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Red Hat Stops Shipping Kernel Changes as Patches

Posted by Unknown on from the clearly-the-best-solution dept.

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."

2 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Incorrect news is incorrect. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Although targeted at Oracle, the changes will make work harder for distributions such as CentOS."

    That's not what CENTOS says.

    "This description is accurate. However, as pointed out multiple times by now, it does not affect rebuilding of the kernel itself. The CentOS kernel is just a rebuild, so there is no problem there. In the case of the centosplus kernel, because it may add patches, some extra steps might be needed. But again, that is not a major issue."

    https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=29147&start=280

  2. Re:CentOS by Linker3000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have put on my 'not sure if serious' face as I am not sure if you are trolling or just ignorant of the situation, but rather than give my perspective, have a read from an earlier Slashdot thread on the subject titled "Is CentOS hurting Red Hat?":

    http://linux.slashdot.org/story/07/11/04/1331247/Is-CentOS-Hurting-Red-Hat

    ""I'm pretty sure RedHat hate CentOS."

    1. No, we don't. At least, not most of us -- because most of us actually *understand* the business we're in. That's why we're making all this nice money. If we did hate CentOS, we could make it awfully difficult for them in any number of ways -- delaying updates, hiding marks and making them play "where's Waldo" every release, that sort of thing.

    2. The "coy mumbo jumbo" about the upstream vendor has to do with trademark protection, not hate. We don't want "Red Hat" to turn into "Kleenex".

    3. Here's a question: why is there no CentOS equivalent based on SuSE products? Think about it.

    4. A lot of the significant people in the CentOS community are actually important and respected members of the Fedora community as well. That way, Red Hat benefits from the work of the more savvy CentOS users. That's how open source works, you see.
    "

    --
    AT&ROFLMAO