On 2023-07-22 09:55, frank saporito wrote:
On 7/22/23 02:29, Gordon Messmer wrote:
From my point of view, Red Hat doesn't really sell software. They give away software. All of their software is available at no charge, typically in an unbranded release. What Red Hat sells is support.
Does Red Hat give away software anymore?
Yes? I'm not aware of any Red Hat software that isn't Free Software.
I am confused. Last month Red Hat announced that the source code would not be published.
That's not what they announced. The major-release branch of RHEL's source code is still published to the CentOS Stream git repos.
I think it's important to point out that Red Hat never published *all* of RHEL's package source code. For the first six months of any release of RHEL, they would publish de-branded source by essentially taking one artifact from each build (the src.rpm), unpacking that in a git repository, removing the primary source code archive, debranding what was left, committing all of that, and then pushing the result. It was basically git as a fancy FTP.
They've stopped doing that, in favor of publishing the major-release branch of the git repos for the entire primary support lifecycle of the major release.
The spirit of GPL was meant to force sharing and prevent the commercialization of the volunteer work of many.
It definitely wasn't. GPL software can't be made closed-source. Customers have to receive the source code (or an offer for it), and they have the rights that the license guarantees. But GPL software can definitely be commercialized.