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Red Hat just erected a paywall in front of the source code to their Linux distribution.Are they burning bridges to the wider open source ecosystem?Referenced...
An exceptionally well explained rant that I find myself in total agreement with.
This argument that open source somehow needs to exploit users and blatantly skirt the intent of the GPL because profit must be taken from it is absurd.
Why is it assumed that they weren’t perfectly sustainable before and why is it the end users responsibility to bear the burden of making their business model viable if they weren’t? Being unprofitable doesn’t excuse you from following the terms of your software license.
Except they’re aren’t violating the GPL at all. Their source code is still available to subscribers (and it isn’t behind a paywall because you can get a free license) and available to the public via CentOS Stream. Their code also goes into upstream projects as well.
The GPL exists so that companies can’t just take the code and contribute nothing back. But that isn’t what Redhat is doing here so I find your accusations that Redhat is exploiting users to be very hyperbolic.
Except that Redhat is trying to literally stop one of the four essential freedoms - the freedom to redistribute. Arguably they might actually be breaking the terms of the GPL.
I don’t think they are. You can distribute the corresponding source for your binaries. You just won’t get updates to the binaries (and their corresponding source) afterwards.
No, RHEL “exploits” large companies and the public sector that require a lot of compliance certificates and long term service guarantees for the software they procure. If Red Hat doesn’t collect this money, it goes into the pockets of people with much lower upstream contributions than Red Hat.
The regular user doesn’t need RHEL. Fedora or any other non-enterprise Linux distribution is perfectily fine and they will directly benefit from the contribution that Red Hat finances through their enterprise sales.
Red Hat weren’t ever unprofitable under the old model. This is just the classic killing of the goose that lays the golden eggs. They’ll get a short term boost in profit until customers start moving to competitors.
This argument that open source somehow needs to exploit users and blatantly skirt the intent of the GPL because profit must be taken from it is absurd.
Why is it assumed that they weren’t perfectly sustainable before and why is it the end users responsibility to bear the burden of making their business model viable if they weren’t? Being unprofitable doesn’t excuse you from following the terms of your software license.
Except they’re aren’t violating the GPL at all. Their source code is still available to subscribers (and it isn’t behind a paywall because you can get a free license) and available to the public via CentOS Stream. Their code also goes into upstream projects as well.
The GPL exists so that companies can’t just take the code and contribute nothing back. But that isn’t what Redhat is doing here so I find your accusations that Redhat is exploiting users to be very hyperbolic.
Except that Redhat is trying to literally stop one of the four essential freedoms - the freedom to redistribute. Arguably they might actually be breaking the terms of the GPL.
I don’t think they are. You can distribute the corresponding source for your binaries. You just won’t get updates to the binaries (and their corresponding source) afterwards.
No, RHEL “exploits” large companies and the public sector that require a lot of compliance certificates and long term service guarantees for the software they procure. If Red Hat doesn’t collect this money, it goes into the pockets of people with much lower upstream contributions than Red Hat.
The regular user doesn’t need RHEL. Fedora or any other non-enterprise Linux distribution is perfectily fine and they will directly benefit from the contribution that Red Hat finances through their enterprise sales.
Red Hat weren’t ever unprofitable under the old model. This is just the classic killing of the goose that lays the golden eggs. They’ll get a short term boost in profit until customers start moving to competitors.