https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/jun/23/rhel-gpl-analysis/
IBM's Red Hat definitely deserves credit for so carefully constructing their business model such that it has spent most of the last two decades in murky territory of “probably not violating the GPL”.
We fear that be it through incompetence or malice, many RHEL salespeople and business development professionals may regularly violate GPL and no one knows about it. That said, the business model as described by IBM's Red Hat may well comply with the GPL — it's just so murky that any tweak to the model in any direction seems to definitely violate, in our experience.
Furthermore, Red Hat exploits the classic “caveat emptor” approach — popular in many a shady business deal throughout history. While, technically speaking, a careful reader of the GPL and the RHEL agreements understands the bargain they're making, we suspect most small businesses just don't have the FOSS licensing acumen and knowledge to truly understand that deal.
Due to this ongoing bad behavior by IBM's Red Hat, the situation has become increasingly complex and difficult to face. No third party can effectively monitor RHEL compliance with the GPL agreements, since customers live in fear of losing their much-needed service contracts. Red Hat's legal department has systematically refused SFC's requests in recent years to set up some form of monitoring by SFC. (For example, we asked to review the training materials and documents that RHEL salespeople are given to convince customers to buy RHEL, and Red Hat has not been willing to share these materials with us.) Nevertheless, since SFC serves as the global watchdog for GPL compliance, we welcome reports of RHEL-related violations.
IBM's Red Hat definitely deserves credit for so carefully constructing their business model such that it has spent most of the last two decades in murky territory of “probably not violating the GPL”.
We fear that be it through incompetence or malice, many RHEL salespeople and business development professionals may regularly violate GPL and no one knows about it. That said, the business model as described by IBM's Red Hat may well comply with the GPL — it's just so murky that any tweak to the model in any direction seems to definitely violate, in our experience.
Furthermore, Red Hat exploits the classic “caveat emptor” approach — popular in many a shady business deal throughout history. While, technically speaking, a careful reader of the GPL and the RHEL agreements understands the bargain they're making, we suspect most small businesses just don't have the FOSS licensing acumen and knowledge to truly understand that deal.
Due to this ongoing bad behavior by IBM's Red Hat, the situation has become increasingly complex and difficult to face. No third party can effectively monitor RHEL compliance with the GPL agreements, since customers live in fear of losing their much-needed service contracts. Red Hat's legal department has systematically refused SFC's requests in recent years to set up some form of monitoring by SFC. (For example, we asked to review the training materials and documents that RHEL salespeople are given to convince customers to buy RHEL, and Red Hat has not been willing to share these materials with us.) Nevertheless, since SFC serves as the global watchdog for GPL compliance, we welcome reports of RHEL-related violations.
