Seems like IBM is going to make RHEL closed source. What’s everyone’s opinion about the move? I feel RHEL is now the evil villain distro of the community.
Seems like IBM is going to make RHEL closed source. What’s everyone’s opinion about the move? I feel RHEL is now the evil villain distro of the community.
The RHEL approach seems to involve only supplying source code to customers already consuming binaries who will already be under other restrictions as they have agreeded to other T&C’s.
RHEL has been moving towards this for a decade, it seems unlikely they have forgotten about the GPL.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/
The Register seems to think they are acting perfectly in line with the GPL.
They are acting perfectly in line with the GPL. The GPL only grants you access to source code for the binary you already have.
If you don’t have the binary/executable you don’t have the right to the source code.
It will be interesting how RH provide access to GPL source (that which they have modified) going forwards. I suspect they will heavily push a subscription to centos stream which solves everything, but they have to provide the source regardless, and are allowed to charge a reasonable fee for admin and media costs etc. I don’t think a hefty centos subscription will meet that, however they could give a discounted access hoping that you then continue at full cost later.
Anything they have licensed under BSD etc would have none of those protections. They don’t have to give you anything, which is one of the arguments against the GPL from the BSD camp, that the GPL gives the user the same rights as the developer.
So to get source for many projects (modified by RH, otherwise go somewhere else) you will have to have a Centos stream subscription. But anything GPL will in practice be available upon request as long as you have the corresponding binary, which you can obtain from any installation of Centos of RHEL as is within your rights. But expect to have to push past the sales reps who insist you get a subscription. If they like they merely have to charge you $10 for a CD-R in the post, if they wish to be slightly annoying.