Re: Red Hat & Fedora -- largely stepping out of this ecosystem

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Hey!

On Thu, 2023-06-29 at 19:12 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> 
> > > On 6/26/23 18:47, Jeff Law wrote:
> > > > What Red Hat has done may be technically legal and perhaps good
> > > > for
> > > > its business.
> > 
> > Something I'm having trouble with is Red Hat's position that
> > you can choose to be a customer or to exercise your rights
> > under the GPL, but you cannot be both.
> 
> The thing is, many people are learning this only now, because things 
> indeed have become tougher for people who prepare the RHEL rebuilds,
> but 
> this is not new.  _Nothing_ in the service agreement or in any other 
> legal document has changed since last week, the exact same terms
> have 
> been applicable to the extended-support branches since the beginning
> of 
> RHEL.  In fact, as Frank pointed out elsewhere, this is something
> that 
> other companies have been doing for decades as well.
> 

In my opinion, people haven't complained about service agreements
because, till recent changes, RHEL sources were available publicly. The
only important contract was the open-source license of the software.
Now we have both the license of the software and the service agreement.

> For all the people that are complaining only now that the free beer
> part 
> is taken away, I can't help thinking that it's a bit disingenuous to 
> make it about "free as in freedom", when that clause has existed
> forever.

What do you mean by "free beer part"? Isn't open-source software free
of charge? Does anybody pay for it?

The question is if RHEL software is still open-source or closed-source. 
At least if I look at the OSI's [1] definition of Open Source, the
situation isn't clear to me.

> 
> (As an aside, the service agreement also mentions that any open
> source 
> license overrides the service agreement if needed.  So by definition 
> this might be void but it certainly is not a GPL violation).
> 

Yeah, it's hard to say which rules of service agreement are overwriten
by software licenses. Especially that there are quite a few licenses
shipped with the distribution.

Cheers,

Piotr

[1] OSI Open Source Definition

   Introduction

   Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code.
   The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the
   following criteria:
   1. Free Redistribution

   The license shall not
   restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a
   component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs
   from several different sources. The license shall not require a
   royalty or other fee for such sale.
   2. Source Code

   The program must
   include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as
   well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not
   distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means
   of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable
   reproduction cost, preferably downloading via the Internet without
   charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a
   programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source
   code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a
   preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
   3. Derived Works

   The
   license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow
   them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the
   original software.
   4. Integrity of The Author’s Source Code

   The
   license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified
   form only if the license allows the distribution of “patch files”
   with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at
   build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of
   software built from modified source code. The license may require
   derived works to carry a different name or version number from the
   original software.
   5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

   The
   license must not discriminate against any person or group of
   persons.
   6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

   The license
   must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a
   specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the
   program from being used in a business, or from being used for
   genetic research.
   7. Distribution of License

   The rights attached to
   the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed
   without the need for execution of an additional license by those
   parties.
   8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

   The rights
   attached to the program must not depend on the program’s being part
   of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted
   from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of
   the program’s license, all parties to whom the program is
   redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted
   in conjunction with the original software distribution.
   9. License
   Must Not Restrict Other Software

   The license must not place
   restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the
   licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all
   other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source
   software.
   10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

   No provision of the
   license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of
   interface.


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