[ale] Maddog’s take on recent Red Hat source distribution changes

[Steve Litt]

Scott McBrien via Ale said on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:15:00 -0400

>IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view
>lpi.org
>
>
>Maddog, I know you’re sometimes around.  As a long time Red Hatter
>(since 2001), not only did I learn some history from your article, I
>appreciate its opinion and thoroughness.

I liked the history too, but I'm skeptical about the parts about
Redhat. Below is section 6 of GPLv2:

=======================
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions
on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not
responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
=======================

Seems pretty clear to me. If you let somebody have the program, whether
for free, for a million dollars, alone or bundled, if the program was
GPLv2 you have to give them the source, and more importantly, you have
the right to redistribute the source.

I know, I know, we can argue about first, second, third, fourth and
fifths parties, but section 6 is clear that if you come into possession
of the software you have the right to redistribute it.

And yes, I know, you can't buy Red Hat without agreeing not to
redistribute the source. Once again, Red Hat requires the breakage of
section 6. They get away with this only because their army of lawyers
provide a chilling effect on a paid-for recipient asserting his or her
rights under section 6.

Of course, I'm not surprised a bit at Red Hat's Microsoft style action.
Within a few years of the spectacular Bob Young's departure, Red Hat
became an anathema to Linux, culminating in their promotion of systemd
to all distros. They could have kept quiet about systemd, which would
have given them a competitive advantage had systemd been beneficial.
But they knew that with Debian and Ubuntu as competitors, their sales
would suffer, because their distro contained the inferior systemd, if
they didn't promote Debian and Ubuntu to incorporate systemd. The
purpose of systemd was to complexify Linux so they could sell their
services and training.

Yeah, I can't prove the final two sentences of the previous paragraph,
but here's a smoking gun:

http://asay.blogspot.com/2006/10/interview-with-red-hat-cto-brian.html

In the preceding link, search for the word "complexity". The only way
they make money is if software is complex.

In the article, I resent the word "freeloaders". If Red Hat doesn't
want other distros to redistribute them, they should switch to Linux or
Mac. Once again, I'm pretty darn sure that if there's a deep pockets
lawsuit from a Red Hat customer who chooses to follow section 6 of
GPLv2, Red Hat will lose, although our present disfunctional Supreme
Court might side with them because they're a business. Their license
provisions not to redistribute are just there for chilling effect.
Trouble is, FSF doesn't have the money to fight a legal battle with Red
Hat.

The article mentions "right to make a profit." Nobody ever suggested
they should give away their training and consulting for free. Just don't
violate GPLv2.

The article also mentions, and I quote, "if you are not maximizing
your revenue with the resources you have, you are not paying fiscal
responsibility to your stockholders." Not true. You can't murder to
maximize revenue. Not even if you won't get caught. You can't steal to
maximize revenue. And I'm pretty darn sure you can't violate a license
to maximize profit. The rest of this email concerns my personal opinion
of Red Hat...

I haven't used Red Hat since 2003, and I wouldn't use Red Hat if they
were the last distro on earth. Matter of fact, I wouldn't use any RPM
based distro just to make sure Red Hat doesn't somehow mess me up.

About systemd: If I and let's say six of my friends were paid half of
what Red Hat paid Poettering and his crew, we could have incorporated
every feature of systemd without creating a massively entangled mess.
If Red Hat didn't enable Poettering, systemd never would have gone
anywhere, and Linux would be better for it. Any systemd features that
were really necessary would have long ago been incorporated outside of
the init system. Systemd was never about improving Linux, it was about
complexifying Linux.

http://asay.blogspot.com/2006/10/interview-with-red-hat-cto-brian.html

I very much liked the history, but I just don't buy the article's
defense of Red Hat.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm