I’m curious about what you think on how it will affect the Linux community and distros (especially RHEL based distros like Fedora or Rocky).

    • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemmy.world
      112·
      3 years ago

      Thanks, by reading “RHEL going closed source” first thing I thought is that would violate the GPL license, but the article you linked seems to indicate that’s not the case.

      CentOS is basically RHEL without Red Hat commercial stuff, so sources will still be freely available, just not directly from Red Had, am I understanding it correctly?

      • _HR_@lemmy.world
        41·
        3 years ago

        CentOS is basically RHEL without Red Hat commercial stuff, so sources will still be freely available, just not directly from Red Had, am I understanding it correctly?

        No, CentOS is no longer a RHEL clone, but a beta version of stuff that goes into RHEL.

    • ar0177417@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 years ago

      undefined> u will still have full access to source through their developer program or as a pa

      Their developer plan is free

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
      21·
      3 years ago

      I can’t be the only one who has no real interest in dealing with their developer program just to support their outdated distro.

  • nkey@lemmy.ml
    251·
    3 years ago

    RHEL hasn’t gone closed source, it still complies with the GPL. If they provide you a binary, they must and will continue to provide you with the source code. I feel like this is like when they announced Centos Stream as a “rolling distro”, their messaging is awful, and the optics are bad. I feel this is more to stick it to Oracle and unfortunately, Alma and Rocky are just getting caught in the crossfire.

  • The Doctor@beehaw.org
    8·
    3 years ago

    Honestly? I think Ubuntu’s userbase is about to get a lot bigger. The larger hosting companies (AWS and Digital Ocean are the two that come to mind immediately) support Ubuntu as a first-class citizen, so once the not-true blue RHEL distros take the hit migrations are going to happen.

  • M-Reimer@lemmy.world
    92·
    3 years ago

    They still give all the code to their customers and as it is still GPLed code, noone can stop redistribution. So I’m wondering who will be the first RHEL customer which runs some “open mirror” of the RHEL codebase.

        • Liquid_Fire@lemmy.world
          2·
          3 years ago

          It doesn’t. The GPL is satisfied as long as they provide you with the source code for the version of RHEL that they distributed to you. But they’re not obligated to continue distributing later versions to you.

          • lhx@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 years ago

            I’m referring to their further restrictions on redistribution. I.e., why can’t the subscriber then redistribute GPL code they received?

            • Liquid_Fire@lemmy.world
              2·
              3 years ago

              They absolutely can, but RHEL Red Hat will likely stop doing business with them if they find out (and thus stop giving them new versions), hence why they would only be able to do this once.

              • weavejester@lemmy.world
                1·
                3 years ago

                It doesn’t seem likely that would be allowed, as it would arguably constitute a restriction on distribution, which the GPL explicitly forbids.

                • Liquid_Fire@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  3 years ago

                  There’s no restriction on distribution. You’re free to distribute the GPL software you got from Red Hat.

                  They’re under no obligation to ship you other, different software in the future. You’re only entitled to get the source for the binaries they distributed to you. If they never give you the next version, you have no right to its source.

  • WhoRoger@lemmy.world
    6·
    3 years ago

    Someone enlighten me. What are we talking about? The whole distro? Isn’t almost all of it GNU stuff under GPL or similar licenses?

    Or is it just about some in-house made RH applications and patches done without any collaboration from outside people?

    I don’t get it how a Linux-based project can go closed-source after ~30 years.

  • curtismchale@lemmy.ca
    4·
    3 years ago

    I’m newish to Fedora and admit I don’t understand the whole developer/governance structure of it vs RHEL, but the news did make me wonder about continuing to use Fedora.

    Reading some comments here, maybe it’s a non-issue. Guess I’ll have to dig more.

    • squidzorz@lemmy.ml
      2·
      3 years ago

      It’s a complete non-issue. Sensationalist headlines are so easy to make about this.

      Anybody who has a FREE developer account can access the source code.

  • mirror_slap@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 years ago

    I was there at nearly the beginning with Redhat 1 and kernel series 1.1.x and 1.2.x series. Redhat died when IBM bought them. My company has finally completely moved away - I pushed very strongly to dump RHAT - all Debian and FreeBSD now.

  • Presi300@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 years ago

    RHEL technically isn’t going “closed source”, the source code will just be paywalled now. Despite being a dick move from RedHat, it is perfectly legal to do under GPLv2, as far as I understand anyways…

  • tcely@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    3 years ago

    They’ve been essentially read-only for years, in my experience. It’s stupid to go closed source, but they weren’t easy to work with to get things fixed before now either.

  • underisk@lemmy.ml
    3·
    3 years ago

    Aren’t there poison pill clauses in a lot of OSS licenses that prevent moves like this? Could they face legal repercussions?

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
      10·
      3 years ago

      Technically none of the open source licenses require you to publish the source to everyone. They just require you to publish the source to the same people who get binaries from you.

  • humdrumgentleman@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 years ago

    As a strictly desktop/personal Linux user, could someone enlighten me: What advantage (if any) does RHEL have over Ubuntu Pro at this point?

    • TheLurker@lemmy.world
      71·
      3 years ago

      None in the personal desktop space. But RHEL is still considered industry best practice for web server deployments. Though I think that will change pretty soon.

      Realistically, there is no massive advantage RHEL offers today. Historical it was the most stable and secure offering, but not anymore.

      • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
        21·
        3 years ago

        RHEL isn’t considered best practice by anyone except paranoid enterprise shops that want a support contract above an actually up to date distro and kernel.

        RHEL’s packages were so out of date you often had to go to unofficial sources just to get something close to recent. It’s less important now with Docker, but it was a pain in the ass to do lots of Docker stuff on RHEL in the early days when compared to Ubuntu due to missing kernel features.