4 ms·

Redhat and Nvidia have been pushing the boundaries of GPL recently, and Free software / open source as a concept continues to get watered down. I wouldn't be su

Redhat and Nvidia have been pushing the boundaries of GPL recently, and Free software / open source as a concept continues to get watered down. I wouldn't be surprised to see MS try something.

gettodachoppa 3y ago
Red Hat did no such thing, they are completely in compliance with GPL. Customers who pay for RHEL get the source code just like the GPL intended. It's within their right to stop selling you future RHEL licenses for re-distributing this and it's not even remotely morally wrong. No normal person was affected by this, just freeloaders like Oracle and other downstream people who wanted RHEL without paying for it and set up a whole automated system to keep an identical clone. Just because you're annoyed they put some roadblocks for freeloaders, doesn't mean you get to distort facts.
- version_five 3y ago
  What is the reason for such an angry reply? They're pushing the boundaries and going against the spirit of free software. It's apparently legal but damages open source. There's been lots of discussion about it.
  - gettodachoppa 3y ago
    Because I hate in politics when people repeat a lie enough and it becomes the new reality that everyone will eventually accept, and I don't like seeing this sort of thing infect tech. I see this Red Hat narrative being adopted in real-time on tech forums and IRC. What Red Hat is doing doesn't damage open-source. Open-source is meant to guarantee the end-user (ideally a normal person, not a tech giant, at least for me that's the only person I care about) has the freedom to use/modify the software they paid for. Everyone can still do that. What's gone is the abuse of the GPL for systematic, automated cloning by parasites like Oracle or Cloud Linux Foundation, simply for the purpose of using RHEL without paying for it. If you need RHEL on your systems, use one of the 16 free RHEL licenses they give you. If your app runs in a Docker container, the RHEL images require no license to use. If this isn't enough, switch distros (I hear CentOS Stream is pretty close) or pay for RHEL. I simply don't see legitimate users being affected by this.

Redhat and Nvidia have been pushing the boundaries of GPL recently, and Free software / open source as a concept continues to get watered down. I wouldn't be surprised to see MS try something.

gettodachoppa 3y ago

Red Hat did no such thing, they are completely in compliance with GPL. Customers who pay for RHEL get the source code just like the GPL intended. It's within their right to stop selling you future RHEL licenses for re-distributing this and it's not even remotely morally wrong. No normal person was affected by this, just freeloaders like Oracle and other downstream people who wanted RHEL without paying for it and set up a whole automated system to keep an identical clone. Just because you're annoyed they put some roadblocks for freeloaders, doesn't mean you get to distort facts.

version_five 3y ago
What is the reason for such an angry reply? They're pushing the boundaries and going against the spirit of free software. It's apparently legal but damages open source. There's been lots of discussion about it.
- gettodachoppa 3y ago
  Because I hate in politics when people repeat a lie enough and it becomes the new reality that everyone will eventually accept, and I don't like seeing this sort of thing infect tech. I see this Red Hat narrative being adopted in real-time on tech forums and IRC. What Red Hat is doing doesn't damage open-source. Open-source is meant to guarantee the end-user (ideally a normal person, not a tech giant, at least for me that's the only person I care about) has the freedom to use/modify the software they paid for. Everyone can still do that. What's gone is the abuse of the GPL for systematic, automated cloning by parasites like Oracle or Cloud Linux Foundation, simply for the purpose of using RHEL without paying for it. If you need RHEL on your systems, use one of the 16 free RHEL licenses they give you. If your app runs in a Docker container, the RHEL images require no license to use. If this isn't enough, switch distros (I hear CentOS Stream is pretty close) or pay for RHEL. I simply don't see legitimate users being affected by this.