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That's not quite how (US) courts work. In the US, licenses and contracts aren't read as by a computer (as coders are used to writing and reading) but by intent.

That's not quite how (US) courts work. In the US, licenses and contracts aren't read as by a computer (as coders are used to writing and reading) but by intent. You can follow the letter and be in violation if you intentionally violate the spirit, and vice-versa. My read is that Red Hat is probably not in compliance, although the second piece of contract law is recourse and damages. It's not clear it's worth anyone's time to prove Red Hat is not in compliance. Note that there are hundreds of jurisdictions in the world. Red Hat is probably in compliance in most statutory law jurisdictions, at the edge in common law ones, and I can't speak for others. That's an interesting line to walk. GPL is global, and Red Hat distributes software developed in hundreds of jurisdictions. Any of those software authors could sue in local courts. Most would lose. Some would win.

jzb 3y ago
I'm not convinced that this even violates the spirit of the GPL. Let's be honest here: Red Hat is still distributing the software widely, but it's making it hard to make exact Xeroxes of RHEL. That's a business problem, not a software freedom problem. CentOS Stream is, at least in my opinion, from a software freedom perspective just as good as RHEL. You can use it, study it, change it, and redistribute it. AFAIK everything in RHEL makes it into Stream, albeit out of order and hard to re-assemble as an exact copy. But it's not like Red Hat is adding great features to RHEL that it denies to users of Stream. Compare that to the Open Core folks who are trying to gang up on Red Hat now. There's the core version that has most of the functionality, and then the enterprise features are held back under non-free conditions. You have no recourse if you're using an open core product and they get bought up and the software is discontinued. You can't exercise the four freedoms to hire someone to maintain it for you or DIY it if you don't have the code. But someday when Red Hat stops making RHEL you can still exercise the four freedoms and ask somebody else to do it for you or DIY it. To me, that's the spirit of the GPL - not that I'm entitled to undermine somebody's business by making exact Xerox copies of their software indefinitely.
- bsder 3y ago
  > I'm not convinced that this even violates the spirit of the GPL. It doesn't. And this "loophole" is old. In days of yore, GPL "compliance" could be "Fine, here's a magtape of the source."--with no build instructions. This is effectively what RedHat just did. Andy, you know, I'm kind of sympathetic. If you want "certified" Linux, then you should have to pay the company that went through the grief to go get the certifications.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Right. When I was at Ksplice, RedHat provided their changes to the kernel source as a monolithic patch file, which certainly abides by the letter of the law, but individual patches would have been so much more helpful.

jzb 3y ago

I'm not convinced that this even violates the spirit of the GPL. Let's be honest here: Red Hat is still distributing the software widely, but it's making it hard to make exact Xeroxes of RHEL. That's a business problem, not a software freedom problem. CentOS Stream is, at least in my opinion, from a software freedom perspective just as good as RHEL. You can use it, study it, change it, and redistribute it. AFAIK everything in RHEL makes it into Stream, albeit out of order and hard to re-assemble as an exact copy. But it's not like Red Hat is adding great features to RHEL that it denies to users of Stream. Compare that to the Open Core folks who are trying to gang up on Red Hat now. There's the core version that has most of the functionality, and then the enterprise features are held back under non-free conditions. You have no recourse if you're using an open core product and they get bought up and the software is discontinued. You can't exercise the four freedoms to hire someone to maintain it for you or DIY it if you don't have the code. But someday when Red Hat stops making RHEL you can still exercise the four freedoms and ask somebody else to do it for you or DIY it. To me, that's the spirit of the GPL - not that I'm entitled to undermine somebody's business by making exact Xerox copies of their software indefinitely.

bsder 3y ago
> I'm not convinced that this even violates the spirit of the GPL. It doesn't. And this "loophole" is old. In days of yore, GPL "compliance" could be "Fine, here's a magtape of the source."--with no build instructions. This is effectively what RedHat just did. Andy, you know, I'm kind of sympathetic. If you want "certified" Linux, then you should have to pay the company that went through the grief to go get the certifications.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Right. When I was at Ksplice, RedHat provided their changes to the kernel source as a monolithic patch file, which certainly abides by the letter of the law, but individual patches would have been so much more helpful.