There’s a lemmy.ml post on a Raleigh News Observer article about RedHat and how their new partner program stipulations ‘divide the open source community’. Inside that article are arguments favoring RedHat. These arguments always miss the point, which is that RedHat, and IBM by extension as the parent company, always maximize their copyrights with teams of lawyers, while in this case systematically violating the copyrights of every contributor to the Linux kernel and much of the other software released and redistributed by RedHat.
I’ll explain. But first, let’s begin with the Raleigh News and Observer article at the Lemmy.ml submission, which has a link to the canonical article. In that Lemmy comment forum, you’ll find commenters comparing the legal behavior of CentOS, Scientific Linux, and Rocky distributions - all based on RedHat Enterprise Linux - with so-called ‘software piracy’. Which turns on its face the license this software was distributed under, namely the GPL V2 for the Linux kernel, and some combination of open sources source licenses (including the GPL V3) for the rest.
Let us understand what RedHat is actually doing. Much of RedHat Linux is written by people other than software developers at RedHat. Those people released their software under the GPL, which allows for derivative modification as long as the GPL license is followed. This is the so-called ‘viral nature’ of the GPL. RedHat restricts distribution of source for binaries of software they wrote as derivatives of GPL software to only those who pay a support subscription fee. That’s software other people wrote and published under the GPL which they modified. And that is perfectly OK. As RMS said, paraphrasing, ‘free speech, not free beer’. But then they take it further, by restricting subscription paying recipients from redistributing to third parties all GPL source code RedHat MUST make available to them per the terms of the license by threatening to revoke a subscription. Thereby revoking access to the source. This violates the GPL by creating a coercive stipulation to the support license which restricts the rights of recipients to redistribute under the GPL.
See Section 6 from the GPL V2, which the entire Linux kernel is distributed under (note that the GPL V3 contains a similar provision):
- Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
This means RedHat cannot coerce its partners by threatening to revoke subscription access in order to violate Section 6 of the GPL. That’s a copyright violation of the terms of the license by every contributor who released their work under the GPL, which RedHat has either modified or redistributes in whole. Therefore, this represents a massive structural copyright violation by RedHat against thousands of contributors who published software under the GPL that they either redistribute or modify and redistribute. Which is, like most of RedHat Linux. If RedHat wants to go closed source like this, then they should toss all GPL’d software in their RedHat distribution, and rewrite it themselves or use replacements under the BSD or MIT license. Which would make their play legal. A RedHat BSD distribution, for example.
Now, I have had experience with corporate license audits by major companies. IBM has a large team of lawyers who specialize in copyright infringement cases, and if you infringe their copyrights, and they find out, you should expect serious legal repercussions. The same is true for Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, etc. RedHat, as a subsidiary of IBM, is here violating the same laws IBM hires lawyers to get courts to enforce.
The difference here is that these big companies are singular entities with teams of lawyers, versus thousands of individual contributors who collectively created and published something this big company is now stealing. And let’s be clear, when you copy the Adobe Suite without paying a license fee, they call that shit “stealing”. But when RedHat does it, by violating license terms that thousands of creators have released their work under, RedHat’s PR flacks call legitimate redistribution under those license terms “piracy”. In order to muddy the waters and confuse people. No, it’s RedHat who is engaged in the piracy here. Just read the license.
I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know how to properly structure a response to this. Maybe the FSF or EFF organizes a few hundred major contributors, like Linus Torvolds, and files a class action lawsuit. Or maybe, for reasons, license rights of those organized contributors are ceded to an organization like the FSF en masse, and that organization files a copyright violation lawsuit. But those are tactical questions. At the core, those contributors MUST DEFEND THEIR COPYRIGHTS or we will all lose the right by fiat to create and redistribute software in the manner with these legal protections.
This is no joke. The entire Free Software movement is under threat by this, because if RedHat succeeds here, it will set a precedent. And every other company will run roughshod over the copyrights of individual creators in the same way.
Additional information on this issue can be found here:
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/
And here:
https://hackaday.com/2023/06/23/et-tu-red-hat/
EDIT I contacted Richard Stalman at the Free Software Foundation and he replied. He stated he thinks what RedHat is doing is “very wrong” but does not believe there is a legal remedy to the problem.
Yes, redistributing the subscription services isn’t the same as redistributing the software. The software is RHEL which is GPL’ed and outlined here: https://www.redhat.com/licenses/Red_Hat_GPLv2-Based_EULA_20191118.pdf
Which for the “certain obligations”
Which is perfectly acceptable in the GPL and many video games does this where the content is under a different copyright or trademark and the code is GPL’ed.
