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.
I should note, all my comments on this topic and this submission was removed at Lemmy.ml/c/Linux and lemmy.ml/c/opensource for reasons I cannot comprehend.
https://i.postimg.cc/WzGZXmVF/Screenshot-20231106-153003-Fennec.jpg
- Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
I’m not taking sides here, and I’m not trying to be holier-than-thou since I’ve been banned for saying some pointed things about hexbear users, but this is why.
Were they not being disrespectful to me by calling me a “libshit”? I see that rule on respectful debate being applied selectively here.
Here, two screenshots. One with the post I responded to, the next with the thread I was banned for supposed being uncollegial. You decide.
…
Read through these and ask yourself if their behavior - use of slurs - embodies the purpose of the FediVerse as outlined in the Preamble and purpose documents? Further, does challenging this on point embody the Preamble documents or violate it? Read through. I believe any fair minded person would recognize abuse of authority at Lemmy.ml, both to promote hate against others, and to suppress the challenging of it.
Yeah I know what you’re saying. It was a similar experience for me. The hexbears were being raging douche canoes unchecked, yet I got banned.
Using slurs of that sort - douche canoes - might actually violate a legitimate rule. lol
But I see how the Lemmy community is utterly broken. Everything the BeeHaw admins said about Lemmy and its promotion of toxicity is spot on. And I understand their desire to defederate from Lemmy and move to better software. Lemmy does not adhere to the FediVerse charter.
“Douche canoe” is an insult, but it’s not a slur. Slurs are more than simply offensive language. Slurs are more deeply harmful. Think the n-word or f-slur, for instance.
I would understand a rule against such disparaging language. But regardless.
Yeah I agree I could have avoided the disparagement, but I felt like being succinct vs. writing an entire diatribe cataloging the myriad curses brought upon the fediverse by h*xbear.
Lemmy.ml can and has, banned and removed users that the moderators disagree with.
Crazy. Is that what the FediVerse is all about? Regardless, that blocks access to the largest Linux community in Lemmy. If this is how they use that authority, do you trust them to run such important communities?
Here’s the Charter:
Is that what the FediVerse is all about?
That individual instances can set and enforce their own rules? Kind of, yeah! If you don’t like one instances rules and behaviour then pick another which you do, the hard part is getting other users to join you.
Of course individual instances can set and enforce their own rules. But the FediVerse community can too. As seen with the FediVerse Charter document under consideration.
The question is not, "Should lemmy.ml admins be allowed to create whatever toxic nightmare they like on their server? " Because they own it! They can.
The question instead is, “should the rest of the FediVerse remain federated with that nonsense?”
I’d say, they’re promoting hate speech. That’s not what the FediVerse is about.
I don’t think many will defederate over it yet, but I can definitely see disgruntled and determined individuals (much like yourself!) setting up replacement communities on less authoritarian instances, which is hopefully a good thing if they can get the momentum to move people or cause three original to change.
I’d say, they’re promoting hate speech
I’m not following here, where’s this?
In this case I’m referring to the “shitlib” epithet. Branding whole peoples they disagree with politically as shit. And I’m not even clear exactly what view is being promoted or how bullying people is supposed to earn them friends outside their little bubble. Much less continued federation.
Being called a neoliberal because I run a tiny film consultancy is like branding a single store mom and pop bakery owner a 19th century Robber Baron. Voting Biden is strictly strategic, I’ve lived in Europe and would vote for democratic socialists in a heartbeat if one could win.
But I know democratic socialism would never be enough for these espoused fake Marxists, who’ve never actually read Marx or Engles, don’t know a thing about the history of the October Revolution, think Mao’s Long March of Death was actually a victory because he said so, and couldn’t place left versus right seating in the Estates Generale to a political movement even if Robespierre introduced them to his favorite guillotine with a severed copy of Burke’s Critique of the French Revolution.
Lemmy ml is a cutout for lemmy devs, who know even less about algorithms than they do about Marxism and political history, confusing both for alphabet soup. The dev crew is one Freshman semester in to a CS degree with a failing grade pretending they’re writing system code in inline assembly.
