Jesus christ. They aren't going closed source. It's like all these people are new to Linux and don't understand the GPL, nor the politics behind the license.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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I'm not new to linux but the GPL seems quite complicated and I couldn't even tell you which GPL Redhat subscribe to without going to check.
RHEL may not be going 'closed source' but they are closing down the channels to access the code and will prosecute any customers who distribute the code.
and will prosecute any customers who distribute the code
Have they actually stated this, or is it just an opinion? Because my understanding of the GPL is that it would violate the license to put that restriction on their customers.
I worked for a fairly large tech company (not a household name, but well known in it's sector) and this was their policy for core business IP related changes GPL things. Modified GPL sources were neatly packaged up and available but it was a violation of the support contract to share them.
It ultimately doesn't matter (to those customers) if it's a violation of the license - the customers were large businesses who were not going to risk an expensive court case without a clear victory against a company they're investing hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) in, on some moral crusade.
I'm not defending it (and I did not enjoy working for said company), just saying that this model already exists.
Edit: I should also say that I have no idea if that's going to be RedHats policy, but it would make sense if it were.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/
I suspect if they are not acting in accordance with the law, Oracle's lawyers will let them know shortly.
Seems unlikely IBM have announced this to the world without checking the GPL first.
It’s not like the entire operating system is GPL. The customers are obviously free to redistribute the source for the free software components.
The GPL is very simple and it simply makes it impossible to do what you suggest RHEL are trying to do.
The don't have to allow you to download the source code without asking, but they must provide full source code when asked. The licence say's it in very simple terms, the code must be provided when requested and a reasonable fee can be charged for covering distribution costs. Basically they can charge you for the cost of postage of a set of DVDs full of source code.
It's all in the preamble. V3 is a bit more complicated to combat certain things like tivoisation that came about after gpl V2 came out but it doesn't allow Redhat to avoid giving the source when asked, but they don't have to give it when not asked.
The RHEL approach seems to involve only supplying source code to customers already consuming binaries who will already be under other restrictions as they have agreeded to other T&C's.
RHEL has been moving towards this for a decade, it seems unlikely they have forgotten about the GPL.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/
The Register seems to think they are acting perfectly in line with the GPL.
They are acting perfectly in line with the GPL. The GPL only grants you access to source code for the binary you already have.
If you don't have the binary/executable you don't have the right to the source code.
It will be interesting how RH provide access to GPL source (that which they have modified) going forwards. I suspect they will heavily push a subscription to centos stream which solves everything, but they have to provide the source regardless, and are allowed to charge a reasonable fee for admin and media costs etc. I don't think a hefty centos subscription will meet that, however they could give a discounted access hoping that you then continue at full cost later.
Anything they have licensed under BSD etc would have none of those protections. They don't have to give you anything, which is one of the arguments against the GPL from the BSD camp, that the GPL gives the user the same rights as the developer.
So to get source for many projects (modified by RH, otherwise go somewhere else) you will have to have a Centos stream subscription. But anything GPL will in practice be available upon request as long as you have the corresponding binary, which you can obtain from any installation of Centos of RHEL as is within your rights. But expect to have to push past the sales reps who insist you get a subscription. If they like they merely have to charge you $10 for a CD-R in the post, if they wish to be slightly annoying.
Is that not what the article covers?
RHEL customers can request the source code, they cannot distribute it. If you are a RHEL customer with a license agreement, just ask. I don't think they will be sending corporate customer requests via microfiche in the post in 30 working days. Where it was once easy for anyone to get RHEL's source code, going forward it will be a service only for customers who agree to be bound by an IBM legal agreement upon receipt of code or access to the tree.
CentOS was very useful, so they bought it, let it spread and then killed it abruptly. They have since watched Oracle, Alma & Rocky offer solutions to CentOS withdrawal, make decade long promises to their customers and get comfortable before breaking the whole eco-system of decade long 'binary compatibility with RHEL' systems.
You are only correct for software not under the GPL. For software under the GPL, IBM/RH would be in breach of the GPL contract itself.
RHEL customers can request the source code
Incorrect: Anyone with the binary can request the source code. - The caveat is you may have to go to court to prove it.
they cannot distribute it.
