It will be available from customer portal, but with more restrictions.
Stream source is still available, which is not quite the same.
So others would have difficulty making a "bug for bug compatible" clone.
So is IBM trying to stop Oracle or Rocky/Alma?

Am 24.06.2023 um 20:41:47 Uhr schrieb Woozy Song:

> It will be available from customer portal, but with more restrictions.
> Stream source is still available, which is not quite the same.
> So others would have difficulty making a "bug for bug compatible"
> clone.

They make it much harder, but not impossible.

> So is IBM trying to stop Oracle or Rocky/Alma?

Yes.

Woozy Song wrote:

> It will be available from customer portal, but with more restrictions.
> Stream source is still available, which is not quite the same.
> So others would have difficulty making a "bug for bug compatible" clone.
> So is IBM trying to stop Oracle or Rocky/Alma?

I'm curious to see what the FSF has to say about it, if anything.

--
I taught you everything you know.
But I didn't teach you everything I know.

On 2023-06-24, Auric__ <not.my.real@email.address> wrote:
> Woozy Song wrote:
>
>> It will be available from customer portal, but with more restrictions.
>> Stream source is still available, which is not quite the same.
>> So others would have difficulty making a "bug for bug compatible" clone.
>> So is IBM trying to stop Oracle or Rocky/Alma?
>
> I'm curious to see what the FSF has to say about it, if anything.

Probably say that it's time to move to Debian.

--
"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good."
-- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

RonB wrote:
>>
> Probably say that it's time to move to Debian.
>

I pretty much have. Ubuntu going snap happy and Suse going immutable,
few choices left for LTS distro.

RonB wrote:

> On 2023-06-24, Auric__ <not.my.real@email.address> wrote:
>> Woozy Song wrote:
>>
>>> It will be available from customer portal, but with more restrictions.
>>> Stream source is still available, which is not quite the same.
>>> So others would have difficulty making a "bug for bug compatible" clone.
>>> So is IBM trying to stop Oracle or Rocky/Alma?
>>
>> I'm curious to see what the FSF has to say about it, if anything.
>
> Probably say that it's time to move to Debian.

I've been using Slackware a couple decades. I suppose I could give a newer
distro a try. <g>

--
That makes less sense than the existence of an Elemental Plane of Bees.

On 2023-06-26, Woozy Song <suzyw0ng@outlook.com> wrote:
> RonB wrote:
>>>
>> Probably say that it's time to move to Debian.
>>
>
> I pretty much have. Ubuntu going snap happy and Suse going immutable,
> few choices left for LTS distro.

CentOS was the first Linux distribution I stuck with. But I went to Linux
Mint about 14 or 15 years ago. (I used Vector Linux for a while after
CentOS.)

--
"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good."
-- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

On 2023-06-26, Auric__ <not.my.real@email.address> wrote:
> RonB wrote:
>
>> On 2023-06-24, Auric__ <not.my.real@email.address> wrote:
>>> Woozy Song wrote:
>>>
>>>> It will be available from customer portal, but with more restrictions.
>>>> Stream source is still available, which is not quite the same.
>>>> So others would have difficulty making a "bug for bug compatible" clone.
>>>> So is IBM trying to stop Oracle or Rocky/Alma?
>>>
>>> I'm curious to see what the FSF has to say about it, if anything.
>>
>> Probably say that it's time to move to Debian.
>
> I've been using Slackware a couple decades. I suppose I could give a newer
> distro a try. <g>

I experimented with Slackware (in the 90s) but the closest I came to
actually using it was my year (or so) using Vector Linux.

--
"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good."
-- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

RonB wrote:

> On 2023-06-26, Auric__ <not.my.real@email.address> wrote:
[snip]
>> I've been using Slackware a couple decades. I suppose I could give a
>> newer distro a try. <g>
>
> I experimented with Slackware (in the 90s) but the closest I came to
> actually using it was my year (or so) using Vector Linux.

I sometimes use it as my daily driver, but for the most part I've used it as
a file server and development machine. (I mostly develop for Windows so
that's where most of my time is spent.)

--
As is often the case, the customer had broken down the
problem into two parts, one easy and one impossible.

On 6/24/2023 8:41 AM, Woozy Song wrote:
> It will be available from customer portal, but with more restrictions.
> Stream source is still available, which is not quite the same.
> So others would have difficulty making a "bug for bug compatible" clone.
> So is IBM trying to stop Oracle or Rocky/Alma?

Hello,
I am working on a software audit (Using Ubuntu server at work in
conjunction with Windows 11).

According to the terms of the GPL if I am reading this right, if I am
releasing a public version of the software where say my next door
neighbor can get a copy and I give them a public version of a copy, I am
required/obligated to make the source available either for free along
the binary or offer a 3 year written agreement to provide the complete
source code package on say a CD or flash drive at a cost no more than
what is reasonable.

It is ambiguous on the term reasonable considering I likely have to
provide a receipt showing that, that is the cost of
conveying/distributing the source if it is not alongside the binary for
a period of 3 years. If they do not exercise this agreement to get the
source in 3 years on that particular version and I do not release any
more public versions, then I do not have to comply is what I am reading.

IBM RH, mere speculation, I am not a lawyer, but it seems that the GPL
has no clause for retaliation downstream of cutting off the access to
the binaries upstream. I think IBM/RH is forcing users/developers to
hard fork RHEL to go in another direction.

I say the same thing would happen eventually if RH was shuttered by IBM
or simply stopped the development of RHEL. In that case we
would/could/should move on to another Enterprise distribution
(SUSE,Oracle,Canonical).

