Rocky Linux To Support Upstream Stable Kernels

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Rocky Linux To Support Upstream Stable Kernels

With the various Linux distributions derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we're beginning to see more features to distinguish between them rather than just "RHEL clones". It was just days ago talking about AlmaLinux restoring old hardware support that's been deprecated by upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Now over on the Rocky Linux side, CIQ as the principal organization behind them is rolling out support for upstream Linux kernels...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Rocky-Linux-Upstream-Kernels

[macemoneta]

If they're not careful, they'll turn into Fedora. It's been many years since being closer to upstream stable packages was "the bleeding edge". Fedora is more stable these days than many commercial "smart" appliances.

[spicfoo]

If they're not careful, they'll turn into Fedora. It's been many years since being closer to upstream stable packages was "the bleeding edge". Fedora is more stable these days than many commercial "smart" appliances.

CentOS Stream and Oracle both include kernels closer to upstream as an alternative. This is nothing new and doesn't turn RHEL into Fedora. RHEL itself routinely rebases desktop packages to latest upstream versions for that matter.

[mirmirmir]

Source code for paying costumer only? This is pretty much rhel version of rhel clone.



And both rocky and alma fail on being rhel clone, and we are celebrating it?

[spicfoo]

Source code for paying costumer only? This is pretty much rhel version of rhel clone.

This misunderstands the sequence of events. Rocky (backed by CIQ) tried to under Red Hat by doing none of the development and poaching customers Oracle style. Red Hat reacted by not going out of their way to publish all the tags in the public source repos. Now CIQ is showing their hands more after waging a misinformation PR campaign. It would be silly to believe that CIQ was developing a clone for anything other than business reasons.

[sophisticles]

Additionally, it appears that the upstream kernel endeavor on Rocky Linux may be gated to their commercial customers as opposed to making all the assets freely available and just gating their commercial support. In any event great seeing Rocky Linux supporting the option of upstream kernels for those wanting to ride the latest upstream innovations, performance improvements, and new hardware support for those not concerned about being on a RHEL-compatible kernel.

This is exactly why i always said these guys where a bunch of scammers and frankly need to be investigated by the DA for theft by deception.

All these projects acted like they were these activists, dedicated to preserving the word and intent of the GPL by taking the source code to RHEL, stripping out the RH branding and offering bit-for-bit binary compatible version for free.

I, and others like me, said this was stealing and the only thing these guys wanted to do was benefit from RH's work and make money from it.

I was called an asshole, idiot, moron, dummy, troll, people called for me to be banned, the vitriol was endless.

But the reality is that the Rocky people are scammers, pure and simple and they were backed by other thieves.

The Rocky Linux project raised 26 million dollars in initial venture capital with the promise of stealing Red Hat's source code, rebranding it and providing it free of charge under a different name.

Now, they won't even be doing that, they took that initial 26 million dollars, plus millions more a year from their sponsors, and now they won't even be providing bit-for-bit copies of RH, so what was those tens of millions of dollars for?

All those companies that spend all that cash could have just hired a guy like me, paid me a paltry quarter of a million dollars a year, yes I'm willing to take a pay cut, and had me build them a custom distro built using LFS, but then they wouldn't have the credibility of being able to say the distro they use is stolen from Red Hat.

Rocky represent the worst of GPL, and we are about to see the second worst as I predict 15 pages worth of comments defending these people.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/rocky-linux-developer-lands-26m-funding-for-enterprise-open-source-push/

[Noitatsidem]

Rocky represent the worst of GPL, and we are about to see the second worst as I predict 15 pages worth of comments defending these people.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/rocky-...n-source-push/

I have so much more respect for the people at alma than the people at rocky. They decided to give up on being a clone and instead just run their own, compatible distro based on CentOS Stream when Redhat closed their sources. Rocky meanwhile decided to find ways around the problem, and they still deliver on their clone promise. Takes them about a week to get an update relative to RHEL last I checked though, you can't say that isn't a security risk.

[logical]

This is exactly why i always said these guys where a bunch of scammers and frankly need to be investigated by the DA for theft by deception.

