471
"I support it only if it's open source" should be a more common viewpoint (vitalik.eth.limo)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
46 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

What are your thoughts? Any counter-counter points to the author's response to most concerns regarding open source?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Technically, according to the GPLv3 you don’t need to make the source code publically available. If you sell software with binaries then their source code must be included with it. If you’re Red Hat you can also add an additional ToS to the website that states if you buy the software you can’t freely distribute the source code you download from the website or you will be sued to oblivion.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    No, they don't say they will sue (they flat out can't), but they say they will cut off your access to any updates.

    Now one could (and I would) argue that sounds like a restriction on exercising your open source rights. However the counter argument seems to be those protections apply only to software acquired to date, and if you deny access to future binaries you can deny access to those sources.

    In any event, all this subtlety around the licensing aside, it's just a bigger hassle to use RedHat versus pretty much any other distribution, precisely because they kind of want IBM/Oracle style entitlement management where the user gets to have to do all the management work to look after their suppliers business needs.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    You must make the source available to anyone you distributed the binaries to. Where in Red Hats TOS does it say they will sue you? As far as I understand it the reserve the right to terminate the service you are paying for. But your rights to source for the binaries provided are not affected.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent