for my own projects, I used it for nearly two decades at companies where it was already in place. Some of those had support contracts, others didn’t. Based on my experience, RedHat is one of the main reasons Windows didn’t completely take over backend systems. They offered a cohesive, supported server OS that could be run for less than the cost of Windows or Unix servers on nearly any hardware. I could enumerate the things I don’t like about RedHat Linux, but in an enterprise setting, the volumes of documentation, mature and complete set of repositories, and huge community essentially negate my own preferences. Their new licensing may make them irrelevant going forward, but I’m thankful for all they’ve done overall… except for systemd, burn it with fire! ;-)
- Semaphor 3y agoIt’s not about forcing, it’s about someone threatening you with an unfavorable outcome if you exercise your rights. That is (as I said repeatedly) not against the letter of the GPL (IMO). But it’s a chilling effect on exercising your rights.
- andromeduck 3y agoExcept for how you literally can.
- stOneskull 3y agogo with another distro then red hat is about security and support those customers will stay i don't agree with it myself. i think 'go, debian!' but they have their niche, and that's ok. it's their bed. they're making it.
- Semaphor 3y agoI use Arch and Debian, I never touched any red hat distro IIRC.