I'm not going to analyze if this is illegal or not (I don't think it is). It has been discussed elsewhere already.

But even if it where illegal, the only people in a position to sue would be the contributors of the upstream projects that get packaged into RHEL. And I don't see anyone having the appetite for that.

I contribute a lot to QEMU and there I'm practically working side-by-side with redhat devs. They contribute so much (maintainership, code review, testing infrastructure and much more), suing them wouldn't occur to me in the slightest.

Don't think of it as suing your coworkers, think of it as suing your coworkers corporporate overlords?

I think you're missing GP's point (or possibly I am but I don't think so). They aren't saying they are buddies and so they wouldn't want to sue. They are saying "Red Hat pays a lot of people to work on this, possibly to the point where the project would be dead without them. They're not just packaging up somebody else's code and shipping it"

I adamantly agree with GP. There are important projects that wouldn't exist without Red Hat, or if they did they would pale in comparison to the proprietary solutions and wouldn't be seriously used. Qemu/KVM is a big one. Without Red Hat's investment, it would all be VMware and anyone wanting to (seriously)_virtualize on Linux would be using VMware.

IANAL, but that doesn't mean that Red Hat does have to give you the source code. They only have to provide the source code to customers to which they distribute the binaries. Of course, for GPL code, their customers could redistribute the source code.

AFAIK, the current kerfuffle is about providing RHEL source packages through git.centos.org. They currently only provide RHEL through a subscription and they fulfill the GPL if they offer their RHEL subscribers the source code.

>Of course, for GPL code, their customers could redistribute the source code.

The fact that the subscription agreement does not allow this is exactly what we're discussing here.

The GPL does not say that they are obligated to sell you the next version.

The entire point of the GPL is to let you own the software you have bought and, examine, learn and change.

The rule Red Hat have brought in is that if you exercise that right then they don't want to continue selling their software to you. That is totally within their rights, it's not like they are suing you for illegal distribution.

It doesn't prevent you redistributing what you have already been given (binaries or source), it does however allow Red Hat to not give you future iterations.

They can't prevent you, because that would violate the GPL. However I'd say getting your subscription revoked as a penalty means it is not 'allowed'.

The intent of the GPL to allow distribution to third parties seems pretty clear, and a company refusing to deal with you after you exercised a right explicitly granted by the licence definitely seems like a 'dick move', despite being legal.

> The fact that the subscription agreement does not allow this is exactly what we're discussing here.

There's nothing to discuss. What Red Hat is trying to do IS ILLEGAL and GPL explicitly grants the right to all their subscribers to gave RH the finger.

From GPL Section 8 "If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term."

It is obvious that the "subscription agreement which denies the right to redistribute" is a "further restriction" that GPL legally allows users to simply ignore.

Also Red Hat violating GPL is unquestionably clear from the Preamble: "To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you have certain responsibilities if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it: responsibilities to respect the freedom of others."

RH asking users to surrender their rights and revoking any subscription for redistributing is clearly violating its responsibilities as demanded by the GPL.

It's even better because not only can you ignore RHEL's infringing terms, but RHEL's license to use GPL code has been terminated.

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and *will automatically terminate your rights under this License*. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.