IMHO the biggest threat to Free Software is the proliferation of open source software. And so the biggest threat to all the open source users/lovers is their own lack of a meaningful philosophy on licensing.
The permissive Free Software licenses do the same, being the same licenses.
The source IS made available to software. The license clearly says you must make it availble in the same method you get the binaries, which is what is happening here.
What "circumvention" is going on ?
I'm sure you know this, but to be clear for readers: almost all free software licenses are also open source licenses and vice versa.
The canonical examples are things like the BSD licenses.
See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatible...
> This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the advertising clause. It is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.
I think it would be clearer to say that the greatest threat to free software is the proliferation of non-copyleft free software which can be closed down if a company so wishes.
That's BS. First of all, companies have closed down GPL projects, because founding companies require copyright assignments on contributions.
Even the FSF does it, with the purpose of being able to change software to newer versions of the GPL, or to be able to sue for copyright infringement. And in the US at least, it's better if one entity is the copyright owner. But the issue remains thay the FSF could turn most of its GNU software proprietary.
The other reason for why it's BS is that it doesn't actually match reality. See LLVM vs GCC.
The biggest danger is companies releasing software with source-available, under proprietary licenses, using the Free Software / Open Source label for marketing purposes, diluting the meaning, which is otherwise well defined.
Like for example MongoDB and Elasticsearch, which grew due to being FOSS, then switched. And the license doesn't matter if the company has the right to switch, given they own the copyright.
I also predict this message will get "But Amazon" replies. Well, that's what FOSS is. Yes, it does grant Amazon the right to make money off your work. If you don't like it, then don't build FOSS, only to pull a bait and switch. FOSS is a terrible business model, because once a project is FOSS, it becomes part of the commons, and that's by design.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html#free...
I remember rms saying that GPL software places no restrictions on how the software can be USED. It just means that the benefit goes to the users of the software.
Right, so one receives software 'as a customer', does Red Hat have a requirement to provide you with source code going forward for infinity at no cost ? I don't know what reasonable is here but I do think that there are limits, it turns out that both ALMA and rocky somehow both work around this, I wonder how ?
Btw, I just checked that I can get access to the source of every package with my redhat.com account, however I do have a 'free developer subscription' so maybe that gives me/them access. Looks like there is still ways to access source.
But the spirit of the GPL was very much to be able do what old CentOS did: copy the latest version of RHEL that you were given access to and distribute it to others.
Paying RedHat once shouldn't give access to all of the code they will forever release from now on. But, if you want to keep paying, RedHat should keep taking your money and giving you the new code. They should not punish you for exercising your GPL rights by refusing to do business with you.
And Rocky are doing things that very clearly go against RedHat's wishes and will likely be stopped further down the line. They are "exploiting" the fact that RHEL for containers is released publically, not through a developer subscription, and that of course they are forced to give you the source code if they delivered a container to you. I'm fully expecting RedHat to close this "loophole" down.
I believe Alma Linux has taken a different approach and is no longer promising bug-for-bug compatibility with the latest RHEL. They are planning to start maintaining the RHEL code themselves, and take new patches from RedHat's CentOS Stream to try to match RHEL as closely as possible, if I recall correctly.
This is a good point. CLAs are bad because they are designed to allow a license change. The only organisation I would be likely to contribute under a CLA is the FSF, but that's mainly because RMS is still there and I know he won't pull the rug.
Maybe, but the GPL explicitly permits this by only requiring source to be distributed to those who receive the software.
If, instead, the GPL stated that source must be available to everybody when software is distributed to anyone, we maybe wouldn't have this RHEL situation? What would we lose if that were the case?
I think the main reason the requirement to publish the sources is limited to the person who receives the binary is simply practical. For one, there is basically no way to sue as a third party to a contract - even if the contract required you to publish all of your code openly, someone who didn't receive the binary can't really have standing to sue if you just don't publish it. Also, at the time the GPL was created, sending source code carried some measurable cost, so making it public would have been at least mildly expensive.