I was just reading about it - this is an interesting (depressing) take from Bradley Kuhn:
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/ On Tue, 4 Jul 2023 at 06:40, Evan Leibovitch via talk <[email protected]> wrote: > > My take: > > I wouldn't go as far as "I saw this coming", but I have long suspected that > the IBMification of Red Hat was far from complete -- layoffs, CentOS Stream, > now this. RH employees that I know describe a hard shift in corporate > culture. And I don't think they're done. It wouldn't surprise me the least if > they even change the name of the product to "IBM Red Hat Enterprise Linux" or > even just "IBM Linux". Now that they've effectively (and knowingly) destroyed > the community goodwill that was formed over more than a decade of Linux Expos > and Bob Young roadshows, I don't even see much added value in the RH brand to > IBM; the Red Hat we've known for decades no longer exists. Come to think of > it, the IBM that helped start LPI and championed Open Source against the SCO > and Java assaults of a decade ago is also long gone. > > IBM doesn't really give a damn about Alma and Rocky, they're just incidental > casualties. The #1 and maybe only target of the subscription-wall action is > IBM's longtime arch-enemy Oracle, which may now be forced to actually > maintain its own distro and will no longer be able to claim bug-for-bug > compatibility with RHEL (or whatever it will be called). They've calculated > that the value of the harm this causes Oracle exceeds the lost value of > community rejection. > > This unfortunate momentum could be stopped (or at least slowed) by a Fedora > developer revolt but I don't see that happening. > > I see an opportunity for SUSE which maintains both an enterprise-Linux focus > and good community relations. Are they up to it? As a longshot maybe even > Oracle could try to seize the moment and try a charm offensive to attract a > community... but that's unlikely considered its many burned bridges (Solaris, > OpenOffice, Java) > > Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada > @evanleibovitch / @el56 > > > On Tue, Jun 27, 2023 at 11:23 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk > <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> This Red Hat change concerns me. >> >> LONG: Some thoughts on what my "go to" distro pair should be. >> >> | From: Alvin Starr via talk <[email protected]> >> >> | On 2023-06-27 08:19, Lennart Sorensen via talk wrote: >> >> | > Yeah I am happy I switched to debian 25 years ago because Red Hat's >> | > quality was so poor at the time. Debian having a better designed >> | > packaging system was a bonus. >> | > >> | Strangely around the same time I switched to RedHat because I got tired of >> | having to apply my own security patches to the kernel and applications >> because >> | the distribution was shipping with largely unmodified sources. >> | Like many things in life "your mileage may vary". >> >> The RHEL / CentOS / clones drama is certainly unsettling. >> >> I don't think that Fedora is directly affected but it is hard to judge >> whether there will be secondary effects. >> >> One upcoming GTALUG talk will be from a Rocky Linux guy. That should >> be interesting. >> >> I've already been struggling with where I want to go for a stable >> system. Besides the drama, I just don't think that RHEL's pinning >> versions for 5 years is a good strategy. Backporting for that long >> feels like a wasted effort, prone to errors. >> >> Why do I care about the effort RH puts into backporting? >> >> - it creates a RH "moat": it prevents others from competing with them. >> Rocky, Alma, Oracle feel like clones, not creative competitors. >> That may be unfair to Oracle but that's not a company that I want >> a relationship with. >> >> - it is labour that feels wasted. Perhaps that labour could be used >> for more constructive purposes. >> >> On the other hand RH has added a lot to the community and does do a >> good job of beating back bugs. >> >> I do think that I need a pair of distros: one that is up to date, and >> one that is low-drama. If they are in the same family, that cuts down >> on redundant learning on my part. >> >> - CentOS + Fedora has been a good pair for me. TBH, CentOS has left >> me with technical debt: I get stuck on obsolete versions because the >> upgrade paths have been disrupted (twice!). Fedora release updates >> have been good for some years. >> >> For my workstation (desktop and laptop) use, I've been very happy >> with Fedora, but it sure has a firehose of updates. I don't think >> that it is affected directly by any of this. But if a lot of people >> migrate away from Red Hat stuff, it won't likely be good for Fedora. >> >> It feels as if RH steers the future of Linux by making so many >> contributions. >> >> - Ubuntu LTS + fresh Ubuntu has been pretty good. I've had more >> problems with package updates on Ubuntu than of Fedora, but it has >> been pretty good. Distro version upgrades have been good but not >> perfect in my modest experience. >> >> Canonical has repeatedly acted in ways that offend or scare me. So >> Ubuntu, although easy, feels like a potential trap. >> >> - debian Stable + Testing + Unstable. I don't have much experience >> with debian. I fear that the lack of full-time paid engineers might >> reduce the safety relative to RH (that could easily just be FUD). >> debian's goals are good by me. >> >> So: I'm thinking of switching to debian. >> >> I'd like to learn from others. How do you choose to solve these >> problems? Maybe some of them are non-problems. >> >> ================ >> >> Giles has a problem with needing a stable distro with a more recent >> FireFox. I suggested, against my preferences, that this might be a >> perfect use for Snaps/Flatpacks. >> >> I wonder if I should be using a stable distro everywhere but with >> containerized upgraded packages where they matter. I yet don't think >> so. >> >> The rest of my family uses Fedora on their workstations. But they >> hate applying updates (even when I do the work). They are way behind >> most of the time. Maybe a stable distro + a fresh FireFox would be >> best for them too. >> >> How many other packages would I need to have fresher-than-stable? >> >> - support for newer hardware >> >> - compilers etc. >> >> - more pain-points would be discovered. >> >> ================ >> >> A fundamental problem is that feature changes and bug fixes are >> usually mingled in upstream. In some cases, it is a false >> distinction. Few developers want to maintain a bunch of old releases. >> It is very hard for a distro to correctly separate these two, and yet >> that is required to maintain a stable distro. >> --- >> Post to this mailing list [email protected] >> Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk > > --- > Post to this mailing list [email protected] > Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ [email protected] --- Post to this mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
