When I say we abide by the various open source licenses that apply to our code, I mean it.
So he’s saying that Red Hat intends to abide by licenses such as the GNU GPL, and yet…
Simply rebuilding code, without adding value or changing it in any way, represents a real threat to open source companies everywhere. This is a real threat to open source…
Red Hat is claiming that redistribution (which is explicitly allowed and encouraged by the GPL) is a threat to open source. They are also threatening to penalize customers who do exercise the rights granted to them by the licenses that Red Hat claims that they will “abide by”.
According to Red Hat the GNU GPL is a threat to open source. And they think this won’t make people angry?
The thing is RH shouldn’t even claim ownership of RHEL. Their business is support. The more RHEL that’s out there, the more someone is likely to pay for a support incident.
The moment they started thinking they own a particular Linux package, even one they assembled, they became evil.
Currently RedHat is publishing the sources of the components together with the build scripts, in form of source RPMs. The build scripts mostly are property of RedHat - GPL conditions are fulfilled if they provide you with the sources and changes they made to the sources if you request them. They don’t have to provide build scripts, they don’t have to provide sources unless you request them.
The phrase “free software” (or “FOSS,” “libre,” or “FLOSS”) doesn’t appear once in this article.
That irritates me. We’re talking about the GPL, and the right to look at source code is only one of the freedoms that the GPL protects. The right to redistribute is also key.
So he’s saying that Red Hat intends to abide by licenses such as the GNU GPL, and yet…
Red Hat is claiming that redistribution (which is explicitly allowed and encouraged by the GPL) is a threat to open source. They are also threatening to penalize customers who do exercise the rights granted to them by the licenses that Red Hat claims that they will “abide by”.
According to Red Hat the GNU GPL is a threat to open source. And they think this won’t make people angry?
The thing is RH shouldn’t even claim ownership of RHEL. Their business is support. The more RHEL that’s out there, the more someone is likely to pay for a support incident.
The moment they started thinking they own a particular Linux package, even one they assembled, they became evil.
In fairness, IBM has been evil since long before they thought they owned RHEL.
part of the problem is that RHEL is so damn solid that most companies can use it without any support. that is why centOS was so popular
The GPL doesn’t “encourage” redistribution. It requires it.
If you’re distributing software, yes. I used “encouraged” there to include end users, who are encouraged to share software with others.
Currently RedHat is publishing the sources of the components together with the build scripts, in form of source RPMs. The build scripts mostly are property of RedHat - GPL conditions are fulfilled if they provide you with the sources and changes they made to the sources if you request them. They don’t have to provide build scripts, they don’t have to provide sources unless you request them.
The phrase “free software” (or “FOSS,” “libre,” or “FLOSS”) doesn’t appear once in this article.
That irritates me. We’re talking about the GPL, and the right to look at source code is only one of the freedoms that the GPL protects. The right to redistribute is also key.