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.
You got a particular clause you feel is being violated? Asking because I’ve read the document and I don’t see any parts specifically about mods not being allowed to be dicks. Not that it really matters. The “charter” in question is worth the paper it’s printed on. Federated instances are autonomous. Whether they federate with other instances or don’t is up to individual site governance.
Section 6 of the GPL Specified in what I quoted in the write up.
Nobody may prevent anyone else from redistributing material released under the GPL. RedHat does just this with a coercive stipulation threatening to revoke source access if RHEL source is redistributed. That’s a direct violation of the GPL V2 and V3. Every Linux Kernel contributor, for example, is having their copyrights violated here.
The charter does matter. Because it’s a community driven document.
Your argument here is two fold:
Therefore:
My counter argument here is that: When majorities in the community realize they’re being punked by the likes of you, the response will be to shun you and your instance with mass defederation.
Lemmy has these problems partly because the interface design copied from Reddit incentivizes incivility and bad behavior. But also because the leadership of Lemmy is a role model for bad behavior. They created the community it has become.
Under circumstances like this, I believe mass defederation is exactly the right outcome. Lemmy is rushing head first to irrelevancy.Ya’ll can then go off and do your own hate thing UnTruth Social or Gab or whatever. Good luck with that.
Yeah, that means functionally nothing.
And, no, my argument is really that you have no power here and the rules are, beyond the functional purpose of insulating the people who run the instances from any kind of legal accountability, largely meaningless in a physical sense. A document like the constitution means something because there are institutions that exist to enforce it. Lemmy doesn’t have that. Community rules and policy are more like weather vanes, pointing towards general guidelines of behavior. They’re not laws. There are no legal proceedings around them. And they apply differently from average commenter, to community moderator, to administrator. Also, you didn’t really say WHICH part of the charter you feel was violated. Just that the charter was violated. It’s like if I said my constitutional rights were violated by the police and someone asked me which ones and I said, “oh, you know, just generally speaking.”
I don’t know what punked means to you, but it means one of two things to me. Neither of which applies in this context. Regardless, yes, instances can defederate from one another. This was always allowed.
There’s some foundational premises here that I don’t think would hold up under scrutiny. Yes, the interface is similar to reddit’s. I don’t know if you think that the structure of the interface hypnotizes people into being dicks, or you think that the interface attracts ne’er-do-wells because it reminds them of reddit and they’re drawn to it like flies are drawn to shit. In either case, I’m not sure if there’s enough argument there to really engage with.
I’m sorry you had a negative experience. Maybe you should start your own Lemmy instance in which you are better able to enforce your own ideals for the community. Y’know, really swing that ban hammer liberally. After all, banning people who dare question your very narrow, but functionally limitless authority is one of the few joys in life of your average internet forum moderator. Might as well live a little.
Blah blah blah.
You’re right I personally have no power beyond my persuasive self. But the community as a collective does.
Lemmy may soon find itself experiencing the consequences of that. And I will cheer that outcome on.
“If people don’t do what I say and defederate from this instance because I got banned from a community by a power tripping mod, then these hundreds of websites will inevitably die for it because it means they’re all fascist for some reason…and I will dance in their ashes!”
I want you to understand this is what you sound like when you talk. Get help.
Nononono you don’t get my perspective at all.
I’m not on about lemmy.ml banning me, per se. Their server, whatever. This is about much more than that.
Lemmy devs do not respect the rest of the fediverse. They do not respect basic civility. They especially do not respect alternate views. They promote hate and disparaging slurs as a virtue. They are bitter and little. Petty. And have already earned themselves a bad reputation.
This puts them at odds with the rest of the FediVerse. And that will come to bite them in due course.
This is well beyond me. I’ll just be a spectator joining a wave from the bleachers.