[YouTube] Redhat goes CLOSED SOURCE? | Chris Titus Tech
Potentially this means that Fedora and CentOS stream do not get timely updates implemented in RHEL.
Canonical must be throwing a party, and I bet SUSE is not hating it either
A lot of people suggested moving away from rhel and rhel based... I did not listen and now...
Yeah, the writing was on the wall as soon as IBM acquired Red Hat. IBM is going to end up hollowing out Red Hat in their drive for more revenue. They started by destroying CentOS, which used to be a community-supported binary-compatible RHEL analog but is now effectively RHEL Beta and thus useless for enterprise work. Now they're closing the source so they can kill the other RHEL analogs, like Rocky Linux.
It's such a short-sighted move though, so many things got built on RHEL and compatible because those FOSS options existed. IBM seems to think that some significant percentage of those free installs can be converted to a paid install, and they might be right in the short term but I think the long-term impact is gonna be dire. Over time RHEL could became a closed-source ghetto in the FOSS world because fewer developers will be able to test their open source projects on RHEL without paying the IBM tax. Once RHEL starts to fall behind it could cause enough friction that enterprises will start looking to other distros, and then Red Hat's primary revenue stream starts to dry up.
IBM apparently didn't learn their IBM-compatible lesson.
cause enough friction that enterprises will start looking to other distros
Highly unlikely IMO, unless someone else enters the market of commercial support.
I've been working for big enterprises for decades, not IT companies but big nonetheless.
The reason why Linux could "break the barrier" and enter the enterprise market (at least in EU) is that one day Red Hat became a company capable of guarantee support by means of support contracts.
Big enterprises don't care a product is the best in the world IF they cannot have a contract with some entity capable of commercially supporting it every time there's a problem.
I believe it's very stupid on IBM part to make this move, but as long as they maintain their contracts, big enterprises will stay on Red Hat, they won't care about what will happen to independent developers, they wouldn't be using their software anyway.
Very sad, but at enterprise level there are not many choices when it comes to opensource software.
A lot of people suggested moving away from rhel and rhel based… I did not listen and now…
Alma and Rocky Linux both said it's not a change that will dramatically impact them. They'll have to adapt the existing workflows but they'll both continue.
It's not closed source technically, but it is a little suspect at the very least. It's not violating GPL, but we should be striving for better than the bare minimum.
Pure Debian is the way.
Debian has always had a primary focus on being open source and adhering to good open source principles. It's a rare trait in the modern Linux ecosystem sadly, with so many corporate distros just trying to make a buck. Arch seems pretty good about open principles as well. I'm always going to stick to community-powered distros over ones backed by corporations and I suggest everyone who cares about FOSS do the same.
It was until they shipped systemd. Bloody mess.
If you don't mind me asking, why do you not like systemd? I like it a lot and in my humble opinion it makes life really easy.
This literally feels like the geek equivalent of culture wars stoked to divide people just for the sake of it
Anyone who thinks systemd is a mess has obviously never struggled with the failings of its predecessor. Systemd is a major improvement.
Dammit I just got used to Fedora too. Guess I have to go pure Debian now
Fedora is upstream from RHEL, it won't make the slightest bit of difference.
That's good to know, thank you!
It's not going to have a direct material effect, but it's going to affect perception. There are already people cautious about corporate influence on Linux, and a Linux distro getting closed like this is going to be seen negatively. While Fedora and RedHat are separate entities, they're close enough for one's perception to rub off on the other.
Right. I'm not seeing how this affects Fedora Linux.
openSUSE Leap or Tumbleweed is an option if you wanna stick to RPM-based.
Yes, SUSE have always been great.
Try MX
As I understand the situation Red Hat will just release the sources on centos.org. Much fuss about a domain change. They'll still comply with the GPL. Nothing is going closed source.
This is especially painful since it means you can't easily use any RHEL downstream distros like Alma or Rocky for testing or build servers for RHEL anymore. I suspect this will lead to even worse third party software support to complement RHEL's tiny selection of available packages.
Has anyone got a source on this? The video doesn’t have any more info linked…
TLDW?
What is gonna happen to Fedora?
What are they thinking?
fedora will be fine as it is the upstream provider of rpm build files
fedora -> centos stream -> RHEL
Rocky Linux and Oracle Linux that take the RHEL sources without contributing back are having their src rpm access cut.
We need to make "Arch Enterprise Linux".
Check out opensuse tumbleweed. You might like it
Ya, I think I'm gonna try it on a second system because it really appeals to me, I use Arch (btw) on my main system and am very happy with it.
Seems like another good company is being sacrificed to corporate greed.
Redhat is pulling a Reddit!
Man I'm glad I never picked up Fedora. Rocky has already put out a statement that they should be fine at least.
https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/has-red-hat-just-killed-rocky-linux/10378/3
What does this have to do with fedora? Fedora is actively supported by redhat I doubt you're going to see any changes with this. This really only affects redhat alternate distros like rocky.
What??? Is there an article rather than a video?
here's the exact post right from RH themselves
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-stream
However, the open-source developer GloriousEggroll mentions that the developer subscription to RHEL is free. So, access to RHEL source code is still possible but inconvenient?
Just want to to note here the Developer subscription is completely free and still allows access to RHEL and its source code if you want exact package sources. CentOS stream basically serves as a RHEL upstream so I understand this change. It may seem confusing for some people.
— GloriousEggroll @gloriouseggroll@fosstodon.org (@GloriousEggroll) June 22, 2023
That's a sensationalist take on some day old news.
Red Hat can't go closed source since the source they're distributing is released under the GPL. They're required to distribute code to anyone they distribute binaries to, and they can't stop anyone who has their code from redistributing it.
You are correct. They can however stop doing business with whoever is distributing their source, which makes getting new versions of the source harder.
This is what the dude selling „hardened“ versions of Linux is doing. Can’t remember the name and I don’t care to give him advertisement anyway, but he simply stops selling you new versions if you distribute old ones.
There's a discussion about this on lwn (relevant part starting around this comment). My understanding is like @fayo said: you can pull this "trick" of releasing their source code, but only once (assuming they catch you).
I knew we were in for something like this when the Red Hat first became REHL. Even avoided Amazon Linux due to the lineage. But I have to admit that it took longer than I though it would.
Well this blows, fedora is my favorite distro
I remember people on reddit saying the IBM buyout "is no big deal" and IBM will maintain Redhat "in good faith"