Oracle takes on the red hat in the Linux code fight

Steven Von-Nichols via ZDNet wrote: I’ve been waiting for Oracle to throw its hat into the ring for the Linux source-code fight for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I knew it was only a matter of time. On July 10th, Oracle’s Edward Screven Chief Corporate Architect and Head of Oracle Linux Development Wim Kokerts said: “IBM’s actions are not in your favor. By killing CentOS As an alternative to RHEL and attacking Almalinux and Rocky Linux, IBM is eliminating one way for your customers to save money and get the big wallet for you.

In fact, Oracle now presents itself as a champion of open source Linux: “Oracle has always made the Oracle Linux binaries and source freely available to all. We have no subscription agreements that interfere with subscriber rights to redistribute Oracle Linux. If you use those subscription services to use GPLv2 rights, IBM’s subscription Registration Agreements Are In Violation Starting June 21, IBM will no longer publicly release the RHEL source code — in short, The gloves are off, and the fight is on.. But this is the latest step in a fight that has been older than many of you. […]

Mike McGrath, Red Hat’s vice president of core platforms, explained why Red Hat doesn’t release the RHEL code but only the CentOS stream code because “thousands of [Red Hat] People spend time writing code to enable new features, fixing bugs, integrating different packages, and supporting that work for a long time… We have to pay the people to do that workThis sentiment is certainly true. But I feel like Oracle is taking the worst possible spin, with Screven and Coekaerts commenting: “IBM doesn’t want to release the RHEL source code publicly because it has to pay the engineers? Red Hat as a successful independent open source company before IBM acquired Red Hat for $34 billion in 2019.” It seems strange if RHEL chose to release the source publicly and pay the engineers for several years.

So what does Oracle do now? For starters, Oracle Linux continues to be compatible with RHEL through RHEL 9.2. After that release — and without access to the published RHEL source code — there are no guarantees. But as Skreven and Coekaerts point out, “If an incompatibility affects a customer or an ISV, Oracle will work to fix the problem.” Regarding Oracle’s Linux code: “Oracle is committed to the freedom of Linux. Oracle makes the following promise: As long as Oracle distributes Linux, Oracle will make the binaries and source code for that distribution publicly and freely available. In addition, Oracle welcomes downstream distributions. All types, community and commercial.” Organization We are happy to work with resellers to simplify the process, collaborate on Oracle Linux content, and ensure Oracle software products are certified in your distribution.