Open Source community after Red Hat decides to go closed source 😂 #linux#redhat#rhel#opensource By limiting the RHEL public sources to CentOS Stream, it will now be more difficult for community/off-shoot enterprise Linux distributions like Alma Linux, Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, etc, to provide 1:1 binary compatible builds against given RHEL releases.
This week, we have #RedHat restricting access to the source code for RHEL (technically not illegal, but very likely unethical), we have a big progress report on #KDE#Plasma 6, and the beta for Linux Mint 21.2, which is a way bigger update than its small number bump:
Two years ago, they cancelled CentOS, which was the (highly popular) free and open source version of RHEL.
In response, two popular community forks immediately popped up, #RockyLinux and #AlmaLinux
Now, by closing access to the RHEL source, RedHat has just screwed both of those community projects, effectively forcing anyone who wants to continue using the RedHat branch...to pay RedHat for the privilege.
So yeah. The gist of it is that even though the AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux folks are trying, the simple truth is that IBM/RedHat doesn't seem to want these distros to exist.
Given IBM/RedHat package and distribute RHEL, the fact that they don't want these distros to exist means that no matter what Alma or Rocky do, there will always be the risk of future disruptions to the availability of the distro and/or updates.
You can no longer rely on them.
Time to stop using RHEL-derived Linux. Personally I'm going to look into migrating my own systems to Ubuntu or Debian in the next couple years.
IBM, you suck. You are basically wiping your butt with the GPL and the concept of open source software.