McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 6:13 UTC (Tue) by oldtomas (guest, #72579)
In reply to: McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source by mb
Parent article: McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

> I guess that means RH is now going to pay all upstream developers for the time, effort and ressources going into it, right?

They have been doing it all along. By employing contributors to key projects. By sponsoring important initatives (e.g sourceware.org). If all commercial companies involved in free software behaved like RedHat, we'd be in a better place.

No, I don't work for RedHat. I don't even use their product (I'm more of a Debian type). But I do acknowledge that they have made my life better.

McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 8:12 UTC (Tue) by TRauMa (guest, #16483) [Link] (5 responses)

I wrote software that's included in Red Hat and I'm still waiting for my cut. Or any contribution. So?

McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 8:28 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

Ditto.

I even applied for a job, and the manager who interviewed me it became quickly apparent the only reason they'd arranged the interview was to ask me about the background / politics of a fork of code I was working on. Pretty shit experience.

McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 14:12 UTC (Tue) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link] (3 responses)

Red Hat's hiring process has always been a bit "challenging". It's generally a disorganized process, with a pretty big disconnect between hiring managers and recruiters. When I interviewed people, I learned to first ask "Was the position explained to you?" and "Do you know the role you're applying for?"

What ends up happening is that referrals move to the front of the line because everyone knows each other and it bypasses the typical funnel. This seems pretty consistent with other tech companies but is still disappointing if it significantly disadvantages other applicants.

I don't know about your particular case however I heard frequent complaints about the hiring process from applicants.

McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 14:22 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

Mine was kind of weird. I was applying for a role that had nothing to do with the free software project I'd worked on - indeed, I was happy to get away from that project. The role was in the same general area of computing as the project, but not related otherwise.

It was clear to me afterwards the manager went into the interview with 0 intention of considering me for the role, but he just did it cause he wanted to ask me about issues with that (unrelated to the role) project. Something I didn't really want to discuss much - certainly not in that setting. Perfunctory questions to query my knowledge, no discussion about the role, and he concluded the interview telling me already had someone for it and sorry - but then the job req was left open for something like 12 months after.

He got my hopes up by scheduling an interview for a role I would have really liked, tbut wasted my time, and - as the months went by and I could see the ad still open - made me feel like he'd treated me like a fool. Just to satisfy his curiosity.

Still a bit annoyed by it.

McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 14:36 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh, and in telling me he had filled the role, he said my experience and CV were great and it was a shame. So... whatever the actual reason - whether it was just his curiousity, or cause RedHat have some loyalties related to that project (which I wanted to get away from anyway), I felt treated like a fool.

To get back to the higher level point:

If your code is shipped by RedHat in RHEL, to paying customers, as some of mine was for years and years and is to this day I think, but that doesn't mean RedHat will ever support you.

McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 15:24 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

And to add a higher-level point again:

"Just buy a $WHATEVER_ENTERPRISE_LINUX licence - that's a good way to support open-source developers"

is not per se true.

These "enterprise Linux" corporations do not generally go and find some way to support all the developers of all the software they ship and support, where those developers do not already have some other support (e.g. another employer, or their own consulting). They employ leading developers on high-profile projects that they care about; and they employ maintenance engineers to support all the other stuff, often engineers from outside any of the communities of said software.

And a developer on some project, who really could use some kind of security in terms of employment, that was at least friendly to some OOH or even 10% time on non-core-job free software project maintenance, may be excluded from consideration by enterprise Linux corporations for any number of reasons - from where they live (e.g., not somewhere the corp hires), to industry politics (dev has issues with some other industry corporates, and said Linux corporate has some level or relations with those other industry corporates).

So that idea above, that $WHATEVER_ENTERPRISE_LINUX corps are good ways to help fund FOSS, is not one that I could agree with at all.

McGrath: Red Hat’s commitment to open source

Posted Jun 27, 2023 16:37 UTC (Tue) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link]

>> I guess that means RH is now going to pay all upstream developers for the time, effort and ressources going into it, right?

>They have been doing it all along.

No. They haven't been paying all developers. By far. And that is perfectly acceptable and fine. It adheres to the licenses that the developers chose for their code.

>By employing contributors to key projects. By sponsoring important initatives (e.g sourceware.org).
>If all commercial companies involved in free software behaved like RedHat, we'd be in a better place.

Yes, I completely agree.
Red Hat is one of the biggest single contributors to Free Software.
But it's also far from paying all of the work that goes into their product.
How much of the work do they pay? 1%, 2%? 10%? Probably not more.

And that is perfectly acceptable and fine. It adheres to the licenses that the developers chose for their code.

What is not Ok is saying things like this:

>> I feel that much of the anger from our recent decision around the downstream
>> sources comes from either those who do not want to pay for the time, effort and
>> resources going into RHEL

because these people are just doing what the licenses permit.
These people are exploiting the *same* rights that Red Hat exploits to run their business. That is the basic concept and foundation of Free Software. These rights are at the base of Red Hat's business. It's what makes their business possible. If GNU/Linux was proprietary software, then they would have to pay for every single change set going into it.

But Free Software allows them to not pay all these bills. And that is fine.

Companies are using my Open Source and Free Software to make millions of Dollars. From where do I know? Because these companies frequently contact me for free support.

And that is perfectly acceptable and fine. It adheres to the licenses that I chose for my code. I knew that from the beginning and chose to go that route.

What would not be Ok is if these companies would put further restrictions on *my* code. E.g. by applying a threat model to stop business with their customers upon redistribution.