Recently, RedHat, a company that created RHEL (RedHat Enterprise Linux) and sells support for it, made a change so controversial it shook the Linux world.
The Change
In a recent blog post, RedHat announced that the only way to access the source code of RHEL (RedHat Enterprise Linux) was through a repository called CentOS Stream. CentOS Stream is only accessible to paying customers of RHEL, meaning that the source code is now locked behind a paywall.
This was controversial for members of the Free Software community, since they believe in full and universal access to software, including its source code. Naturally, some people asked if this was even legal, due to the license RHEL uses.
The "Reason"
RedHat claimed that the change was made in order to streamline the code publishing experience. They claimed that maintaining multiple repositories of code was a lot of effort and that reducing the amount of identical repositories would mean that there would be fewer issues.
This reason is 100% BS, and I'd like to explain why.
Why The "Reason" is BS
Maintaining multiple repositories is not difficult. You could:
Set up redirects from CentOS stream to the open source repo
Make CentOS stream a mirror of the original. FTP can do it, so why can't RHEL?
Move everything to a new, central repo
Keep having 2 repos because it isn't that many
This is the classic trick of using smart marketing to hide more sinister intentions.
The Real Reason
The real reason is simple. It encourages enterprise customers to purchase RedHat's support in order to view the source code.
This makes sense, since RedHat was purchased by IBM in 2018. IBM is a company specialising in cloud computing and other related services. It's a huge conglomerate, and has even been nicknamed "Big Blue" due to its size. There is an important element of this, though, which is that IBM has never supported the free software movement, and never will. This means that RedHat, who are supportive of te Free Software, are pressured by a company who cares more about money to maintain its bottom line.
What About The GPL?
The Linux kernel is licensed under the GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL, specifically version 3. You can see said license here.
GNU/GPL is viral, meaning that any works that use any GPL licensed code must be under the GPL license. Because the GPL license requires that the code be accessible, it means that companies are not able to take other people's free work and close-source it.
The GPL does have one more interesting bit, section 6, that stipulates that when a program is distributed, the recipients are automatically licensees, and have the same rights to copy or distribute. This section goes so far as to state, “You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein.” Red Hat is restricting the right of its users to share source code, so it’s imposing further restrictions, right? Somebody call Linus Torvalds, and get him to send a cease-and-desist to Red Hat? Well maybe. - Hackaday, 2023
Does this mean that RHEL has violated the GPL license by locking access to the source code behind a paywall? Yes and no.
The license does state that you must allow the source code to be accessible, but it does allow the access to be behind a paywall. On top of this, in order to sign up to CentOS Stream, you accept a separate licensing agreement that essentially overwrites this GPL license. This license disallows you from taking the code and using it for your own projects, and because you agree to it when buying the source code access, that's the end of the discussion. There is nothing you can do about it.
The Response
As expected, the Linux community were angry at this. Everyone from Twitter to Linux YouTubers were expressing their disbelief, while some claimed that this was not surprising. I am in the latter group myself. I always understood RedHat to be the weird Linux company that sold Linux to business customers, so this move seems quite logical for them.
What This Means
Naturally, you may be concerned. However, depending on what your position is, this may not affect you.
Desktop Linux Users
99.9% of desktop Linux users don't use RHEL, so this won't be a problem. However, if you use a downstream distribution of RHEL, such as Alma Linux or Rocky Linux, you should not worry, as both have said that this will not be an issue.
RHEL Users
If you use RHEL, you can move away from it. If you're running a server, Ubuntu Server is definitely a good choice, as it's stable and well-supported, if purchasing that is a selling point for you. If you're worried about Canonical being bought out just like RedHat was, there's always Debian.
If you use RHEL on the desktop, you can move to Alma Linux, Rocky Linux, CentOS, or any of the other downstream version of RHEL. Hell, move to Fedora if you want.
Fedora Users
Don't worry. Fedora is upstream from RHEL, meaning that its code is used in RHEL and not vice versa. Fedora is essentially the pre-release version of RHEL.
Conclusion
While I disagree with this change, and I do believe that RHEL will be fully closed-source soon, I don't really care, since I don't have anything to do with RHEL. IBM did this, not RedHat. RedHat can keep contributing to the Linux kernel as they wish, and I'm fine with that. If anything, they've just shot themselves in the foot.
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