Incompetence can get them only so far in failing upward. This isn’t a corporate bureaucracy. Lol
OK, well it sounds like you’re both just insulting each other, you’re just putting a lot more thought into your insults! Anyway, I come online to escape from political nonsense so I’m going to try and avoid getting sucked into this. Happy to get involved in any Linux communities you do set up in the future though!
that blocks access to the largest Linux community in Lemmy.
!Linux@lemmy.world is looking like a pretty good alternative. I unsubscribed from most lemmy.ml communities some time ago.
I’ll check it out, thanks! But I believe BeeHaw is still defederated from lemmy.world.
I wonder if a Linux community would have a good home on lemdro.id. Accessible to beehaw and LW
I’d check it out!
I suppose that’s your choice for staying on beehaw then?
Yeah. It is. I like the BeeHaw admins. Don’t always agree but I think they come from a good place. They’re trying to do the right thing. That matters to me.
Is that what the FediVerse is all about?
This is what forums on the internet have been about since, well…forever.
I’ve been online since pre web days when USENET over UUCP was it. But here I’m really talking about the FediVerse charter document, which outlines acceptable site behavior for FediVerse inclusion.
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.
The charter does matter. Because it’s a community driven document.
Your argument here is two fold:
- Community rules are meaningless.
Therefore:
- I can do anything I want, fuck you.
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.
The charter does matter. Because it’s a community driven document.
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.”
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.
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.
Lemmy has these problems partly because the interface design copied from Reddit incentivizes incivility and bad behavior.
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.
Under circumstances like this, I believe mass defederation is exactly the right outcome. Lemmy is rushing head first to irrelevancy. Then ya’ll can go off and do your own hate thing, like UnTruth Anti-Social or Gab or whatever. Good luck with that.
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.
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.
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of comments here on Lemmy being removed, including my own… have no idea why… sure, I might offend someone with my comments, but that thing is happening in the real world to all of us as well.
A lot of snowflakes here on Lemmy… I thought things might be different, turns out it’s the same as Reddit (even worse sometimes), just under new management.
People keep making this mistake of thinking of lemmy as a single entity. It’s not. It’s many, many communities. They’re all run by different people and the fact is, those who like to abuse their power are naturally the most likely to be the ones running these communities. Pay attention to what’s going on, filter the instances you participate in, and don’t expect everything to be hunky dory.
Well, my initial reason for joining Lemmy was to just test it out, see how I like it… and support the Reddit migration.
To be honest, I’ve always used the default Reddit app, I never saw anything wrong with it, but I understood where the anger was comming from (freedom of choice, I use the default app, someone else might like Appolo or whatever… I get that and I’m all in for it, so I decided to support that). So bascially, I thought this would actually be a more relaxed place than reddit was… yes, in some communities, that is true, but in most… ummm… no… I mean the bigger ones…
I’m just kinda dissapointed I guess… I expected more from this place…
I can understand that. It doesn’t help that the first communities, before the reddit exodus, were by and large (not all, but definitely a significant majority) tankies and right wingers who had been booted off the mainstream social media
This is wrong. What they have said is that the entirety of RHEL will be in CentOS Stream.
There is CentOS Stream the binary deliverable, and CentOS Stream the source repository. The CentOS Stream gitlab source is where we build RHEL releases, in the open for all to see. To call RHEL “closed source” is categorically untrue and inaccurate. CentOS Stream moves faster than RHEL, so it might not be on HEAD, but the code is there. If you can’t find it, it’s a bug – please let us know.
So what is going on, which is acceptable, is that they are making the CentOS Stream more stable by doing work on RHEL (Before it is released to anyone.) in an internal repo, then pushing changes to CentOS Stream when they are ready to make an RHEL release and make a release from the CentOS Stream. Thus you will still get the exact source code of the binaries on the portal.
In closing from the CEO of RHEL:
We will always send our code upstream and abide by the open source licenses our products use, which includes the GPL
So you don’t have anything to worry about. They aren’t breaking the GPL, they are simply doing work on unreleased binaries internally before bringing them externally.
what they put in their gitlab is besides the point. The issue here is they are forbidding other people from redistributing the sources they got from Red Hat, which is allowed by the GPL. They know they cannot legally stop people from doing so, so instead they have decided they will terminate contracts with those people.
