3 ms·

Yeah Alma is a much better option if you care about the behavior and attitudes of the people behind the project. The Rocky people are antagonistic toward Red H

Yeah Alma is a much better option if you care about the behavior and attitudes of the people behind the project. The Rocky people are antagonistic toward Red Hat and view them as somewhat an enemy (which seems so weird to me as without Red Hat, they couldn't possibly exist). They strictly want to take what Red Hat sells and rebuild and distribute it for free. The Alma people on the other hand view themselves as partners and contributors to Red Hat's ecosystem. They want to make their product available for free, but they upstream as much as possible and add actual value to the ecosystem. If you don't care about any of that, it's still better to choose Alma IMHO because their approach (following the letter and spirit of "the law") is a lot more sustainable than Rocky's exploit-the-system approach.

tux1968 3y ago
> They strictly want to take what Red Hat sells and rebuild and distribute it for free. I think this is an unfair framing. Rather, they want to take all the GPL source code that Red Hat is obligated to make available, and distribute it freely. They believe this is in accordance with both the law and the software license that Red Hat agreed to, when using it as a basis for their business in the first place. Personally, I don't have a dog in the fight, or a strong opinion on the matter. But we should at least fairly represent each parties position.
- dralley 3y ago
  All of the source code is already available, in CentOS Stream, from which RHEL is built in the first place. What they want to do, is do an exact rebuild of RHEL without having to go through the effort of putting the distribution together themselves, matching the versions that are used in a particular version of RHEL against what is available via CentOS Stream.
  - skybrian 3y ago
    And that's perfectly fine under open source licenses. You are allowed to build and redistribute your own binaries. That's both spirit and letter. Don't fall for people making up additional terms that aren't in the license.
    - dralley 3y ago
      It's perfectly fine but it shouldn't be cast as "freeing the source code, unjustly locked down by Red Hat", because it's not.
      - tux1968 3y ago
        But that is pretty much exactly the contention of Rocky Linux. Well actually, they don't explicitly accuse Red Hat of unjustly locking down the source code, just that there are now some extra hurdles required to legally obtain it. They do contend, that they are exercising their legal rights as enumerated in the software license that Red Hat agreed to, when it started to use and freely redistribute the work of others. If you are denying they have this legal right, then I believe it's on you to explain and justify this legal position, rather than just asserting it as fact.
        dralley 3y ago
        What I am saying is that the code is not "locked down" in any meaningful sense, that it is already open source, and therefore that Rocky Linux isn't "freeing" it. I'm not making any statement about their legal rights. As I commented elsewhere, "RHEL" isn't GPL licensed, the kernel is, and glibc is, and systemd is, etc. Individually. The sources for all of those packages, individually, are available via CentOS Stream just as they ever were - alongside the sources for packages that aren't GPL licensed, for which there is not actually a legal requirement to distribute sources. What Red Hat has stopped doing is providing a git repo containing the exact combination of package sources which collectively make up one particular version of RHEL. Instead, all of the sources are still available, but if you want to rebuild the entire distro you need to match up the particular versions with RHEL. And that's exactly what Alma Linux does.
        tux1968 3y ago
        Okay, so the source is 100% freely available. And with that source, and nothing else, you are able to regenerate RHEL binaries. Rocky Linux contends they are not doing anything illegal in the methods used to obtain the source code (ie. legally renting an RHEL VM from any number of providers, and downloading the SRPMS). Maybe Red Hat wishes this was illegal, but I still haven't heard anyone claim that it is.
Nullabillity 3y ago
But Red Hat is the enemy! > which seems so weird to me as without Red Hat, they couldn't possibly exist If Red Hat didn't exist, they wouldn't need to exist. Nobody would need to test their stuff against RH, and nobody would need to run garbage that the upstream vendors only bothered to test against RH.

tux1968 3y ago

> They strictly want to take what Red Hat sells and rebuild and distribute it for free. I think this is an unfair framing. Rather, they want to take all the GPL source code that Red Hat is obligated to make available, and distribute it freely. They believe this is in accordance with both the law and the software license that Red Hat agreed to, when using it as a basis for their business in the first place. Personally, I don't have a dog in the fight, or a strong opinion on the matter. But we should at least fairly represent each parties position.

dralley 3y ago
All of the source code is already available, in CentOS Stream, from which RHEL is built in the first place. What they want to do, is do an exact rebuild of RHEL without having to go through the effort of putting the distribution together themselves, matching the versions that are used in a particular version of RHEL against what is available via CentOS Stream.
- skybrian 3y ago
  And that's perfectly fine under open source licenses. You are allowed to build and redistribute your own binaries. That's both spirit and letter. Don't fall for people making up additional terms that aren't in the license.
  - dralley 3y ago
    It's perfectly fine but it shouldn't be cast as "freeing the source code, unjustly locked down by Red Hat", because it's not.
    - tux1968 3y ago
      But that is pretty much exactly the contention of Rocky Linux. Well actually, they don't explicitly accuse Red Hat of unjustly locking down the source code, just that there are now some extra hurdles required to legally obtain it. They do contend, that they are exercising their legal rights as enumerated in the software license that Red Hat agreed to, when it started to use and freely redistribute the work of others. If you are denying they have this legal right, then I believe it's on you to explain and justify this legal position, rather than just asserting it as fact.
      - dralley 3y ago
        What I am saying is that the code is not "locked down" in any meaningful sense, that it is already open source, and therefore that Rocky Linux isn't "freeing" it. I'm not making any statement about their legal rights. As I commented elsewhere, "RHEL" isn't GPL licensed, the kernel is, and glibc is, and systemd is, etc. Individually. The sources for all of those packages, individually, are available via CentOS Stream just as they ever were - alongside the sources for packages that aren't GPL licensed, for which there is not actually a legal requirement to distribute sources. What Red Hat has stopped doing is providing a git repo containing the exact combination of package sources which collectively make up one particular version of RHEL. Instead, all of the sources are still available, but if you want to rebuild the entire distro you need to match up the particular versions with RHEL. And that's exactly what Alma Linux does.
        tux1968 3y ago
        Okay, so the source is 100% freely available. And with that source, and nothing else, you are able to regenerate RHEL binaries. Rocky Linux contends they are not doing anything illegal in the methods used to obtain the source code (ie. legally renting an RHEL VM from any number of providers, and downloading the SRPMS). Maybe Red Hat wishes this was illegal, but I still haven't heard anyone claim that it is.

Nullabillity 3y ago

But Red Hat is the enemy! > which seems so weird to me as without Red Hat, they couldn't possibly exist If Red Hat didn't exist, they wouldn't need to exist. Nobody would need to test their stuff against RH, and nobody would need to run garbage that the upstream vendors only bothered to test against RH.