Red Hat Stops Shipping Kernel Changes as Patches

mvar writes to point out a report from h-online about the Red Hat kernel source controversy. From the article: "Red Hat has changed the way it ships the source code for the Linux kernel. Previously, it was released as a standard kernel with a collection of patches which could be applied to create the source code of the kernel Red Hat used. Now though, the company ships a tarball of the source code with the patches already applied. This change, noted by Maxillian Attems and LWN.net, appears to be aimed at Oracle, who like others, repackage Red Hat's source as the basis for its Unbreakable Linux. Although targeted at Oracle, the changes will make work harder for distributions such as CentOS."

Comments

Re:I don't see the problem

[hairyfeet]

30% of all webservers? Sheesh, and folks wonder why Linux never gets anywhere. I mean here you have a company that sinks serious money into R&D and improvements to the ENTIRE Linux ecosystem, yet because there are so many Linux users that are "free as in beer!" you'd rather run your network on a hacked copy and risk getting screwed, like when CentOS nearly went tits up, than to actually spend a buck and help pay for your own OSes improvements by supporting the company making those improvements.

I'm sure I'll be modded down for daring to point out this sad little bit of reality, but you want to know why Linux is a blip on the map? Here you go. Companies rightfully see there is no money in Linux because FOSSies will go to great lengths not to pay even when it ultimately hurts themselves. Think RH did this change for fun? Nope, it is because you and so many others are slowly killing the company by refusing to buy the product but you want the fruits of their labor anyway.

Say what you want but THIS, this right here, is why the proprietary model wins out over the FOSS model. It is because companies that make good popular products actually get increased capital they can use to grow and expand, whereas with FOSS three minutes after it comes out someone is copying the code to make a cheap knockoff just to get out of paying. Kinda sad actually.

Re:CentOS

[hairyfeet]

Hi MR AC! How EXACTLY is he trolling? Whether you like it or not R&D costs money and whether you like it or not developers need to get paid and without that R&D and those developers the entire community is in worse shape get the picture?

What nobody here in the FOSS community is willing to accept is the tragedy of the commons works JUST AS WELL in software as it does anywhere else. It is the classic "free rider" problem where too many free riders and the bus line shuts down. According to an earlier poster 30% of webservers are running CentOS. Now just imagine how much farther along RHEL would be if those 30% paid which would give them 30% more for R&D and hiring developers. NOW do you get it?

You want to know why you haven't made serious inroads against Apple and MSFT here you go, it is because by having most of the customers pay they are able to leverage several times more developers and R&D than you can muster. Or are you gonna sit here and argue some guy coding in his basement is equal to several $100k+ developers with years of experience?

If you just want to take without giving that is your business but don't act like RH will magically just make up the money, they won't. Less money means less developers and less R&D and that means less improvements for Linux as a whole. it really isn't rocket science folks.