On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 2:02 PM Rich Freeman via plug <
plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
(SNIP)
I don't really have a problem with any of this. The public still
benefits because most of this stuff does get upstreamed, but RH also
gets a financial benefit from an effective period of exclusivity.
That gives them incentive to keep investing. You want the companies
that are investing in FOSS to have an advantage over the ones that
just take without giving as much back. RHEL isn't really my thing,
but we all benefit from it (IMO).
These premises/this reasoning would be true if not for several key points (it can be forgiven as you have stated RHEL isn't your thing):
- RHEL gets the majority of their RPM specs and patches (the source in question) from the Fedora => CentOS Stream pipeline. Both are F/OSS-licensed and their SRPMs, SPEC files, and patches are freely distributed. For the Red Hat-specific patches, assuming GPL (the majority of what the software itself as packaged in the distributed RPMs), they must release these patches at the LEAST to customers. These customers cannot be legally restricted from redistributing without risking license violation of the initial software, at that..
- Red Hat does not do much actual unique code aside *from* those patches. Every single product offering they have is based on a fully F/OSS project. (RH Storage? Ceph. RHV? oVirt. RH IDm? FreeIPA. And so forth.)
- Red Hat does, however, provide value-add the following ways:
- RHN/RH Subscription Network
- Consulting and engineering services (though, having used them, I can tell you right now you're better off doing your own research. The value here is... not much.)
- Certifications, training, documentation not found upstream (the documentation alone is worth a developer account. Which Red Hat themselves offer at no cost or obligation.)
- kpatch channels, allowing for rebootless kernel upgrades (there are, to my knowledge, no public or free - as in beer - kpatch channels)
- Leapp upgrading to do same-install major release upgrades (which reminds me...)
- Derivatives ("clones") do not simply copy, do a little sed-ing for branding, and re-ship. I can't speak much for Rocky Linux, but AlmaLinux develops and releases ELevate, which reproduces the same functionality as Leapp and more, allowing one to not only perform major release upgrades on the EL platform but across different distributions of EL. RHEL Leapp is only RHEL => RHEL. (And no, the Leapp framework is not something developed by Red Hat. It, too, is another third-party F/OSS project.)
And that's just one project, there are others AlmaLinux has contributed (ALBS, ALCIB, etc.) to the F/OSS community. Red Hat offers no alternatives for these. - Red Hat products, as outlined above, do not have ANY period of exclusivity. Often they drag a major release behind the F/OSS upstream.