It's not so simple [LWN.net]

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 2:03 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1)
In reply to: It's not so simple by dskoll
Parent article: Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source

Actually, this kind of question has come up before; remember Sveasoft? The FSF apparently said at the time that threatening to withhold further support if the source was disclosed was not a GPL violation. The FSF is not the final word on such things, obviously, but they do carry a certain amount of weight in this area.

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It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 2:12 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (9 responses)

Ugh, that's really disgusting. The only thing to hope for is that some RH subscriber passes along the patches anonymously and someone in the community publishes them without disclosing who passed them on.

As dirty as that sounds, it's really no worse than what Red Hat is doing.

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 7:33 UTC (Tue) by gnufreex (guest, #70396) [Link]

For example, someone can send sources to WikiLeaks :-)

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 14:39 UTC (Tue) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (7 responses)

I don't know why it's so disgusting.

Firstly the GPL being a copyright license should be rightly focused on code. It should stay the hell away from mandating how companies support there products, as long as the four freedoms are maintained

Secondly, the GPL allows commercial exploitation. The ONLY way this is even possible is with decent support agreements.

Finally None of the four freedoms are being violated. I see nothing disgusting at all

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 16:51 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (6 responses)

It's disgusting because Red Hat can unilaterally terminate a contract you've paid for if you exercise rights granted to you under the GPL. The only thing that would make that OK would be if Red Hat refunded the money you paid originally, or at least a pro-rated portion of it.

I doubt they would do that, though. I'm almost tempted to buy a Red Hat subscription and then test things out. (But not quite tempted. :))

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 2, 2011 3:39 UTC (Wed) by ESRI (guest, #52806) [Link] (5 responses)

Yeah, I seriously doubt they'd do that. By and large Red Hat has been huge at "giving back" and trying to do the "right thing".

They're never going to come out and audit your installation base to make sure you're paying them the correct amount of money (we blatantly told them we were out of compliance for a year plus while we tried to get a handle on our infrastructure and our reps essentially told us they didn't really care).

Let's not forget that it's in Red Hat's best interest to NOT screw over their customers or even create disgruntled former customers who could potentially begin swaying potential new customers.

I say give RH the benefit of the doubt here -- surely they've earned it?

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 2, 2011 12:49 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

I say give RH the benefit of the doubt here -- surely they've earned it?

No. Red Hat is a corporation whose primary duty is to its shareholders. It's no longer lead by the same people as the "old days" when it was an exemplary Free Software citizen.

Should we give SunOracle the benefit of the doubt because it opened OpenOffice? Nope... it's a completely different company nowadays.

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 2, 2011 16:14 UTC (Wed) by ESRI (guest, #52806) [Link] (3 responses)

Oracle is a completely different animal than Red Hat. Red Hat's entire business model is built around free software and contributing back. Itss share holders are aware of that. Oracle has no such legacy (the only reason they "open" things up is when they're forced to play with the Linux community, in which you are essentially compelled to give back if you want to participate).

This seems to be more of a situation where you see a boogie-man whether there's one there or not... (in my opinion there isn't).

I think there are more important battles to fight than to take RH to task.

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 2, 2011 16:46 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (2 responses)

I think there are more important battles to fight than to take RH to task.

Maybe so, but we have a company that has traditionally grokked Free Software violating the GPL, in my opinion. That's very serious.

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 3, 2011 7:19 UTC (Thu) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link] (1 responses)

Only serious in your opinion, you then have to ask the question whether a) your opinion matters at all, b) RH lawyers opinion matters more.

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 3, 2011 12:04 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

It's not just my opinion. And if Red Hat is bringing in lawyers against those who would use its patches, then it has withdrawn itself from the community of collaborative developers and should be shunned.

(For the record, I don't believe Red Hat has done that or will do it. I think it's using FUD rather than actual threats to prevent people from distributing its patches.)