Red Hat Takes Aim at Rocky Linux & AlmaLinux, Restricts RHEL Code Access

f33dm3bits

f33dm3bits

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I wonder how this will effect RHEL clones such as Rocky and Alma!

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Furthering the evolution of CentOS Stream

As the CentOS Stream community grows and the enterprise software world tackles new dynamics, we want to sharpen our focus on CentOS Stream as the backbone of enterprise Linux innovation. We are continuing our investment in and increasing our commitment to CentOS Stream. CentOS Stream will now be...
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Red Hat Now Limiting RHEL Sources To CentOS Stream - Phoronix

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Red Hat's Source Code Lockout Spells Disaster for CentOS Alternatives: Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux in Trouble?

Red Hat's new move means that RHEL-source code is only accessible to users with subscriptions. What do you think about this?
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Red Hat Restricts Access to Its Source Code

In an unexpected move, Red Hat announced that CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases.
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AlmaLinux OS - Forever-Free Enterprise-Grade Operating System

An Open Source, community owned and governed, forever-free enterprise Linux distribution.
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Red Hat Takes Aim at Rocky Linux & AlmaLinux, Restricts RHEL Code Access

Red Hat appears to be taking aim at two popular Linux distros that are community alternatives to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
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We will have to see what happens, if would be sad if it became impossible for RHEL clones like Rocky or Alma to continue.
 
Indeed :(
 
I wanted to try some RHEL-based distros in my desktop trials. I can report that Fedora, Alma Linux, and Rocky Linux did not make the cut for me. They all had similar bugs and issues when I ran them as desktops in VMware virtual machines on my computer. The bugs were not "show stoppers", but when so many other distros ran flawlessly, that was enough.

I tried comparing Alma Linux and Rocky Linux on a VPS server and did not notice any difference at all, other than how you spelled the distro name.

I evolved my personal internet servers from CentOS to Debian a few years ago. The reason was that CentOS support from the providers was poor, related to the OpenVZ templates they created to install CentOS on the servers. It felt good to get back into RHEL when I put Oracle Linux on two Free Tier instances, one Intel, one ARM. I was surprised to learn that yum was superseded by dnf since my last encounter.

I seem to be thinking more about "anti-patterns" today. An anti-pattern is an action or behavior that leads to failure. Often it looks like a good decision up front, but it isn't. The newest anti-pattern that I have observed are announcements of utterly self-destructive corporate policy changes by CEOs that lead to the immolation of the entire company. Last Fall it was Twitter. Recently Reddit joined the group. The final denouement of Reddit is still pending, scheduled for the end of the month (30 June 2023). Now RedHat appears to have signed up and stepped into that same anti-pattern. I cannot predict what will happen, but it could get ugly.

They get away with policy decisions like these because they have strong centralized leadership that can impose a single policy by surprise on their customers and communities even when it is readily apparent to all that such policies will lead to disaster. They know that they have the advantage over a community that must organize and find a way to manage the unexpected crisis.

Scary thought: Who is next?
 
sphen said:
I wanted to try some RHEL-based distros in my desktop trials. I can report that Fedora, Alma Linux, and Rocky Linux did not make the cut for me. They all had similar bugs and issues when I ran them as desktops in VMware virtual machines on my computer. The bugs were not "show stoppers", but when so many other distros ran flawlessly, that was enough.
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I've never had any issues with Fedora on my desktop, except for an Nvidia bug that was fixed. I wouldn't run Alma or Rocky on my desktop because of them having old software compared to the average desktop distribution and the same reason why I wouldn't run Debian stable on my desktop.
sphen said:
I tried comparing Alma Linux and Rocky Linux on a VPS server and did not notice any difference at all, other than how you spelled the distro name.
Click to expand...
I use Proxmox on my homeserver which is based on Debian, I just upgraded to the bookworm version today :) but on my vpses I run Rocky. Any RHEL clone have always worked great for me and I have ran 3 different RHEL clones now on my vpses and even RHEL once.


I evolved my personal internet servers from CentOS to Debian a few years ago.
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I'm just going to see what happens to Rocky and Alma, I have grown used to RHEL/clones over the years since I also use it at work and at home, if I were to change what I run on my vpses it would probably be Debian but I actually like RHEL/clones the most because of the good support for selinux.

I think the decisions of the past years are probably more decisions coming from IBM, since IBM bought Redhat some years back.
 
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Thread merged, though the reference URL was also included in the original post.
 
Surely this isn't just greediness of Redhat. :rolleyes:

As other's have mentioned, this narrows the field quite a bit if Redhat doesn't play ball.
Where do you go from here? If you're a hard-core RPM shop, maybe Fedora.
Maybe that's not so far fetched. One of the 5 largest US Banks is Fedora Based.
One of the 4 largest Mobile Telecom Companies is Fedora based. Amazon AWS
is now Fedora based. One of the largest hospitals in this city is moving to Fedora.
The company I work for is mostly a mix of Alma and Fedora ( a very few Ubuntu systems as well )

I saw where Alma wants to grab code from the CentOS streaming repo's. That'll be a challenge.
My understanding about Oracle Linux is that it is a "licensed" clone from Redhat whatever that means.
 
dos2unix said:
Surely this isn't just greediness of Redhat. :rolleyes:
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It's probably the greediness of IBM and to see how much their investment from some years back is going to pay out with short term profits in mind for everyone in "upper management".
 
I would have to agree with @f33dm3bits It's most likely IBM is calling the shots. It's a shame in a way because Linux has always been about freedom and code availability in open source. I think Rocky and Alma can survive but it will mean a lot more work to get the code.
 
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osprey said:
Maybe all it takes is for Alma and Rocky to take out a subscription from Red Hat just as anyone else can, and then access becomes available to the OS, the support and the code. Presumably they can do as they wish with it all after that within the GPL.
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Not all the software used within RHEL has the GPL license, so there are software packages within RHEL that uses another license such as BSD or MIT and those licenses are bit less restricting which would not require them to give the sources of those.
 
f33dm3bits said:
Not all the software used within RHEL has the GPL license, so there are software packages within RHEL that uses another license such as BSD or MIT and those licenses are bit less restricting which would not require them to give the sources of those.
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Yes. I just read the Alma and Rocky linux responses and my comment was not informed about the Red Hat restrictions on their subscribers use of their OS and code. That's a problem for the open source movement.
 
f33dm3bits said:
I use Proxmox on my homeserver which is based on Debian, I just upgraded to the bookworm version today :) but on my vpses I run Rocky. Any RHEL clone have always worked great for me and I have ran 3 different RHEL clones now on my vpses and even RHEL once.
Click to expand...
I use Proxmox on my VPS, how did the Update work for you? any difficulties?
 
tinfoil-hat said:
I use Proxmox on my VPS, how did the Update work for you? any difficulties?
Click to expand...
No issues runs, as well as before and I don't notice a difference.
Code: 
root@pve:~# pveversion 
pve-manager/8.0.3/bbf3993334bfa916 (running kernel: 6.2.16-3-pve)
 
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