All these projects acted like they were these activists, dedicated to preserving the word and intent of the GPL by taking the source code to RHEL, stripping out the RH branding and offering bit-for-bit binary compatible version for free.

I, and others like me, said this was stealing and the only thing these guys wanted to do was benefit from RH's work and make money from it.

I was called an asshole, idiot, moron, dummy, troll, people called for me to be banned, the vitriol was endless.

But the reality is that the Rocky people are scammers, pure and simple and they were backed by other thieves.

The Rocky Linux project raised 26 million dollars in initial venture capital with the promise of stealing Red Hat's source code, rebranding it and providing it free of charge under a different name.

Now, they won't even be doing that, they took that initial 26 million dollars, plus millions more a year from their sponsors, and now they won't even be providing bit-for-bit copies of RH, so what was those tens of millions of dollars for?

All those companies that spend all that cash could have just hired a guy like me, paid me a paltry quarter of a million dollars a year, yes I'm willing to take a pay cut, and had me build them a custom distro built using LFS, but then they wouldn't have the credibility of being able to say the distro they use is stolen from Red Hat.

Rocky represent the worst of GPL, and we are about to see the second worst as I predict 15 pages worth of comments defending these people.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/rocky-...n-source-push/

I'd hate for you to be disappointed, so I'll be the first. LOL

Please explain how following the license is stealing for Rocky, but not for Red Hat? The overwhelming vast majority of RHEL is created from software not created, or solely developed by Red Hat. They exist because those licenses allowed them to use the software. I should know because I've used Red Hat's software from the very beginning. I used to purchase their boxed sets just to support their efforts.

So, please spare us the nasty Rocky diatribe.

[sophisticles]

I'd hate for you to be disappointed, so I'll be the first. LOL

Please explain how following the license is stealing for Rocky, but not for Red Hat? The overwhelming vast majority of RHEL is created from software not created, or solely developed by Red Hat. They exist because those licenses allowed them to use the software. I should know because I've used Red Hat's software from the very beginning. I used to purchase their boxed sets just to support their efforts.

So, please spare us the nasty Rocky diatribe.

I will be more than happy to.

Rocky is stealing from Red Hat, not the software but the business Red Hat built.

Red Hat is one of the original Linux distributions, I think only Slackware is older. The spent 30+ years contributing significant amounts of code and money to various open source projects, including the Linux kernel and in fact they are a founding member and platinum supporter of the Linux Foundation.

Linux today would not exist of it were not for Red Hat, Linus, Microsoft, Intel, HP, AMD, and a small handful of other. If you remove Red Hat's contributions, you don't have Linux as it exists today, it's that simple.

Red Hat used that open source credibility and built a business selling not just a base distro, but a complete software stack, including web server software, containers, virtualization stack, etc, and they charged a significant per seat license for the software, in some cases to the tune of 6 grand per vCore for their Cloud software.

Obviously the licensing fees can quickly mount up but also obviously companies did wanted to use that software without paying the licensing fees.

Enter Rocky, Alma, et al. These guys said "hey, we will take the source code Red Hat releases, strip out the Red Hat name and distribute it as a bit-for-bit identical clone so that you can use it without having to pay Red Hat's licensing fees".

"Sounds good doesn't it?"

"Oh, and as a thank you, give me 26 million dollars in startup capital." -Rocky Linux

And both Alma and Ricky have sponsorships that net over a million bucks a year.

Now if Rocky and Alma had announced that they would be rebranding Fedora do you think they would have raised a dime, much less millions of dollars?

If they had said they were building a server product based on Debian, Gentoo, Arch, LFS or BSD, would they have raised a penny?

No, it's only because they said we will rebrand Red Hat and give it to you so you can avoid the licensing fees that they are able to drive around in Ferraris.

That's stealing, pure and simple.

[You-]

I disagree with Sophisticles, as long as they obey the licensing and agreements terms and conditions they are legal fine.

However doing EXACTLY what they criticised Red Hat for is the height of hypocrisy.

Actually, since Red Hat products are developed in the open in the centos stream git repositories and therefore open to all (they only leave it to you to figure out which openly available patches to backport to which build.x version), this is worse.