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

[Niel Bornstein]

Make that "better *than* RHEL" and we're already there ;)

On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 7:05 PM Jon "maddog" Hall <jon.maddog.hall at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Niel,
>
> Thank you for your clarification.   In the early days of this bruhaha
> there were a lot of statements from a lot of people and companies, and a
> clarification of what is now being said is worthwhile.   And the fact that
> "three of those clones merged into one" is a good step, but I still insist
> that a "clone" is less than a real competitor.   I would just as soon SUSE
> be that "better RHEL".   Go for it.
>
> md
>
> On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 6:55 PM Niel Bornstein via Ale <ale at ale.org>
> wrote:
>
>> I feel obliged, as a SUSE employee, to respond to a couple of things
>> (though I do not speak for SUSE etc etc).
>>
>> There is a lot of misunderstanding about what SUSE is doing. SUSE
>> believes that it's important for everyone to have access to secure,
>> transparent, and reliable Enterprise Linux source that is available to
>> everyone. SUSE has, along with Oracle and CIQ (aka Rocky Linux) and other
>> companies and individuals who join the Open Enterprise Linux Association,
>> announced its intention to create a fork of RHEL's currently
>> available source code. So right away that's three of those clones merged
>> into one, and we welcome others. Further, it's important to remember
>> OpenELA will provide a code base for those clones, not a binary
>> distribution. Each member of OpenELA will contribute to the code to help
>> ensure compatibility with RHEL, and anyone will be free to compile and
>> build their own distribution based on that code. So I hope that meets your
>> hopes, and I would encourage you to join OpenELA to help us make it happen (
>> https://openela.org/join/).
>>
>> Of course SUSE will continue to sell support for SUSE Linux Enterprise,
>> and SUSE Liberty Linux (our RHEL-compatible distribution that has existed
>> since I believe 2006, called SLES with Expanded Support up until about a
>> year ago), and provide bug-for-bug compatibility between SLE and our
>> community distribution, openSUSE Leap. We've committed to spend $10 million
>> towards OpenELA, but of course you can imagine we spend a lot more than
>> that on our own distributions. And SUSE has indeed been around longer than
>> Red Hat, 31 years now ;)
>>
>> Niel
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 5:21 PM Jon "maddog" Hall via Ale <ale at ale.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Steve,
>>>
>>> You, like so many other people in this argument, appear to be assuming
>>> that everything in "Linux" is GPL V2.x.   Mostly it is only the kernel that
>>> is GPL 2.x.   Many other packages in the distribution are other types of
>>> licenses, produced by many other entities.   I have not looked at RHEL for
>>> a long time, but I am willing to bet there are packages that are solely
>>> written by Red Hat, copyrighted by Red Hat and licensed by Red Hat perhaps
>>> under the GPL, but perhaps under some other license.  There are other
>>> packages that are under some "permissive" license like BSD, and have no
>>> requirement to send along the source code to the end user or anyone else.
>>> Even if there were only packages in RHEL that GPL, the entire distribution,
>>> the set of bits required to install and qualify as RHEL could have a
>>> different license.   In the past the only thing that was required was the
>>> removal of the Trademark information.
>>>
>>> If I was "defending" Red Hat, it was only to point out that an
>>> "Enterprise Linux" is more than just the bits in the ISO.   It is the QA,
>>> the channel partners, the support people, the development of training and
>>> certification and many more things.  If all of this was easy to do then
>>> certainly some of the other distributions that are looking for the
>>> enterprise customers would be alternatives to RHEL  SUSE has been around as
>>> long as Red Hat (maybe even longer).   They should be glorifying that Red
>>> Hat is changing its licensing.   SUSE should simply say "Buy SUSE, it too
>>> is Enterprise Linux".   Instead SUSE wants to clone RHEL.
>>>
>>> My point in writing the article was to bring back to peoples minds the
>>> original reasons for Free Software.   The fact that people would get binary
>>> code and not be able to do what they needed with it.  The fact that
>>> companies would release binary code and then either force you to have a
>>> maintenance contract with them to get the bug fixes or enhancements you
>>> need.   The fact that over time the companies would walk away from the
>>> release you were counting on and never patch it again.  Can you say
>>> "Windows XP", with close to 12,000,000 systems still running it?  The fact
>>> that you could never have a third party support organization have as much
>>> knowledge about the OS as the closed-source engineers, so you were stuck in
>>> buying your support from the supplier?
>>>
>>> Sure, some of the distributions also make it a point of freely
>>> distributing their code to everyone, whether they are a "business partner"
>>> or not.   It is one of the reasons I use those distributions.
>>>
>>> I also wrote the article because people were saying how bad IBM was to
>>> Free and Open Source Software.   I wanted to remind people about some of
>>> the history of IBM and FOSS compared to some of the companies who are now
>>> beating their breasts and saying how good they are.   The same companies
>>> that do not release their source code on hundreds of products they ship.
>>>
>>> As to systemd vs init files, I have no bones in that argument, just as I
>>> stay away from vim vs emacs discussions.   However, I do remember the
>>> discussion about package managers versus distributions via tar files.
>>> Digital's Ultrix had its own "package manager' named setld(8) and our
>>> engineers complained about having to put their software into setld(8)
>>> packages.   "What was wrong with tar" they would say.
>>>
>>> I pointed out that tar did not check for dependencies, and there was no
>>> facility in tar to remove files and not disturb the dependencies of other
>>> programs while you were doing it.
>>>
>>> "Oh yeah" was the response.
>>>
>>> Finally, at the bottom of my blog article, was the real meat of what I
>>> had to say.   In the aftermath of Red Hat's announcement four different
>>> groups came forward and said that they were going to create a clone of
>>> RHEL.   If these four groups were going to spend the time and money to each
>>> create a clone, that means we would have four more "RHEL"s.   I pointed out
>>> that this was, at best, three clones too many.   I also pointed out that
>>> what we really needed was a competitor to RHEL, a better RHEL, not just a
>>> clone.
>>>
>>> But that is hard work, and from my experience would take much more money
>>> than the 10 million dollars that SUSE was putting forth, even if they only
>>> managed to copy the RHEL release source code (all of it, GPL or not) and
>>> rebuild it.   It is the rest of what is needed that would cost a lot more
>>> to bring to the table.   It probably could be done.  I would encourage it
>>> to be done.
>>>
>>> Sorry if I gave you any other idea of what I was saying.
>>>
>>> maddog
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 2:52 AM Steve Litt via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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
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