What do you all think of the Red Hat drama a few months ago? I just learned about it and looked into it a bit. I’ve been using Fedora for a while now on my main system, but curious whether you think this will end up affecting it.
My take is that yes, it’s kinda a shitty move to do but I get why RH decided to stop their maintenance given they’re a for profit company.
What do you guys think? Do you still use or would you consider using Fedora?
I would say that cancelling your subscription is a direct violation of the GPL for two reasons.
For example, say I’m someone who installed RHEL under a subscription. I downloaded the source to the kernel then distributed the SRPM to others leading Red Hat to cancel my subscription/account.
With a cancelled subscription/account, how do I now access the buildable source for say the GCC package I have installed on my system as guaranteed under the GPL?
If Red Hat didn’t cancel my subscription/account, but restricted it to only accessing the matching source downloads for the packages on my system, that would be compliant. But they didn’t. They killed all my access for matching source which is non-compliant.
If Red Hat provided a service where I could request buildable copies of the source for the packages I have installed , this would be compliant. But as far as I know, they have not.
Cancelling my subscription/account is a violation of Section 6 of the GPLv2 which states, " You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein."
This clause is to ensure you can freely exercise your rights granted by the GPLv2. Cancelling your subscription/account for no reason other than exercising your rights is a direct violation.
For example, I have the right to vote. If a government body imposes a hefty fine or tax if I attempted to vote, this would be considered further restrictions on my right to vote. This is what Red Hat has done.
Red Hat is certainly free to cancel your subscription/account under the terms of their license, but not when it conflicts with the exercise of rights granted under the GPL.
If Red Hat distributed software to you, you are entitled to the source. And guess what, they will give it to you. You are making the false assumption that they will not. There is no evidence for this at all.
Red Hat does not add any restrictions at all to the software license of any GPL work they distribute. You can exercise whatever rights you want regarding the software that Red Hat has distributed to you because they extend it to you via the same license that it was provided to them. They do not restrict your rights in any way with regards to the software they have already given you. A cancelled subscription does not cause me to lose access to the software that has been distributed to me or to any of the rights and freedoms as stated in the licenses ( GPL and otherwise ) for the software that Red Hat has distributed to me. The subscription is not a software license, it is a contract.
More important than all of this, RHEL itself is not licensed under the GPL and so the whole premise is wrong on its face. The subscription agreement is for RHEL itself.