In the view of many, this is “imposing further restrictions”, and thus breaking the GPL.
The issue here is they are forbidding other people from redistributing the sources they got from Red Hat
Everything I read about their EULA, they aren’t.
from their subscription terms (I don’t manage to get the exact link on my phone due to their weird site. click on the links for the agreements in the bottom ) https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/registrations
If you use the Individual Developer Subscriptions for any other purposes or beyond the parameters described in these Program Terms, you are in violation of Red Hat’s Enterprise Agreement and are required to pay the Subscription fees that would apply to such use, in addition to any and all other remedies available to Red Hat under applicable law. Examples of such violations include, but are not limited to,
● using the Red Hat Subscription Services for Individual Development Use and/or Individual Production Use on more than sixteen (16) Physical or Virtual Nodes, or
● selling, distributing and/or rebranding the Red Hat Subscription Services (or any part thereof) contained in the Individual Developer Subscriptions.>>
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
Subject to the following terms, Red Hat, Inc. (“Red Hat”) grants to you a perpetual, worldwide license to the Programs (each of which may include multiple software components) pursuant to the GNU General Public License v.2 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old- licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html). With the exception of certain image files identified in Section 2 below, each software component is governed by a license located in the software component’s source code that permits you to run, copy, modify, and redistribute (subject to certain obligations in some cases) the software component.
Which for the “certain obligations”
This EULA does not permit you to distribute the Programs using Red Hat’s trademarks, regardless of whether the Programs have been modified.
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?
It’s not about the trademarks and you know it. Nobody here begrudges RedHat for protecting their trademarks. That’s a red herring.
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
you may not, in whole or in part, copy, photocopy, reproduce, publish, distribute, translate, reverse engineer, derive source code from, modify, disassemble, decompile, create derivative works based on, or remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Content and Services or any software accessed via Steam without the prior consent, in writing, of Valve.
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.
Every contributor outside of RedHat who chose the GPL to protect their copyrights and intellectual property, do their copyrights matter here?
Absolutely, the GPL isn’t being violated here as proven many times over.
Are you willing to affirm that their intellectual property rights matter just as much as RedHat’s?
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.
This is not about CentOS. Or Scientific Linux. Or any specific distribution. This is about RedHat violating the copyrights of every author who has released software under the GPL which they redistribute, By enacting coercive limits on RHEL subscribers, who are the only people who receive GPL’d source from the RedHat Enterprise Linux product, RedHat thereby prevents those subscribers from redistributing without penalty Redhat’s derivative source code under the GPL. As noted, this directly violates Section 6 of the GPL V2, which the entire Linux Kernel is released under (and other stipulations in the GPL V3). Not to mention plenty of other GPL’d software RedHat redistributes themselves.
Forget CentOS. That’s a side issue. And a distraction. It’s like RedHat throwing a bone to try and make this go away.
This is about RedHat violating the copyrights of every author who has released software under the GPL which they redistribute, By enacting coercive limits on RHEL subscribers
Can you point to the RHEL Subscriber EULA that says they can’t redistribute the GPL’ed binaries? I’m very curious about that.
Lovely trick, you’d have to buy a subscription to get the EULA. So no, I can’t. But here’s a good write up on the issue.
https://hackaday.com/2023/06/23/et-tu-red-hat/
EDIT: I’d like to ask: Is the RedHat RHEL EULA copyrighted by RedHat? Would republishing it therefore violate their copyright, giving RedHat reason to file a copyright claim? That would be a good way to prevent non-subscribers from reading the EULA and discussing it in public.
You can’t enter into an agreement without reading it first thus you can’t only serve the EULA to subscribers. Legally, it makes no sense and you not being able to point to it makes it feel like you don’t have anything but FUD to go on. Anything I’ve found for Redhat’s EULA explicitly states you can redistribute under the gpl v2 license. I suspect you’d find this is all misinformation and FUD in the community.
so I went and downloaded the “Red hat developer subscription for individuals” agreement and saw that it disallowed distributing branded red hat software due to their own trademark and copyright. They do not explicitly disallow distributing the software if you unbrand it. Additionally I read the https://www.redhat.com/licenses/Red_Hat_GPLv2-Based_EULA_20191118.pdf agreement which explicitly allows redistributing as long as you unbrand their software which again, is gpl compatible.
