Well it appears that the Oracle lawyers have cleared Oracle’s response to Red Hat and all I can say is
Great response, Oracle!
If you haven’t read it yet, here’s the post: Keep Linux Open and Free—We Can’t Afford Not To
I want to break down Oracle’s post and comment on it.
Oracle has been part of the Linux community for 25 years. Our goal has remained the same over all those years: help make Linux the best server operating system for everyone, freely available to all, with high-quality, low-cost support provided to those who need it.
It’s crazy, but I agree with Oracle on this. The Java License Police and the VirtualBox License Police are real and they will shake your organization down for compliance. But when it comes to Linux, we see eye to eye.
We chose to be RHEL compatible because we did not want to fragment the Linux community. Our effort to remain compatible has been enormously successful. In all the years since launch, we have had almost no compatibility bugs filed.
I am actually grateful for this. If I was to build “NodeSpace Enterprise Linux” I would choose RHEL as a base… err… would have. Linux is too fragmented and honestly, RHEL is what I know and have been using the longest.
While Oracle and IBM have compatible Linux distributions, we have very different ideas about our responsibilities as open source stewards and about operating under the GPLv2.
The emphasis is mine. This is the first part where Oracle mentions anything other than “RHEL” and they refer to Red Hat strictly as “IBM”. Oracle knows where to lay the blame. It’s IBM.
Oracle has always made Oracle Linux binaries and source freely available to all. We do not have subscription agreements that interfere with a subscriber’s rights to redistribute Oracle Linux. On the other hand, IBM subscription agreements specify that you’re in breach if you use those subscription services to exercise your GPLv2 rights. And now, as of June 21, IBM no longer publicly releases RHEL source code.
This is definitely true. While not in git repo form, it’s available: Oracle | oss.oracle.com - Home You can modify the source packages and make your own Oracle Linux-based distro.
Interesting. IBM doesn’t want to continue publicly releasing RHEL source code because it has to pay its engineers? That seems odd, given that Red Hat as a successful independent open source company chose to publicly release RHEL source and pay its engineers for many years before IBM acquired Red Hat in 2019 for $34 billion.
This hits the nail on the head. Emphasis mine. You know what changed right before the IBM takeover? The logo. The classic “shadowman” was no more. It was at this point I believe IBM was in talks with Red Hat about purchasing but IBM being IBM didn’t like the logo. Red Hat then said that it looked “sinister” and “evil”. But in reality, IBM didn’t like it. And to get the purchase to go through, I think a branding change was a sale contingency.
In December 2020, IBM effectively killed it as a free alternative to RHEL. Two new alternatives to RHEL have sprung up in CentOS’s place: AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. Now, by withholding RHEL source code, IBM has directly attacked them.
% this! Red Hat kept CentOS trucking along when they acquired the CentOS IP in 2014, even went so as far as to release CentOS 8. But a year after IBM takes over the project gets killed?
And perhaps that is the real answer to the question of why: eliminate competitors. Fewer competitors means more revenue opportunity for IBM.
It’s like I’m on the same brainwaves as Oracle for some reason! IBM hates competitors. Well, all large companies do.
We want to emphasize to Linux developers, Linux customers, and Linux distributors that Oracle is committed to Linux freedom. Oracle makes the following promise: as long as Oracle distributes Linux, Oracle will make the binaries and source code for that distribution publicly and freely available.
You know you’ve done fuxed up when ORACLE comes off as the good guys… (you know, the people who caused this meme to be made because they wanted (or do) charge for every processor core their software could potentially run in a cluster…)
Yeah, that Oracle. The Oracle that sends me emails with obviously fake lies like this:
(This is an actual Oracle email received by a client! And you want to know the kicker? VirtualBox is blocked - it physically cannot run in their environment!)
Yeah, when a company that sends emails like that is saying, “…committed to Linux freedom…” and looks like a saint, you’ve royally f-ed up.
Furthermore, Oracle welcomes downstream distributions of every kind, community and commercial. We are happy to work with distributors to ease that process, work together on the content of Oracle Linux, and ensure Oracle software products are certified on your distribution.
Well, Oracle, want to help me create “NodeSpace Enterprise Linux”? Also, can you talk to cPanel?
Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden.
(Mic drop)
I seriously never thought I’d say this, but Oracle!