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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Red Hat’s commitment to open source: A response to the git.centos.org changes (www.redhat.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Some mix of wrong and right, the exact proportions of which I'll leave as an exercise to the reader.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (12 children)

There are a few completely fair points in there calling out what they are legally allowed to do (e.g. they are not directly violating GPL) and are doing (contributing changes back upstream, they claim "always"), that's about the only "right" this reader found.

Have some quotes that demonstrate the "wrong":

I feel that much of the anger from our recent decision around the downstream sources comes from either those who do not want to pay for the time, effort and resources going into RHEL or those who want to repackage it for their own profit. This demand for RHEL code is disingenuous.

Ultimately, we do not find value in a RHEL rebuild and we are not under any obligation to make things easier for rebuilders; this is our call to make.

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, and one that has the potential to revert open source back into a hobbyist- and hackers-only activity.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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, and one that has the potential to revert open source back into a hobbyist- and hackers-only activity.

This quote is particularly damning to me. It's right in the preamble of the GPL "Developers that use the GNU GPL protect your rights with two steps: (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it." Emphasis mine. It's a legal right, that I can redistribute it, whether or not I modify it in anyway. Stomping on my legal rights is not a threat.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Whole-heartedly agree on the quote and it stuck out to me even before coming to the comments here. Redhat might not like that people are repacking "their" software, but the spirit of GPL software is that you can charge for it but folks can also go through the trouble of building it themselves should they not want to go that route and are able to support/debug/maintain the software themselves on their own hardware.

If they don't think the clauses of GPL are fair, then they should probably stop distributing Linux entirely because their entire business model is founded off of profiting off the work of other open source contributions.

Simply rebuilding code, without adding value or changing it in any way, represents a real threat to open source companies everywhere.

One could argue Redhat already does this on packages they have not improved or submitted contributions for.

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