4 ms·

What should have they done? Thank them and IBM for setting the landscape ablaze, and dropping a couple of napalms on top by stopping white-box SRPM distribution

What should have they done? Thank them and IBM for setting the landscape ablaze, and dropping a couple of napalms on top by stopping white-box SRPM distributions?

freedomben 3y ago
Ah yes, the Rocky Linux attitude in action. Red hat has done and continues to do absolutely nothing deserving of thanks. Not for their work on fedora, not centos stream, not the myriad of projects that they maintain, absolutely nothing.
- nuker 3y ago
  But RHEL is under GPL licence, right? So what Rocky does is covered by GPL, thanks aside. No thanks expected when it is a war :)
  - freedomben 3y ago
    No, RHEL is not under GPL. Only about 1/3 of it is.
    - DarkmSparks 3y ago
      GPL applies to the distribution as a whole, so even if parts are say MIT licenced at source they still need to distribute it under GPL.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  What they have done made great waves in scientific research communities. They had an unwritten agreement starting with ScientificLinux and CentOS took its place, which allowed tons of places from CERN to universities worldwide to use a standard base for software development. Now this base is gone, and we're still trying to find our new base. This is highly damaging. I'm not keeping sides (Rocky vs. Alma, etc.), but it was a rugpull for us, worldwide.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Fully agree, the rug pull sucked and they should not have done that
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      I have no hard feelings with RedHat or IBM at the end of the day, but being labeled as a freeloader just because we can handle our problems ourselves without a license is a bit insulting to be honest. I know it's said that "freeloader" is a term used for companies abusing their license terms or using loopholes by buying 10 licenses and using the KB with 10K CentOS nodes, but it didn't help at the end. So, RedHat/IBM handled this very badly and roughly. Their perception slipped from "One of the oldest distributions we respect as a community" to "Another tech company which wants money" very fast and very abruptly. This is sad.
      - freedomben 3y ago
        I think it's important to point out that the "freeloader" comment was not something that Red Hat or IBM said. It's something that one or two people said internally or on mailing, as part of a larger conversation where the context isn't that clean. Muy memory is hazy but I dont' think they actually used the word "freeloader" specifically, I think that was a paraphrase in a news article or something. I'll see if I can find a link. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36481006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36481006
        bayindirh 3y ago
        Mike actually talked about the term in LinkedIn, trying to clarify it, accepting that it's an internal term in the process. Citing relevant part of his answer [0]: Finally, I wanted to say something about the term "freeloaders" I've seen many use it. This is a mostly internal term we have at Red Hat, it looks like at some point it slipped out in the public. So what does it mean? A freeloader is when a large enterprise business has 20 RHEL licenses, 150,000 community rebuild systems, and sometimes hundreds of user accounts and hundreds of kbase searches per month. It's not the enthusiasts, it's not the hackers and coders, it's not the academics, and it's not the people that use rebuilders because they can't afford it. We really try not to use the term, but when we do, it's about the large companies that can afford to pay but don't. I see this as damage control mostly, because RedHat and IBM has the power to negotiate these problems on every level they want with their customers. Heck, Docker called us for 280 Desktop installs in a month (which is another story not related to my department, but I digress). At the end of the day, we became labeled as freeloaders, even if it was unintentional. Also the quote above acknowledges us (researchers, enthusiasts, coders, hackers (in folklore sense)), and does nothing to address about the rugpull we had gone through. The only thing we got after that was discontinuation of SRPMS like a slap on the face. [0]: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7080669518557052928/ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7080669...
- bclemens 3y ago
  We thank our upstream often, in person, in social media, etc. We sponsor the Fedora Flock conference, the only opportunity to fiscally support Fedora, and will continue to do so. Same with the CentOS Connect conference. Those checks get written directly to Red Hat, by the way. Given you work for Red Hat, we can even say we've paid you a little! :)
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Thank you for sharing that, that is great to hear! (Small note, I left red hat several years ago so no longer work there)
    - nhanlon 3y ago
      We do love collaborating with our upstreams--I myself recruit folks into Fedora and CentOS whenever I can, in addition to Rocky. It's more than words and sponsorship--I really do mean it when I say I want to empower the Enterprise Linux community, and I'm thrilled that Rocky is at a point where we're able to do so.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  Fedora, perhaps, but any goodwill they might have gotten from releasing Stream was burned when they killed CentOS. You don't get thanks for making something available when it's worse than the thing it replaced.

