Interesting post. He seems to be channeling Bill Gates a bit.
The fact that they prevent their customers from sharing the code through restrictive subscription terms and lawsuit threats does seem problematic regarding the GPL, or at least the intent of the GPL. IMO the real money was never supposed to be in the software itself, it was in the support and access to developers that a company like Red Hat could provide.
His point about the free developer account was interesting:
“This can be used by individuals for their own work and by RHEL customers for the work of their employees.”
When I was looking into this recently, the FAQ makes it pretty clear, multiple times, that it is intended for individuals and not entities (even if they aren’t enforcing it):
“The no-cost self-supported Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals is designed for individuals and personal accounts–only one no-cost subscription may be added to a user/Red Hat account. This subscription is ideal for an individual developer who wants to develop on Red Hat Enterprise Linux using their personal system (even if owned by their employer).”
“You may individually use the no-cost Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals on corporate-owned devices. However, you should check to make sure that doing so doesn’t violate your organization’s IT policies (e.g., shadow IT). The no-cost Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals is assigned to the individual that creates the account. The account used to obtain the no-cost subscription will be completely separate from any existing corporate accounts.”
“Organizations with multiple developers may reach out to their Red Hat sales associate to learn more about the Red Hat Developer Subscription for Teams”
Interesting post. He seems to be channeling Bill Gates a bit.
The fact that they prevent their customers from sharing the code through restrictive subscription terms and lawsuit threats does seem problematic regarding the GPL, or at least the intent of the GPL. IMO the real money was never supposed to be in the software itself, it was in the support and access to developers that a company like Red Hat could provide.
His point about the free developer account was interesting: “This can be used by individuals for their own work and by RHEL customers for the work of their employees.”
When I was looking into this recently, the FAQ makes it pretty clear, multiple times, that it is intended for individuals and not entities (even if they aren’t enforcing it): “The no-cost self-supported Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals is designed for individuals and personal accounts–only one no-cost subscription may be added to a user/Red Hat account. This subscription is ideal for an individual developer who wants to develop on Red Hat Enterprise Linux using their personal system (even if owned by their employer).”
“You may individually use the no-cost Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals on corporate-owned devices. However, you should check to make sure that doing so doesn’t violate your organization’s IT policies (e.g., shadow IT). The no-cost Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals is assigned to the individual that creates the account. The account used to obtain the no-cost subscription will be completely separate from any existing corporate accounts.”
“Organizations with multiple developers may reach out to their Red Hat sales associate to learn more about the Red Hat Developer Subscription for Teams”