Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model [LWN.net]

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 24, 2023 15:30 UTC (Sat) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
Parent article: Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

I found that the FSF offers a FAQ which covers a lot of things which I see people have problems with items:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

I expect people on both sides of the argument can find things there that meet or don't meet their arguments.. but at least the arguments would be closer to what the FSF lawyers say they see as violations than what we think.

The main thing as Wol says later down is that copyright law and contract law are different things and each have about 2000 years of precedent which have to be reviewed and known when they intersect. Even lawyers who are versed in one may find that their readings are upset by how the other is acted upon in a country. To us programmers who like logic this seems like madness (it says IF THEN but you went somewhere else completely???), but it is how human society has somehow survived for a long time.

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Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 24, 2023 21:50 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

And I hate to say it but all I'm seeing here is a bunch of alleged FLOSS guys being freeloaders and worse.

If Red Hat offers no value to you, then why do you want it?

If you want it, it clearly has value. Which means you have two choices - say "thank you" and accept what's on offer, or if you want a better deal you need to offer something back.

But all I see is people moaning and saying "Red Hat are awful immoral people - look, they're giving stuff away for free!". Even worse, many of them are offering ANTI-value in return, which is the dictionary definition of a parasite - something that takes what it wants and harms its host in the process. But what do you expect from a society that values "personal rights" above everything else - including other peoples' rights!

Cheers,
Wol

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 25, 2023 19:51 UTC (Sun) by Karellen (subscriber, #67644) [Link] (5 responses)

all I'm seeing here is a bunch of alleged FLOSS guys being freeloaders and worse.

If Red Hat offers no value to you, then why do you want it?

Interesting take. I see it differently. I see a bunch of FOSS devs protecting the value they created.

It's not "Red Hat offers no value to me", it's "Red Hat is offering value I created to 3rd parties, but under terms that aren't compatible with the terms I intended those 3rd parties to receive".

It's not "I have two choices, to accept Red Hat's offer, or to decline it", it's "Red Hat is not giving 3rd parties the choice to have the software under the terms I offered it, despite the fact I require that it be re-offered under those terms".

I see people moaning and saying "Red Hat are awful immoral people - they're giving away my stuff without also giving the recipients the freedoms I intended them to have when they received the stuff I made".

Rather, it's Red Hat who have the choice here. Include and redistrubute my stuff under the license I released it with - including in the spirit of the license which should be clearly spelled out in the Preamble - or do not include it in their distribution.

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 25, 2023 20:36 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (4 responses)

> It's not "Red Hat offers no value to me", it's "Red Hat is offering value I created to 3rd parties, but under terms that aren't compatible with the terms I intended those 3rd parties to receive".

Red Hat is offering value that *they* created to third parties, under their own terms.

Those third parties can get the value *you* created from many, many places, including (presumably) directly from you.

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 26, 2023 10:09 UTC (Mon) by Karellen (subscriber, #67644) [Link] (3 responses)

Um, I don't think that anyone is claiming that RedHat should not be able to distribute any code they wrote themselves under any terms they like?

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 26, 2023 10:53 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (2 responses)

The spec files in the SRPMs for RHEL are source code, and are all written by Red Hat. If you're requiring RH to ship the specfiles for the binaries they ship to a third party (not their customers), then you're requiring them to ship code they wrote themselves under terms they don't like.

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 26, 2023 14:13 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

The GPL code they ship requires "the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable" (GPLv2) to be distributed as part of the source code of the work under the GPL.

Kuhn: A Comprehensive Analysis of the GPL Issues With the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Business Model

Posted Jun 26, 2023 14:20 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

Sure, but I was responding to the idea that "[no]one is claiming RedHat should not be able to distribute any code they wrote themselves under any terms they like". They are very definitely restricted in the terms they can use to distribute code they wrote themselves, as part of the GPL's mechanism for building a software commons.