Oracle, who distributes an RHEL clone, has responded to Red Hat’s latest source code availability changes.
We want to emphasize to Linux developers, Linux customers, and Linux distributors that Oracle is committed to Linux freedom. Oracle makes the following promise: as long as Oracle distributes Linux, Oracle will make the binaries and source code for that distribution publicly and freely available. Furthermore, Oracle welcomes downstream distributions of every kind, community and commercial. We are happy to work with distributors to ease that process, work together on the content of Oracle Linux, and ensure Oracle software products are certified on your distribution.
The only good thing about Red Hat’s announced changes is that it will make Oracle’s life harder. That might make it all worthwhile.
I had this idea that all of the authors who published GPL software could just revoke IBM/Red Hat’s license to it, for violating the spirit, if not the letter of the license.
https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1657022591
I mean look at the state of things; you can wake up tomorrow and find half of your digital media collection revoked by Sony or Disney when you didn’t even do anything wrong. So surely the authors of the GPL code can revoke a license over this? Companies like Sony demonstrate that you don’t have to have done anything wrong; they can just decide that you don’t deserve what you paid for anymore. And if this policy is good for the people at the bottom, then it is also good for those at the top.
kbd,
Thanks for the link, I hadn’t heard that.
I think users just have to get used to the fact that when it comes to online services replacing traditional media things are no longer permanent and can be taken away if you don’t have a DRM free copy.
https://www.cnet.com/culture/the-mystery-of-the-disappearing-zune-music/
The GPL does stipulate that, however whether IBM/red hat are actually violating it’s terms is anything but strait forward. I feel their metadata for building and installing binaries is covered by the GPL and derivative to the FOSS projects they are distributing, but they would argue their metadata is their own independent property and therefor is not covered by the GPL and they can license it how they wish. Any disagreement ultimately has to be settled in court if redhat continues violating the rights of GPL project owners. Alas, this could take years and incur millions of dollars in legal fees, all with an uncertain outcome. For a GPL author whose been writing software for free, this may be unpalatable.
Well, the problem is always that the tables are heavily titled in favor of the huge corporations that have access to better legal resources. They know they can bury little guys in legal costs regardless of merit. However if battle lines emerge around corporate giants like redhat oracle google, etc, then money isn’t the problem, they’ll spend millions upon millions to get a desirable outcome in court. Many people hate oracle, but it would be ironic if they were on the side of promoting GPL interests.
In my view, the “spirit” of the GPL is met in spades by CentOS Stream. The debate is clearly around other interpretations of what “the spirit” of the license is. I think this debate is valid but I wish there was more specific engagement on the facts by those with an alternative point of view. Beyond that, Red Hat clearly meets the letter of the license quite completely and specifically.
tanishaj,
CentOS Stream isn’t at the center of the debate though, RHEL is.. At the very least RHEL users are entitled to both obtain and distribute RHEL sources under the GPL.
What if canonical did something like that? “We don’t have to distribute the source code for ubuntu packages because debian source packages already exist upstream”. That doesn’t comply.
Seem people feel that redhat are being reasonable considering what they do for the FOSS community. I won’t argue with that, I think linux benefits greatly from their work. But as a legal matter the GPL is a very specific license and being compliant with it isn’t technically about being good or bad for linux, it’s about what the GPL specifically says. So if redhat were to start punishing people who are using their redistribution rights under the GPL, it’s hard to deny that redhat would be violating the spirit of the GP. There is a reasonable case they would be violating the letter of it too.
AFAIU, the trouble with the RHEL situation is that they exploit a loophole with their contracts. Red Hat supplies the corresponding source code to RHEL subscribers, per the letter of the GPL. However Red Hat will terminate the subscription if they choose to distribute the source code to third parties, which cuts them off from future versions of RHEL.
Since the support contract is a separate item from the GPL and they don’t forbid you to redistribute the sources, Red Hat can get away with this. It is a bit of a sleazy move though. Exercise your rights under the GPL or choose to keep your subscription, but not both.
Disclaimer: IANAL
r_a_trip,
I don’t really know what the red hat contracts say, so I cannot comment on them. However both GPL 2 and 3 are clear that redistribution is permissible without restrictions. Logically a new contract that imposes restrictions is still a restriction.
GPL 3…
We don’t know how/whether a court would enforce the GPL’s terms, it’s pretty clear from the wording that the intention is for a party (redhat in this case) to loose the rights to GPL works when they violate the GPL’s terms. Imposing further restriction is an explicit violation.
I concede it’s very uncertain as to how a judge would rule, but IMHO there is a good case to be made that writing contracts that restrict GPL rights violates both the spirit and letter of the GPL Even for those who say redhat are the good guys, their intentions are good, and distributing sources via centos stream is good enough…. Ok, but what about the unintended consequences this precedent could have on FOSS across the board? If a court allows redhat to impose additional restrictions and punishments using their own supplemental contracts, then the GPL will largely be rendered worthless. Others could start issuing their own supplemental contracts to punish those exercising redistribution rights under the GPL. Such a precedent could have drastic consequences for FOSS well outside of the case of redhat.
I’ll use a car analogy partially for comedic effect, but partially serious…
A car company might use GPL libraries and operating systems to help them build the car. But then impose restrictions on source code redistribution via a supplemental contract that disables people’s seat warmers, infotainment and automatic driving capabilities to punish anyone who tried to use their redistribution rights under the GPL. Allowing companies to impose further restrictions on our freedoms using supplemental contracts has the exact opposite effect of what’s intended by developers sharing their software using the GPL.
” I feel their metadata for building and installing binaries is covered by the GPL and derivative to the FOSS projects they are distributing,”
What does the GPL itself say about this?
From the GPL itself: “Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.”
RHEL itself is not a “covered work” in the language of the GPL. RHEL is an “aggregate”. RHEL of course ships with many GPL programs which are each individually “covered works”. RHEL also ships with a bunch of programs which are covered by other licenses. GPL fans seem to be positively unaware of all the MIT and even Apache licensed stuff as an example. RHEL obviously contains copyrighted material which is proprietary to Red Hat ( obvious examples include trademarks and graphics ).
RHEL as an aggregate is not licensed in its entirely via the GPL. Most intuitive errors people make when thinking about this stuff feel like they stem from this fundamental misunderstanding.
Two other points I see get lost:
– Red Hat makes all their changes public via CentOS Stream. What they primarily obscure in RHEL is the exact timing of when they pull code for each package.
– The GPL specifies your obligations to “recipients’ that you ‘distribute’ to and Red Hat meets all these obligations ( to its subscribers – both paid and unpaid ).
tanishaj,
Well, it’s not merely an aggregate though, it’s literally part of the build and installation process. GPL 3 says this…
To me, It couldn’t be more clear that it is explicitly covered by the GPL.
Obviously the debate was around GPL software, but does anyone feel the other licenses should be debated as well?
If RHEL and centos stream use the exact same binaries, then I wouldn’t see a big problem either. Otherwise though I really think it would be a legitimate violation of the GPL that RHEL distributes binaries for which there is no source.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html#license-text
To meet their obligations under both GPL 2 and GPL 3 they must allow the works to be redistributed. To date, I haven’t seen any reports of redhat actually interfering with redistribution. As long as this continues to be the case, then I don’t see a problem. But if redhat starts taking steps to block redistribution, that would be a problem. Agreed?
Translation: The real reason for this fiasco was all about getting Oracle to pony up some money.
Sounds good. While we’re talking about Oracle’s commitment to open source, how about a resurrection of OpenSolaris?
Lol, considering Oracle’s past behaviour, this really is the pot calling the kettle black!