Incorrect: Redhat gave them the right to distribute any GPL program when they gave them that program. As RH gave them that program they also gave them the right to distribute it. By distributing it the customer may be in breach of contract, but
- Stallman would just say break the contract as it isnt legal anyway
- The contract is likley void as RH gave the right for distribution so RH will have to prove that they are able to take it away via this contract, which the GPL states is not possible as the owner of the program (the customer) has the legal right to delete any restrictions that interfere with the rights granted by RH under the GPL.
You will have to go to court to prove this. Hmm, that issue has popped up twice
Where it was once easy for anyone to get RHEL’s source code, going forward it will be a service only for customers who agree to be bound by an IBM legal agreement upon receipt of code or access to the tree
That is not legal. If you, anyone even a 10 year old child in Africa has the binary licensed under the GPL then IBM/RH legally must provide source code (if they modified said code) ti said child upon request. IF IBM FAIL TO DO SO THEN THEY ARE IN BREACH OF CONTRACT AND LOSE THEIR RIGHTS UNDER THE GPL
The child will have to go to court to prove this... f*ck.
This is basic Free Software stuff and so many are confused about it for the very reason Richard Stallman continues to speak about Free Software. Free Software as defined ed by the FSF and implemented by the GNU GPL v2 or later or similar copyleft compatible licenses from the FSF or others has nothing to do with Open Source software. Open Source does none of this, with Open Source you have no guarantee of rights and may never see the source code without an NDA because Open Source isn't about the rights but about the development. The term was coined to make Free Software something business could understand, concentrating on the development model and totally ignoring the political side.
The problem is everyone has become too confused about the subject because they think in terms of Open Source while Stallman runs all over the world trying to re-educate everybody. So lets make it clear again. The GNU GPL is a Free Software license that uses COPYRIGHT LAW in a way to GUARANTEE the end user certain RIGHTS that can NOT be removed or adjusted by anything other than a later version of the GNU GPL, at the option of the USER. These rights that IBM/RH give to the users under the GPL are:
- The right to run the program for any purpose. This means IBM/RH can never stop you using the program for any reason.
- The right to distribute verbatim copies. By giving you, me or any customer a GPL program they also grant a right to distribute said program. Such copies must remain under the GPL and the person(s) getting the copies are granted the same rights.
- The right to modify the program to study it and adapt it to your needs. This obviously needs access to the source, which the GPL later goes on to describe as being given upon request and a reasonable admin/postage fee may be charged. The GPL v3 goes further to make sure you provide an electronic and buildable version of the source.
- The right to distribute the modified versions.
Basically it boils down to this. RH are not legally able to place any restrictions for anyone, customer or not, who has the binary, if it is licensed under the GPL. They can however make you go to court to prove tthat, which means they can scare you off. For anything not protected by the GPL or similar they can certainly do this. BSD licensed stuff goes like this all the time for example. So RH can NOT do this with GPL'ed programs BUT, and this is where the problem really is, YOU will need to take them to court to establish that.
So RH is playing the shitty "take us to court game". It's happened before.
People should read the GPL and learn what Free Software is. If they dont they will think RH have some legal way to do this, when in fact (for GPL software) they dont and are merely saying that you take them to court if you are hard enough.
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/
They're becoming source available
Because you mentioned the GPL:
they are following the technicalities here. The GPL bans stopping people from spreading the source code, but it never explicitly bans requiring people to accept a EULA that does not allow redistribution in order to buy the product
They are legally in the right but it is still shitty
That’s not how I understood it. I think saying “closed source” is kind of misleading.
Incorrect, redhat are simply saying that to get any source you have to have a centos stream subscription, which would be correct as if you have centos stream binaries you need a subscription anyway, so basically you only get the centos stream source on request if you actually happened to be a centos stream customer.
Now, what happens to centos stream users who used to be subscribing, well they should still be able to get the source for a reasonable fee (to cover distribution costs) for the binary code they have to hand. That means that if they are on an old centos and they want the source for project X version 2.3, and project X v2.3 is under a copyleft license, legally RedHat have a requirement to provide it upon request, but they have no legal requirements to provide source for a version that is from a later version of centos if the customer doesn't actually have the binaries.