What should have they done? Thank them and IBM for setting the landscape ablaze, and dropping a couple of napalms on top by stopping white-box SRPM distributions?

freedomben 3y ago

Ah yes, the Rocky Linux attitude in action. Red hat has done and continues to do absolutely nothing deserving of thanks. Not for their work on fedora, not centos stream, not the myriad of projects that they maintain, absolutely nothing.

nuker 3y ago
But RHEL is under GPL licence, right? So what Rocky does is covered by GPL, thanks aside. No thanks expected when it is a war :)
- freedomben 3y ago
  No, RHEL is not under GPL. Only about 1/3 of it is.
  - DarkmSparks 3y ago
    GPL applies to the distribution as a whole, so even if parts are say MIT licenced at source they still need to distribute it under GPL.
bayindirh 3y ago
What they have done made great waves in scientific research communities. They had an unwritten agreement starting with ScientificLinux and CentOS took its place, which allowed tons of places from CERN to universities worldwide to use a standard base for software development. Now this base is gone, and we're still trying to find our new base. This is highly damaging. I'm not keeping sides (Rocky vs. Alma, etc.), but it was a rugpull for us, worldwide.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Fully agree, the rug pull sucked and they should not have done that
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    I have no hard feelings with RedHat or IBM at the end of the day, but being labeled as a freeloader just because we can handle our problems ourselves without a license is a bit insulting to be honest. I know it's said that "freeloader" is a term used for companies abusing their license terms or using loopholes by buying 10 licenses and using the KB with 10K CentOS nodes, but it didn't help at the end. So, RedHat/IBM handled this very badly and roughly. Their perception slipped from "One of the oldest distributions we respect as a community" to "Another tech company which wants money" very fast and very abruptly. This is sad.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      I think it's important to point out that the "freeloader" comment was not something that Red Hat or IBM said. It's something that one or two people said internally or on mailing, as part of a larger conversation where the context isn't that clean. Muy memory is hazy but I dont' think they actually used the word "freeloader" specifically, I think that was a paraphrase in a news article or something. I'll see if I can find a link. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36481006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36481006
      - bayindirh 3y ago
        Mike actually talked about the term in LinkedIn, trying to clarify it, accepting that it's an internal term in the process. Citing relevant part of his answer [0]: Finally, I wanted to say something about the term "freeloaders" I've seen many use it. This is a mostly internal term we have at Red Hat, it looks like at some point it slipped out in the public. So what does it mean? A freeloader is when a large enterprise business has 20 RHEL licenses, 150,000 community rebuild systems, and sometimes hundreds of user accounts and hundreds of kbase searches per month. It's not the enthusiasts, it's not the hackers and coders, it's not the academics, and it's not the people that use rebuilders because they can't afford it. We really try not to use the term, but when we do, it's about the large companies that can afford to pay but don't. I see this as damage control mostly, because RedHat and IBM has the power to negotiate these problems on every level they want with their customers. Heck, Docker called us for 280 Desktop installs in a month (which is another story not related to my department, but I digress). At the end of the day, we became labeled as freeloaders, even if it was unintentional. Also the quote above acknowledges us (researchers, enthusiasts, coders, hackers (in folklore sense)), and does nothing to address about the rugpull we had gone through. The only thing we got after that was discontinuation of SRPMS like a slap on the face. [0]: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7080669518557052928/ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7080669...
bclemens 3y ago
We thank our upstream often, in person, in social media, etc. We sponsor the Fedora Flock conference, the only opportunity to fiscally support Fedora, and will continue to do so. Same with the CentOS Connect conference. Those checks get written directly to Red Hat, by the way. Given you work for Red Hat, we can even say we've paid you a little! :)
- freedomben 3y ago
  Thank you for sharing that, that is great to hear! (Small note, I left red hat several years ago so no longer work there)
  - nhanlon 3y ago
    We do love collaborating with our upstreams--I myself recruit folks into Fedora and CentOS whenever I can, in addition to Rocky. It's more than words and sponsorship--I really do mean it when I say I want to empower the Enterprise Linux community, and I'm thrilled that Rocky is at a point where we're able to do so.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
Fedora, perhaps, but any goodwill they might have gotten from releasing Stream was burned when they killed CentOS. You don't get thanks for making something available when it's worse than the thing it replaced.