This was an incredible read; thanks for sharing! After I got over the gut punch, I’m finding it really difficult to be upset with RHEL. What are the essential things I want RHEL to do? I want them to provide their source code to their customers. They’re still doing that. I want them to contribute code upstream and to related projects. They’re still doing that. I want them to continue to advocate for software freedom. They’re still doing that. I get that the FLOSS community can be…shall we say recalcitrant?..when it comes to ecosystemic changes. And I know a lot of us view this as a Bad Move ™. But I just can’t muster up the anger. And I continue to appreciate all the positives RHEL and IBM have brought historically and continue to bring to the FLOSS community. Every change is a loss, and every loss has to be mourned, but I just can’t be angry about it.
I read the entirety of that and while I agree on many points, I find other points reductive and simplistic takes on what is actually a complicated root issue - capitalism and it driving of centralisation, profiteering and, of course, eshittification (which people have become more aware of in recent years and which is an ongoing and worsening issue just by itself).
I think the beginning sets the context - a history of business models related to Unix, and later Linux + Open Source software. It's important to learn from it.
It also shows that the challenges of the clash between capitalism and software freedom are constantly evolving, and presents how our battles were won (or lost) in the past.
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