> My understanding is that Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be thought of as Fedora + stability + patches, and that the patches themselves should be released downstream as part of the GPL.
> What's now changed is that these patches are either (a) not distributed as required by the GPL, or (b) the patches are distributed, but in a way that is intentionally less useful, e.g. by having to get them via the Red Hat portal.
My understanding is a bit different:
Red Hat submits patches upstream and also back-ports those patches into existing RHEL releases that have long-term support.
The upstream patches are still as open as ever, nothing has changed.
The back-ports into existing RHEL releases are what Red Hat is trying to make harder for people to consume outside of a Red Hat subscription (the free developer subscription and the paid support contracts).
I'm not making a judgement either way in this comment, just trying to help clarify my understanding.
> What's now changed is that these patches are either (a) not distributed as required by the GPL, or (b) the patches are distributed, but in a way that is intentionally less useful, e.g. by having to get them via the Red Hat portal.
My understanding is a bit different:
Red Hat submits patches upstream and also back-ports those patches into existing RHEL releases that have long-term support.
The upstream patches are still as open as ever, nothing has changed.
The back-ports into existing RHEL releases are what Red Hat is trying to make harder for people to consume outside of a Red Hat subscription (the free developer subscription and the paid support contracts).
I'm not making a judgement either way in this comment, just trying to help clarify my understanding.