So if they can somehow keep future binary versions of centos code out of the hands of non-paying users they don't have to give source to versions they don't have. I don't think they can do that easily.
This is only for copyleft code. This only applies to code they applied (note I didn't say contributed) to copyleft code. Thus if they modified GNU Grep, their modifications are under the GPL, thus the code must be provided to anyone who asks for it if they have the binary. But if it is code unique to centos or applied to a project that isn't under a copyleft licence, or is a project under a copyleft licence that allows non-copyleft modules or linking etc, they don't have to give any of that.
The GPL is pretty simple, I used to read V2 as a kid in the 90's and saw it like a Bible lol. V3 is more thorough and not as nice a read but it's still very clear. However, not all software in a Linux distribution is protected by a copyleft licence like the GPL, this is the line that separates Free Software from Open Source. Welcome to the big problem of Open Source. You all want source code? Well Free Software gives you the rights for it and uses copyright law to protect those rights. But Open Source came about because that idea was incompatible with business who wanted the opposite. So you should expect Redhat to honour their legal obligations under the GPL but you won't get a source version of centos as not everything in centos is GPL, some will be MIT, or Apache or BSD, and they are not copyleft licences and they give you no right to the source code at all.
Seems to me that a lot of people need to brush up on their Free Software, Richard Stallman, FSF, GNU, Open Source history. Free Software is Open Source as defined by the OSI (you don't know who they are? Brush up like I said) but much that is Open Source is not Free Software and even more is not copyleft.
If you think that copyleft ideology applies to anything considered as "Open Source", well you don't have a clue what anything is actually about and you need to do some reading and listening of some Richard Stallman speeches because this confusion is precisely what he and the FSF have been combatting for years only to get barely anywhere because of how marketable "Open Source" is.
So again remember, not all of centos is copyleft. What is copylefted is protected but you won't get a buildable source version of Centos unless you are a subscriber as many of its parts are not legally available to you, you can get all the GPL copyleft code and centos specific modifications, but a working OS you won't get.
Decent breakdown from The Register:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/
Seems they have been quite focused on the embrace, extend, extinguish plan for a decade or so.
Ah,
paying customers will be able to obtain the source code to Red Hat Enterprise Linux… And under the terms of their contracts with the Hat, that means that they can't publish it.
This follows GPL
This follows GPL
I'm a GPL noob, can someone elaborate on this? My belief was always that if you get your hands on GPL licensed software then you have the right to redistribute it under the same license for free or even charge for it.
The GPL essentially states that you must give copies of source code to the same people you give copies of binaries. Red Hat is not under any strict requirement to give copies of source code to everyone. What this means in practice is that Red Hat is essentially forcing everyone to agree to their license terms, in addition to the GPL, in order to access the RHEL source code.
What Red Hat appears to be doing is very much in a gray area, and at the very least it violates the spirit of the GPL if not the actual agreement as written. In fact what they're trying to do may very well end up contravening the GPL. This is one of the clauses in the GPL:
If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.
In other words, if Red Hat tries to wrap the GPL in some bullshit extra license that says e.g. "you are not allowed to give copies of this source code to a third party" (such as, say, Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux or some other downstream distro), then I think their customers can simply remove that term from their license as it's a "further restriction" as defined by the GPL. However, Red Hat also has in their license some restrictions that allow them to terminate their agreements with a customer at any time and for any reason whatsoever. Red Hat wields that like a cudgel, threatening their customers with Red Hat license termination if those customers choose to exercise their full rights under the GPL in ways that Red Hat doesn't like. This article has a much more in-depth analysis if you want to know more.
I believe you are correct. Any paying Red Hat customer consuming GPL code has the right to redistribute that code. What Red Hat seems to be suggesting is that if you exercise that right, they’ll cut you as a customer, and thus you no longer have access to bug fixes going forward.
I suspect it’s legal under the GPL. I’m certain it violates the spirit of the GPL.
you have the right to redistribute it under the same license for free or even charge for it.
if the GPL is the only license, then yes. however, if there are additional licenses applied which don't conflict with GPL, you may face restrictions on, say, distribution and sales of the code base, as Red Hat has done.