So no they aren’t breaking the law and it seems like anyone claiming so it’s either purposely or mistakenly spreading misinformation to create FUD because big scary corp bad.
You can’t enter into an agreement without reading it first thus you can’t only serve the EULA to subscribers.
That’s not true.
https://www.eff.org/wp/dangerous-terms-users-guide-eulas
They’re called End User License Agreements, or EULAs. Sometimes referred to as “shrinkwrap” or “click-through” agreements, they are efforts to bind consumers legally to a number of strict terms – and yet you never sign your name. Frequently, you aren’t even able to see a EULA until after you’ve purchased the item it covers.
You wrote:
so I went and downloaded the “Red hat developer subscription for individuals” agreement and saw that it disallowed distributing branded red hat software due to their own trademark and copyright.
That and the link is very cool. I did look for it but I didn’t find it. You did. And you posted a cite and link. I’ll dig through it. The branding issues by RedHat is perfectly reasonable and I wouldn’t complain about that. But something else is going on, or RedHat has changed their policy after the public outcry six months ago. And I’ll dig into that too.
Actually, thank you.
EDIT I don’t think this is the RHEL EULA license and support agreement. I think this is a standard license for all RedHat branded products, like Fedora et all. Will dig.
EDIT 2 NOTE there is a confidentiality agreement in the US version of the RHEL contract posted at RedHat:
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/agreements
https://www.redhat.com/licenses/Enterprise_Agreement_Webversion_NA_English_20211109.pdf
That’s not true.
The article says with
windows that pop up before you install a new piece of software, full of legalese.
You don’t have to read it but they have to show you the EULA. That’s the whole EFF argument there is that they aren’t checking hard enough to make sure you read it. The reading it part isn’t exactly what I meant and you are either being pedantic or clueless.
Frequently, you aren’t even able to see a EULA until after you’ve purchased the item it covers.
Buying it isn’t entering into the EULA agreement though. They are talking about software you purchase usually from a brick and mortar store that don’t provide the EULA before purchase. Online you can usually even see the EULA before purchase but either way I was talking about it before agreeing to it.
As I said:
You can’t enter into an agreement without reading it first thus you can’t only serve the EULA to subscribers.
It’s literally not legal and completely voids the contract.
No, EFF also complains one doesn’t get the shrinkwrap agreement until after the product is bought. Often with little to no means to refuse and return for a refund. So it’s coercive.
This is relevant to the RedHat issue here because my reading of the public facing RHEL US agreement at that link I posted is that there’s a nondisclosure agreement you must agree to in order to purchase a subscription for support, but what specifically you’re agreeing to not disclose will be made clear only after signing a contract and paying the fee.
See Section 8.1 under Confidentiality.
I further note that the Stackexchange link you post only makes my point for me on what Redhat is doing here.
Further, under Section 10 RedHat reserves the right to Audit your facilities for compliance for up to one year after termination of the contract. And…
Under Section 12 they require you agree to any dispute resolution in North Carolina courts as a venue, and to relinquish any rights under New York or California state laws (which I assume is not to their advantage).
the entirety of the next, unreleased version of rhel will be in centos stream. Not the current version
I don’t see that as the case but even if true, I don’t see the impact that would have.
suppose they do build rhel out of centos stream. You arrive an hour later and download centos stream. It has been updated since then. You don’t have rhel sources.
As long as they tag it for release it such there isn’t a problem. Many gpl software repos already work like that. Even if they don’t tag it, you have the repo and commit history. Technically you have a way of getting the source.
deleted by creator
I agree that what RH are doing is counter to the GPL. I agree that they need to be held accountable. Unfortunately, I do not contribute to the codebase and lack standing. But I’ll absolutely donate to a GoFundMe or similar to raise awareness and setup a legal fund. And I’ll promote the hell out of it when the topic is appropriate.