Now I am a cynic at saying this comes without shock since a similar
event happened with Oracle buying Sun Micro-systems and discontinuing
many of the projects effectively cut off from the source.

Question is whose going to be the next top dog/developer.

SUSE is forking RHEL (Hard fork not a soft fork)

What happened to RHEL could happen to anyone. I figured it was only a
matter of time, since we were using RHEL as a software product rather
than their support SLA Teams. IBM is trying to sell RHEL as a product
when it was about the quality of support you got from a Red Hat (a play
on Black Hat/White Hat/Grey Hat).

When RH ended their free version of RHL in 2003, out came Fedora. When
RH ended CentOS, out came Rocky/Alma/Stream/SUSE's Hard fork

Have we been conditioned to expect things for free and open? When I look
at forced reciprocal licenses (RPL, Sybase Open Watcom Public License),
the privacy loophole is the one thing that we cannot get rid of in free
software.

The GPL is a binary/compilation copyleft/reciprocal free software
license imho, so if the binary isnt distributed to the world for free
then the world cant expect the source for free/nominal unless you have
the freedom too.

On Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:10:41 -0400, josh allen <josha12@googlemail.com> wrote:
> According to the terms of the GPL if I am reading this right, if I am
> releasing a public version of the software where say my next door
> neighbor can get a copy and I give them a public version of a copy, I am
> required/obligated to make the source available either for free along
> the binary or offer a 3 year written agreement to provide the complete
> source code package on say a CD or flash drive at a cost no more than
> what is reasonable.

I am not a lawyer. :-)

My understanding is that this is for code that they are not releasing to
the public. It's only available as binaries and source to their customers.

For code where they are the authors, they have no requirement to share it with
the public or use the gpl license.

For code that they obtained under the gpl, as long as they share patches with
the upstream gpl projects, I suspect they are technically in compliance with
the gpl.

If they are caught providing patches to their customers for gpl software that
they do not share, and they refuse to correct that behaviour they could be
prohibited from distributing any gpl licensed software. IBM's lawyers will
likely ensure that does not happen.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

On 7/17/2023 5:17 PM, David W. Hodgins wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:10:41 -0400, josh allen <josha12@googlemail.com>
> wrote:
>> According to the terms of the GPL if I am reading this right, if I am
>> releasing a public version of the software where say my next door
>> neighbor can get a copy and I give them a public version of a copy, I am
>> required/obligated to make the source available either for free along
>> the binary or offer a 3 year written agreement to provide the complete
>> source code package on say a CD or flash drive at a cost no more than
>> what is reasonable.
>
> I am not a lawyer. :-)
>
> My understanding is that this is for code that they are not releasing to
> the public. It's only available as binaries and source to their customers.
>
> For code where they are the authors, they have no requirement to share
> it with
> the public or use the gpl license.
>
> For code that they obtained under the gpl, as long as they share patches
> with
> the upstream gpl projects, I suspect they are technically in compliance
> with
> the gpl.
>
> If they are caught providing patches to their customers for gpl software
> that
> they do not share, and they refuse to correct that behaviour they could be
> prohibited from distributing any gpl licensed software. IBM's lawyers will
> likely ensure that does not happen.
>
> Regards, Dave Hodgins

FYI - Click on Followup when replying to the Usenet, dont use Reply, it
goes directly to the users email address not to the entire newsgroup

Ah sharing patches, i figured it had to be the whole thing. Yea they
aren't bound by the licenses they choose under copyrighted code they
hold copyright to. I figured Customers are the downstream end
users/developers. For code bound by the *GPL/MPL they are bound but for
permissive stuff they dont have to reciprocate. Well for all intents and
purposes we have the complete source to RHEL before the change, so going
forward we will have to look forward to a hard coded fork. Unless SUSE
makes their hard fork entirely reciprocal (Only GPL/MPL & other
reciprocal free licenses). I never suspected that Red Hat would succumb
to EEE (Embrace Extend & Extinguish) but they are IBM now and IBM does
do EEE. The Linux Kernel's license cant be changed unless you remove all
GPLv2 (with syscall) exception but that would mean rewriting a new
kernel to be Linux Binary Compatible Bug for Bug.

On Mon, 17 Jul 2023 17:55:41 -0400, josh allen <josha12@googlemail.com> wrote:
> FYI - Click on Followup when replying to the Usenet, dont use Reply, it
> goes directly to the users email address not to the entire newsgroup

As far as I can see, I did send it to the newsgroup only. My sent messages folder
shows one message with this subject with headers showing ...

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: RHEL source no longer freely available
References: <u76oaf$4049$1@dont-email.me> <u94781$1asll$1@dont-email.me>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2023 17:17:38 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: "David W. Hodgins" <dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org>
Message-ID: <op.178v3ogta3w0dxdave@hodgins.homeip.net>
User-Agent: Opera Mail/12.16 (Linux)

Opera 12.16 has three reply options. The reply button sends to the newsgroup,
or if it's used as a drop down button, an option to reply to the sender via
email, with a separate reply all button that does both. I've configured it to
place the reply all button at the right side of the menu, with the normal reply
button being at the left end. I haven't used the reply all button in a very long
time.

If I had sent it only via email or to both usenet and email, the sent message
headers would have had to include the To: header as I understand it.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

On 2023-07-17, josh allen <josha12@googlemail.com> wrote:

> The GPL is a binary/compilation copyleft/reciprocal free software
> license imho, so if the binary isnt distributed to the world for free
> then the world cant expect the source for free/nominal unless you have
> the freedom too.

Under GPL if the binary is distributed to any person (even at cost)
that person can then obtain and distribute the source at any price
they choose.

In practice this means the source will usually be free.

--
Jasen.
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