In effect, it's open source, but access is restricted to paying customers of RHEL, and they'e not allowed to redistribute or sell it per the additional license they agree to when they purchase it.
I see so many confused here. Unsurprising considering so many have no idea what the GPL is, what Free Software is, why it's different, very different from "Open Source" software due to copyleft.
Everyone should go read the GPL, read version 2 as it reads very well, version 3 just beefs up version 2 to handle certain situations but its a bit less of a nicer read.
Learn what Free Software is: https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software
And listen to a few of Richard Stallmans speeches which he has to continue giving because of this "Open Source" thing that confused everything. Note that the FSF, Richard Stallman and the GPL have nothing to do with Open Source at all. It is the Open Source Initiative that accepts the GPL as a "Open Source" license but not all Open SOurce licenses are Free Software licenses.
Below is a link to the Software Freedom Conservancy who have been talking to Redhat / IBM for years about this very issue before RH/IBM turned tail and stabbed everyone in the back:
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/
Redhat dont have a legal leg to stand on however it will cost you to prove it. You should win, but it will cost you. I am happy to purge any RH software from my systems at work, I was doing that anyway due to what happened to Centos.
Redhat have become the new SCO in essence.
fuck this, man. i hope someone sues their ass and wins; though i'm not sure how or even if it's possible. the GPL does have this:
You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License.
but i don't know if legally speaking, that really extends to them selectively choosing to terminate relationships with customers who exercise their GPL rights. what's certain is that it's an incredible asshole move and violates the spirit of the GPL and FOSS in general.
i have to admit i don't always agree with the stallman position on things, but shit like this really makes me see the value of copyleft licenses and the arguments of the hardcore free software camp. software freedom is so easily lost :(
stallman was right.
They would have to rewrite most software if they wanted to make it closed source, otherwise they would be violating licenses
Interesting move. The vast majority of VFX studios use (or used) CentOS, Rocky and Red Hat. In fact it's been recommended in the industry to adopt Rocky by 2024
RHEL is not the "villain distro", that's ChromeOS (and possibly CBL-Mariner).
Jokes aside, if they want their source code to only be available to people who pay for it, that's their decision. I don't know if there is any benefit to creating a Linux distro based on RHEL VS. another Linux distro that's still open source but if there is, then I'm pretty sure that the developer is more than willing to pay if they think it's worth it.
As others have said, RHEL is not going closed source. They are not violating the letter of the GPL (though IMO, certainly the spirit of it).
I think this is a crappy move by RedHat/IBM and I won't excuse it, but I will say in their defense they are one of the largest contributors to open source. Everything from the kernel to Gnome and in between. It's a massive step back from the company they were 5 years ago, though.
How will it be closed source, per GPL? Are they bundling in proprietary services that are required to make it run?
Does this affect Fedora?
It doesn't seem like it, RHEL is based on Fedora. Fedora is beta RHEL more or less. But Alma, Rocky and Scientific Linux will all be in trouble as they're based on RHEL. Or at least that's what I make of it
I had it backwards, I thought Fedora was based on RHEL.
that was centos before it got killed off
That is what I'm thinking of.
The privatization is spreading everywhere. Internet this days feels like the Far West after the end of the frontier expansion. Everything is "getting fenced" and tons of "small cities" are slowly dying out.
It's a pity Almalinux was my go-to distro for VMs and whatnot. However, I was recently compelled to use Debian for a provisioning done with Ansible. It was a positive experience, of course one has to deal with the joy of Debian's versions and packages discrepancies, but hey-ho we crack on. Also, I've been hearing good things about Suse, does anyone care to share a story?
Well if they do go on to paywall it completely then yes my ditaste for RHEL will grow deeper than even Ubuntu
What are the implications of this move on fedora? I've been thinking of moving to fedora but I'm not so sure now
If i'm not mistaken I don't think that Fedora will be affected because Fedora is upstream from RHEL. Now distros such as Alma, Rocky, and EuroLinux may be affected because they are downstream from RHEL. But I can be wrong.
So Red Hat benefits from the Fedora Project?
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