this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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They were bought by IBM a few years back, but even aside from that they’re a corporation and they care about making money above all else.

It looks like Red Hat is doing its damnedest to consolidate as much power for themselves within the Linux ecosystem.

I don’t think the incessant Fedora shilling is unrelated.

It seems like there isn’t much criticism of the company or their tactics, and I’m curious if any of you think that should change.

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[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 18 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

IBM sucks. They have bought up a bunch of small data centers and made them worse.

I'm still pissed about CentOS as well. Long live Rocky.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 18 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Alma is actually a real community distro. They deserve so much more support than Rocky does.

[–] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

TIL; though I moved my servers to Debian ... having the ability to sanely upgrade without a reinstall is a major plus.

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 10 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck Rocky. They are a leech on open source. They break user agreements to get at Red Hat source and don't contribute upstream. Use Alma, they actually work with the community and contribute upstream.

[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Ok, but why is there even an agreement required to access to source to something, uh, open source?

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Because CIQ, the company that bankrolls Rocky, was poaching Red Hat customers. They were hiring Red Hat sales people, then using their contacts to swoop in and drastically undercut Red Hat because they don't do any engineering. It is an effort to stop leeches like CIQ/Rocky.

[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I don't see the problem with that. Red Hat is bankrolled by IBM. I don't have any qualms about them facing competition, even underhanded competition which I don't think this is. Contributing to open source doesn't and shouldn't guarantee financial compensation, customers, whatever.

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

So, you're okay with one company taking another company's work, contributing nothing to it themselves, then hiring company A's employees, and finally taking company A's customers? Not even Oracle was slimy enough to do that.

IBM does not back roll Red Hat. Red Hat acts and reports independently of IBM.

[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I guess you consider the parts of open source that are contributed to be owned by the contributors? I don't think that's how open source works nor how it should work.

IBM doesn't bankroll Red Hat? Buddy, IBM owns Red Hat https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/ibm-closes-landmark-acquisition-red-hat-34-billion-defines-open-hybrid-cloud-future

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Buddy, I know IBM owns them. I also know that Red Hat is basically the only thing making IBM money. Look at the financials a little more closely.

I guess you consider the parts of open source that are contributed to be owned by the contributors?

What would that have to do with anything? That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm against companies that take an open source project to profit off of it without making any contributions to the community. CIQ and Canonical to a lesser extent. I have no issues with people like Red Hat, SUSE, Alma, etc...

I'm against

I'm not. I don't think we're going to change each other's mind, so have a good one.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I wish Almalinux/Rocky would be recognized by Fedora.

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

What does that even mean? Alma already contributes and is down stream of CentOS Stream. Rocky doesn't contribute and steals Red Hat source.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 0 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Rock Linux isn't "stealing" anything. They make a exact RHEL clone for those who want absolute RHEL clone. Almalinux on the other hand is just trying to be comparable with RHEL software and tools. It is very similar to RHEL but they do things like fix issues faster. Some people are weary of Almalinux because it is tied to cloudlinux.

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

No, it is "stealing." Even worse is that they don't contribute back to the community. They're breaking the terms and agreement in order to get the source. Alma is based on CentOS Stream and is ABI compatible with RHEL.

[–] gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.world 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Dude you're fighting a very uphill battle trying to make us feel bad for an IBM subsidiary.

[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Red Hat is more than just an IBM subsidiary. They're a major contributor to open source.

I agree, but they've also made deliberate moves to muddy the waters of open source and push the limits of what is acceptable under GPL, and I'm not going to shed any tears over their loss of potential corporate profit.