Hall: IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view

Posted Aug 2, 2023 19:29 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Hall: IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view by mb
Parent article: Hall: IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view

> Except that the GPL explicitly forbids such an additional restriction.
> RH is a licensee of the GPL. It must comply to the terms and conditions.

You are not a lawyer. Neither am I, for that matter. So I will freely say that my interpretation of the plain text of the GPL can be incorrect.

However, actual lawyers, including ones closely associated with F/OSS organizations, along with the actual license authors, say that what RH is doing is perfectly in line with the letter of the GPL. Furthermore, with respect to arguments about the *spirit* of the GPL, the FSF has now had two major opportunities to address this scenario (ie with the GPLv2 and the GPLv3), and if anything, have made it more explicit that support/updates lie outside the scope of what the GPL provides, and that support/update agreements can terminate if you exercise your right under the GPL to get source code.

After all, GPL software is explicitly provided "As-is, with no warranty" -- What you have in your hands (and the complete corresponding source code) is all you're entitled to get. If you want anything more, you'll have to come to a separate agreement [1], explicitly outside the scope of the GPL. Which you are free to accept, or not.

At this point I'm just repeating myself, so I'm done here.

[1] Which is precisely what paying for RHEL gets you -- a limited warranty and the promise of support/updates, in exchange for money and other considerations.

Hall: IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view

Posted Aug 2, 2023 19:46 UTC (Wed) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (1 responses)

>However, actual lawyers, including ones closely associated with F/OSS organizations,
>along with the actual license authors, say that what RH is doing is perfectly in line with
>the letter of the GPL.

Yes. That's what I also said here.

RH is Ok, but for different reasons than what you said. They do publicly distribute all sources of all the GPLed work that they gather, possibly modify and re-distribute. That's enough to fully comply with upstream GPL licenses.
The customer can get the sources from that second channel and redistribute it without risking non-compliance with their support contract.

>You are not a lawyer.

How do you know?

Hall: IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view

Posted Aug 3, 2023 2:13 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> >You are not a lawyer.

> How do you know?

A lawyer would not be sitting here making broad-based statements without knowing more details about their client's situation or at least disclaiming "this is not legal advice and even if it was, I am not *your* lawyer".

Hall: IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view

Posted Aug 12, 2023 21:27 UTC (Sat) by sinuhe (guest, #68638) [Link] (1 responses)

I think this has merit in that the subscription agreement seems disingenuous of Red Hat. It is also skirting the legality of copyleft licenses like the GPL, and threatening (and sometimes actually) auditing the subscription compliance, including internal use of the source code, not mere redistribution publicly with trademarks removed. The publishing of public sources seems to me as a way of more openly complying with copyleft, especially the GPL. See this article which I think summarizes the problems well that maddog doesn’t hit on: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analy...

Company lawyers want to keep their company in compliance to avoid the cost of legal issues, audits, and so on, and in general are used to proprietary licenses, not open source EULAs, including trademark, so they typically won’t distinguish the nuance. It does make me wonder if the GPL will have further clarification from the FSF in the future now that Red Hat’s subscription agreement problems are more publicized. Remember, not all licenses are copyleft in RHEL, but there is a substantial base with the GPL.

Finally, it’s curious there’s not been word from esr on this. He fell out with Red Hat awhile ago, yet has espoused abandoning copyleft. It presents an interesting conversation if he were to blog again.

Hall: IBM, Red Hat and Free Software: An old maddog’s view

Posted Aug 12, 2023 23:37 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> It does make me wonder if the GPL will have further clarification from the FSF in the future now that Red Hat’s subscription agreement problems are more publicized.

RH's subscription terms have been essentially unchanged for over twenty years, going all the way back to the RHEL 2 release in 2002, a full five years before the GPLv3 was released. Furthermore, this approach is the same as what Cygnus did with GCC (ie an actual GNU project!) starting in 1989, about two years before the GPLv2 was released!

If anything, the FSF has _strengthened_ the language permitting what Red Hat is doing -- They make it clear that GPL rights only apply to the specific release the user has in their hands and there is no guarantee of support or any future updates [1]. Additionally, it explicitly states that support and future updates can be withdrawn if the user exercises their rights to source and "installation instructions" under the GPL.

So I have a very hard time seeing how the FSF could address what RH is doing without also effectively requiring everyone to provide a warranty (and thus updates/support) for free. Which simply isn't going to happen.

[1] although support/updates may be provided for a fee [2]
[2] which necessitates an additional agreement/contract stating what limits/terms of support, the actual fees, and so forth.