this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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An exceptionally well explained rant that I find myself in total agreement with.

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[–] lukas@lemmy.haigner.me 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I was mad when I first heard about it, but now? Not so much...

You would be mad as well if a megacorp uses your successful foss to generate revenue cough Oracle Linux cough, floods you with merge requests and issues, expects you to fix them, and don't pay you a dime. Everyone says that this is your fault: You shouldn't have licensed it the way you did. But that doesn't change the fact that you hate everything about your situation. You hate the people who use your work for free, and hate yourself for giving your work away for free.

But this is Red Hat. They asked their legal team how they can get out of this mess. So they found a loophole to close-source RHEL. Now... whether or not RHEL will survive this is a different beast.

Edit: Red Hat also created the following major projects:

  • Wayland
  • PipeWire
  • PulseAudio
  • systemd
  • FreeIPA
  • Keycloak
  • OpenStack
  • NetworkManager
  • Ceph

If that wasn't enough, they're also major contributors of the following projects:

  • Xorg
  • GNOME
  • LibreOffice
  • radeon
  • Linux kernel

If you run any Linux distribution today, chances are you use Red Hat projects. You can also say that anyone who uses the Linux kernel profits off of Red Hat.