It’s not about the trademarks and you know it. Nobody here begrudges RedHat for protecting their trademarks. That’s a red herring.
Every contributor outside of RedHat who chose the GPL to protect their copyrights and intellectual property, do their copyrights matter here?
Are you willing to affirm that their intellectual property rights matter just as much as RedHat’s?
I’m not a lawyer or a judge but as far as I can tell your confusion comes from the trademark protection of Redhat and the GPL. There are GPLed games on Steam which requires an account which also states in the subscriber agreement that you can’t redistribute. https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement
Yet they host games like https://store.steampowered.com/app/370070/Wyrmsun/ which is GPLed and uses a GPLed game engine https://github.com/Wargus/stratagus.
So over here, Steam is doing what you’ve said Redhat is doing but actually is not. In fact, Steam is a far worse offender than Redhat in this because Redhat is just saying you can’t redistribute their Trademarked copies of the software. You can however redistribute copies without those trademarks but that it might prevent them from running. Like if you wrote a GPL’ed program that required an image file with a specific checksum to exist but then that tied to a trademarked image. You’d essentially be prevented from redistributing the GPLed binaries but you could modify the check and remove it.
So if you want someone to go after, go after Steam for this. Redhat is within the legal loopholes. Steam is blatantly breaking them.
Absolutely, the GPL isn’t being violated here as proven many times over.
Sure, I affirm that everyone’s IP rights including Redhat’s matter equally. The fact is that they aren’t being broken. You’ve misunderstood the contract details if you think they are, they put out a press release to stop the confusion but you seem to just keep wanting to push it forward. So go get lawyers and try them in court. See if it goes anywhere. Go after steam first.
I’m not talking about Steam. But if they’re violating the copyrights of creators who choose the GPL, by all means sue their asses too.
And I’m not talking about RedHat protecting their trademarks, which I consider perfectly legitimate.
I’m talking about threatening to revoke access to the support program, which is the only way to get RHEL source, as a way to prevent redistribution of GPL’d sourcecode. That’s a violation of Section 6 of the GPL, and therefore represents a copyright violation to everyone outside RedHat who has contributed source the project uses.
RedHat could solve this by making all GPL’d source available to the public. Or by stipulating that redistributed code under the GPL must have RedHat trademarks removed. Or by removing all GPL’d sourcecode in RHEL and using their own internally developed code, or using code released under the BSD or MIT, etc. licenses. A RedHat RHE-BSD, for example.
The trademark issue is just a RedHat Herring, so to speak. I’m fine with them demanding all RedHat trademarks be removed from GPL’d sourcecode related to the RHEL which others redistribute. But they may not violate the copyrights of contributors. Or else they should be sued for copyright infringement like anyone else. That’s the position I’m taking.
Note that I don’t demand the complete RHEL system. Components under BSD or MIT licenses, or those entirely written by RedHat, could be withheld and I wouldn’t care about that. This argument is specific to only GPL’d materials contributed by external parties.
And to be clear: when I say, ‘Sue their asses,’ I don’t mean in a North Carolina court where RedHat could judge shop for their best outcome. As per their contractual terms. No, I think California or New York would be best, because those jurisdictions are most likely to protect the intellectual property rights of contributors RedHat includes in RHEL.
At this point, we’ve been back and forth through this, and every time I’ve brought up the points where the RHEL source is actively available under the CentOS stream and you dodge the whole thing. You seem to be up in arms about it so go contact SFLC/FSF or some lawyer who will take the case. Let me know what it turns up. Personally, I wouldn’t be optimistic you had a case. Good luck.
I’m not the only one taking this position. RedHat has a serious problem here. One they’ve made by themselves.
CentOS is beside the point. So are their trademarks. The position I’m taking is clear. And I think it’s reasonable. I sincerely doubt IBM would accept a different hostID for a licensed AIX install as proof of compliance (by analogy). External contributors to RHEL shouldn’t either.
it is not enough to point to a repo where you can find the whole history. by the GPL terms you need to provide the exact sources of the software you distribute. As an example: Apple here lists all the GPL software they distribute with links to the exact versions they use to ship them https://opensource.apple.com/releases/ This is what redhat is not doing anymore.
I love this comment because most of the conversation revolves around the fact that RH might be violating the GPL but can do it because most people cannot simply afford to go against them.