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Preparing to move from Ubuntu to Fedora
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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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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Misinformation my ass
Read. Then read again. Then read again until you get it.
From gnu.org "What is free software?"
“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.
You may have paid money to get copies of a free program, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.
As you can see Free Software (and the GPL) says that the end user has the right to FREELY USE AND REDISTRIBUTE the software, AS IS.
In other words, I could get a copy of RHEL and without making a single change, could redistribute it or even sell it.
Yet Red Hat calls this "freeloading". Yet that is PRECISELY what Free Software is about!
Rocky Linux, Alma Linux etc were well within their rights to rebrand and redistribute RHEL bug for bug to others. Red Hat had no right to shut them out. Yes they could have made them a customer and charged them for it, but they didn't do that. And if I'm not mistaken they made the binaries available, not the source code. Meaning that Rocky and Alma would need to spend weeks compiling the code before they could even make it ready for distribution.
Now, someone could become a client of Red Hat, get the code and then host it on a server for anyone to download. But I have a feeling Red Hat would drop them as soon as they found out.
Basically RH now have a closed source mentality.
As for Fedora, stop being so naive. Were you born yesterday? I'm an IT Pro and I can tell your if my company set up a working group full of full time employees to work on a "community" distro which then gets directly absorbed into it company and used in our enterprise products, that working group is to all intents and purposes a part of my company since I'm freaking paying their salaries, and they are working on my freaking product!