Maybe write to EFF or FSF and see what response (if any) you get. If that doesn’t work, maybe an online petition could gather enough signatures to sway them. I dunno, something needs to happen and I see both that you’ve thought about this a lot and that you’re a good writer. And from another comment about RHL 2.x, you’ve got skin in the game more than many. Keep us posted.
Are you saying that RH doesn’t sell RHL to people who will redistribute the source code of RHL?
And are you saying that it is against the GPL?
Genuine question.
So RedHat is free to restrict binaries and source to their paying customers. But what they can’t do is restrict their customers from redistributing it. They can’t create special terms of service preventing customers from publishing anything released under the GPL. Even if it’s source or binaries provided by Redhat.
Any source code under the GPL RedHat staff modify, remains under the GPL. These terms of service therefore violate Section 6 of the GPL and violate the copyrights of all those contributors external to RedHat who chose the GPL when releasing their work.
Yet, aren’t they restricting redistribution of non-GPL parts?
I just trying to understand RH’s argument here because so far it sounds like they are blatantly burning down GPL, and I don’t think even RH would do that.
NonGPL parts are just not relevant here. Like I said about a RedHat BSD. They’d be free to close source, or do whatever they want as far as releasing source, for materials released under the BSD or MIT license because those licenses allow it. Or anything they write from scratch on their own, of course.
So yeah, this is related to just GPL’d source.
That can’t be… reads articles this is really bad.
that is the gist, yes. they are only providing RHEL sources to their clients (which is OK by the GPL), but then if their client decide to exercise their right to redistribute those sources (which the GPL allows them), RH will then cut them from their services (and any future sources).
They argument is “no one can force us to be in business with anyone” (i.e. go exercise your distribution right somewhere else), others argue that his is adding further restrictions into the distribution.
In any case this is not a clear case for any argument and it would need to be decided by trial, but IMHO it is at least against the spirit of the GPL.
It’s funny, because there was a post about some company calling themselves Open Source but putting a restriction on downstream monetization of their code, and commenters here were adamant that this was unacceptable, and that, contrary to what I said, big companies would TOTALLY NEVER just decide that they owned an open source project by slapping their own license on top, and declare that others couldn’t use it as they like… OH LOOK.
Whether you like it or not, the only real means that exists in the US to legally prevent a company like RedHat or any other big companies from saying, “your code is mine now, fight me in court if you don’t like it”, is to have registered copyright ownership over it. With that, it’s open-shut. Without that, you’re looking at years-long court battles over how much legal weight your OSS license holds.
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.
FOSS as people like to imagine it is very much based on people acting in good faith, and the bad-faith actors not having the resources to torpedo the system. We’re seeing here what happens when they do.
Are you referring to hashicorp with recently changing license terms? IIRC the change in license was to prevent competitors (i.e. AWS) from releasing a service using the open source software from directly competing with their cloud offerings. It’s sad it had to come to it, but I think the reality of the situation is that AWS could come up with a competing cloud offering, has the built in user base, and can run the service at a loss, because they make money elsewhere.
A company like Amazon totally could afford to pay, but won’t if they don’t have to. Ultimately, I think part of the license change was in response to Amazon and AWS being a monopoly. Without the license change, their company was at risk.
I was referring to the post about Grayjay. But yes, terraform is just more proof that this is a very real threat to the OSS ecosystem, and that OSS providers need to start thinking about protecting their software from being seized and monetized by large companies whose preexisting install base can muscle the actual developers out.
I agree with most of this. I installed RedHat 2.0.2 back in 1994. I supported thousands of installs of Scientific Linux. Back in the Donnie Barnes days, when RedHat was privately owned, they were real community contributors. But this is direct attack. And the FSF and EFF are going to have to respond, with lawyers. Because the consequence of this is to diminish the rights of individual creators and their copyrights. Giving large companies rights in copyright by fiat that individuals won’t posses. And that’s not just an attack on copyright, it’s an attack on rule of law. Copyright law MUST be enforced equally, or it becomes a form of government patronage.
I swear IBM has the Sadim Touch.
