Re: [PLUG] Red Hat cutting back RHEL source availability

[Rich Freeman via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 7:53 PM Joe Rosato <rosatoj@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Plot thickens
>
> https://twitter.com/jp_bennett/status/1671944682375458820?t=QI62iW5zHrXxWSPYlR6ANg&s=19
>

Interesting, but I think the devil is in the details here, which this
announcement is lacking.  I'm also not sure if anything like this has
ever actually been litigated, so a court could conceivably go in a
number of directions, and that will likely depend on the details.

If they have a user agreement to not publish anything on the portal,
and then they use the portal to distribute a file, and that file says
it is licensed under the terms of the GPL, then that is a bit messy.
They've said you're not allowed to distribute the file, and then
they've gone ahead and given you permission to distribute it anyway.
If you were to go ahead and distribute it, I'd think RedHat would be
hard pressed to take action against you in court, since they've given
you permission to do so.  At best they could argue they gave you
contradictory instructions, and that is not a great place to sue
somebody from, as the burden of proof is on them.  I likewise think it
is questionable that this violates the GPL, since effectively they
haven't actually restricted redistribution.

Of course there is the whole FUD factor, but courts tend to not care
about that.  I mean, the entire judicial process is basically a
punishment and the courts don't really care - if you spend $100k on
lawyers and are found not guilty, then no harm no foul and the system
worked.

Now, if they actually stripped the GPL notices out of the files, then
you probably couldn't redistribute them, but that would be a glaring
GPL violation.  I'm guessing they aren't that dumb.

What they're probably counting on is that their corporate customers
aren't activists and don't really want to get into a fight over it.
Of course, it only takes one, and it could be a competitor who buys
one license and dares RedHat to take them to court.

Now, what RedHat might do is just drop a customer who redistributes
the code, and then force that customer to sue them, shifting the
burden of proof, and driving up their costs.  That is likely to be a
real deterrent, but if a motivated party does go through with it I
suspect a court wouldn't take kindly to RedHat's tactic.  I think the
problem is that the remedy might be just to let the code get
republished, which basically is just returning to the status quo, so
that's a whole lot of money spent without any real punishment for the
action.

Of course, customers could also vote with their wallets.

That said, RHEL clones are obviously a source of frustration, and that
sort of low-value-add thing isn't great for the FOSS ecosystem.  It
just encourages companies to not invest in marketing improved versions
of FOSS.  I don't like what RedHat is doing, but I can't really say
that the clones are really "the good guys" here.

If you want a distro that is completely open, transparent, and free,
then use Debian or Ubuntu or any of the others.  RHEL tries to add
value in a couple of ways, and they charge for that, and honestly I
think the FOSS ecosystem is better off for their efforts.  This isn't
some patent troll that has contributed nothing trying to sink the
actual contributors.  This is a company that contributes quite a bit
trying to find a way to make a buck in the process.

-- 
Rich
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