While I disagree with Red Hat’s decision to hinder source access, this move from Rocky (a commercial company!) seems even more disingenuous, imho.
Another method that we will leverage is pay-per-use public cloud instances. With this, anyone can spin up RHEL images in the cloud and thus obtain the source code for all packages and errata.
Nice. Red Hat gets paid (lets remember that they do contribute significantly to the FOSS, they should be getting paid for their work), and RHEL clones do have a way forward. Sounds like a win-win.
Well, Red Hat doesn’t really get paid (of course, I’m not arguing RH is not making or doesn’t have enough money) – they would get payed for one or a very small number of licenses. At the same time, Rocky (and Alma and more importantly Oracle) wants to actually sell (albeit only support) the same product put together by Red Hat so it’s not really a community RHEL clone. I think that’s the real issue here. I wouldn’t have a problem with this workaround if it were coming from the community, without the commercial asterisk attached.
I agree, I think it would have been better if Rhel just came clean with the real facts instead of pussy footing around it. I am on board with keeping open source open, but if Rocky is undercutting rhel for support with basically a red hat product, it changes the dynamic a lot.
Also, if Rocky is doing this, then it will be rocky’s fault that this clone system falls apart. Alma I believe is not for profit 1:1 and far more ethical.
Let’s not forget Oracle! While Rocky bit the bullet with this poorly written announcement, I believe Red Hat’s target was in fact Oracle, not some 20 employees startup with no customers.
RHEL have specifically mentioned Rocky here…
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/problem-rocky-linux-free-beer-magnus-glantz/
Since Rocky provides support (for basically a rhel build), I would think Rocky are definitely on the radar.
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We should move on as FLOSS community after this attack on our values. IBM has always been on the wrong side of history. I think these vloggers said it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqfyM7zE6KM