this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is a masterfully Orwellian post. So, Redhat is threatening their customers with withdrawal of support that they depend on quite deeply, if the customers exercise their rights under the GPL. In response, the community got upset. Redhat's response is:

I was shocked and disappointed about how many people got so much wrong about open source software and the GPL in particular —especially, industry watchers and even veterans who I think should know better. The details — including open source licenses and rights — matter, and these are things Red Hat has helped to not only form but also preserve and evolve.

So, as of 15 years ago, the total value of what Redhat is selling was estimated at around 10 trillion dollars. The fraction of that that was created by Redhat is, fair play, higher than most companies that distribute FOSS software. They are, in terms of code, a significant contributor (especially in the kernel). But what they're building on in the first place is this multi-trillion dollar thing that they got for free. The only caveat was that they need to maintain the same freedom for others that they made use of.

So, when people ask them to do that, they say:

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 or those who want to repackage it for their own profit. This demand for RHEL code is disingenuous.

I see. It's yours, and we're not allowed to repackage it for our own "profit." Because:

Simply repackaging the code that these individuals produce and reselling it as is, with no value added, makes the production of this open source software unsustainable.

Got it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Orwellian?

Nah, that's just corporate speak.

Anyway, back to my Debian servers...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Prediction: RHEL dies in the next 5-10 years anyway while everyone moves to free options. Considering the amount of containerization being run on production systems, whatever VM is running docker or k8s doesn't need to really be managed to the same level that VM/bare metal webservers required in the past.

Sure, some big orgs will still foot the license fees, but considering CentOS/RHEL was the standard previously, I don't really see a benefit for corps to pay those fees any longer. Most will probably move to some random free stable distro for their VMs, and run any production resources via lightweight containers based on something like Alpine.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think you're underestimating the value organizations and enterprises put on having high quality support available at a moments notice. Particularly first party support.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For now. Like I said, the amount of work being done on the host level is going to decrease as organizations move away from traditional monoliths and into purpose built microservices.

Yes, some companies will still run their environments like it's 2014 in 2025, but that percentage is going to decrease considerably when the productivity, cost, and maintainability gains of orchestration tools like kubernetes are realized.

I went from being a traditional bare metal sysadmin surrounded by a team of 30+ to a cloud admin that could do the work of 25 datacenter techs to a DevOps Engineer who can do what would have taken dozens of sysadmins to do 10 years ago.

Businesses can tolerate their tech debt for awhile, but eventually economics takes over and those businesses either adapt or fail.

I just don't see something like RHEL existing in its current form without being the de facto enterprise standard, and moves like this make companies more likely to look for alternatives.

I know the vendors I work closely with are all moving away from that model.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I completely agree, but I don’t agree that RHEL can’t pivot to this new model. And their first mover advantage as the “enterprise operating system” won’t go away.

I guess your point is that their mismanagement of this situation is evidence of their eventual downfall, but I just don’t know if I buy that

I think their position in the market allows them to make these types of bad decisions without much fallout. If anything this just buys them more time

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Not to mention how long it takes a big org to migrate, even between versions of rhel. I've seen 6 -> 7 migrations happen inside the last month.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Agreed. It’s all about support. Anything less will more than likely not be entertained.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Time won't solve how people are. Most people will treat free as free of charge instead of freedom.

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