ALERT Buh-bye CentOS.

[piaftnt]

In reading this thread it sounds like some think that the RHEL sources are not available. When in fact they are available it just takes a few steps to download them. The following was posted to the centos-devel mailing list on 15 Dec 2020 by Johnny Hughes:
"Not sure what the question is .. but:

All packages, except the kernel because of secureboot, are built
directly from git.centos.org from the c8s branch.

For example .. (just picking a build at random):

thermald-2.4.1-2.el8 | Build Info | Mbox

koji.mbox.centos.org

If you look at the Source Line .. you will see:

hhttps://git.centos.org/rpms/thermald#14acf460654c5788d9c7792f36fed45c7e00a387

That is the exact source used to build this package set

If you want to create the SRPM .. you would:
=======
git clone https://git.centos.org/rpms/thermald

cd thermald

git checkout 14acf460654c5788d9c7792f36fed45c7e00a387

into_srpm.sh

=======

You will then have the SRPM in the SRPMs dir of your git repo .. it will
also be exploded and ready for you to use in SPECS and SOURCES to make
changes.

If you do not have the git tools downloaded .. where into_srpm.sh comes
from, you can get it from here:

git clone https://git.centos.org/centos-git-common

So, to clarify, we build Centos Linux 8 and CentOS Stream directly from
git.centos.org and you can look at the build and get the exact git commit
id that was used on the build."

Johnny has said many times this is populated by Red Hat and is what is used by Centos and other rebuild projects that wish to consume RHEL sources. IIRC they moved things there when RHEL/Centos 7 was released. This is not new.

Maybe I am missing something but if the sources were not available, how would things like Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, etc. be able to exist?

Regards,

Tom

 

[jerrm]

So, to clarify, we build Centos Linux 8 and CentOS Stream directly from git.centos.org

The issue is not about CentOS, but about RHEL.

There were discussions about this in the Rocky forums. Last I saw they were going to pull directly from RH, because there are no tags (at least at the time of discussion) in the c8s git to flag "this is the RHEL 8.3 version" of _whatever_, and presumably there will no longer be updates to the c8 git. Things may have changed though, there were RH guys in the discussion assuring they did not intend prevent Rocky, Alma, etc.

 

[KNERD]

Maybe I am missing something but if the sources were not available, how would things like Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, etc. be able to exist?

Yes, you are missing the fact CentOS 8 will be End fo Life come December 2021, eight years ahead of the original time set. Then once CentOS 7 reaches EOL in 2024, there will be no more downstream releases of RHEL. Instead, all downstream will come from Fedora then CentOS Stream. Neither which are stable releases. I think this will put Red Hat in violation of various Open Source licenses.

 

[jerrm]

I think this will put Red Hat in violation of various Open Source licenses.

Where do you see a violation?

The GPL generally does not say you have to give source to whoever wants it.

I don't see any black and white violation of the GPL licenses. They only have to provide source to folks they distribute the software to. Source is available via the same channels as the binaries. Their customers can then do whatever they want with it (disregarding potential EULA/TOS issues).

That doesn't mean there won't be some areas of potential dispute and grumbling.

The patchwork of other licenses is another issue, but the GPL is usually the most restrictive regarding the availability of source.

 

[KNERD]

Here is a whole slew of cour cases which state otherwise.

Open source license litigation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jerrm]

Here is a whole slew of cour cases

And none of them are on point to this discussion. If I missed something post the reference.

 

[KNERD]

And none of them are on point to this discussion. If I missed something post the reference.

I guess you did not bother reading anything on there...

lawsuit against Monsoon Multimedia, Inc. alleging that Monsoon had violated the GPL by including BusyBox code in some of their products without releasing the source code.

 

[jerrm]

I guess you did not bother reading anything on there...

I guess you did not bother reading anything about that case?

Not even close to being on point. Even if it was relevant, as a settlement there is no precedent.

RH source IS available. The only question would be if the method of access is compliant.

 

[KNERD]

I guess you did not bother reading anything about that case?

Not even close to being on point. Even if it was relevant, as a settlement there is no precedent.

RH source IS available. The only question would be if the method of access is compliant.

As for now it is available via CentOS, but those are getting closed down. Then Red Hat source will ONLY available if you pay a subscription.

 

[jerrm]

Then Red Hat source will ONLY available if you pay a subscription.

Again with "pay."

ANY subscription will do. Dev (free), Trial (free), etc.

Assuming source access behind the same login credentials as the binaries is ultimately deemed OK(by my IANAL reading it seems to be). The biggest issue I see would be having the source available for expired subscriptions. I have no clue how they handle that.

Seems the easiest way for them to manage would be to keep source available on the subscription expiration date accessible under the expired credentials for an additional three years(GPL is a little vague on that timeframe). Relatively easy to implement, and would almost certainly occur before getting anywhere near a courtroom.

 

[piaftnt]

As for now it is available via CentOS, but those are getting closed down. Then Red Hat source will ONLY available if you pay a subscription.

Where is that written? Link??

Just because Centos Linux as we know it is getting EOL earlier than any of us would like does not mean RH will no longer provide the source for RHEL. Last time I checked Centos Linux != RHEL. In fact everything I have read on the Centos and Centos-devel says just the opposite. The source will continue to be released on git.centos.org. I will be the first to admit that things can change but history says the above is not correct.

As someone else said, there is no requirement to provide source to non-RH customers. However, Red Hat has always provided the source for all of their open source software since the original Halloween release. At this point in time there is no indication that will change. The thing that is changing is that Red Hat will no longer fund any RHEL rebuild project. If they were to pull the publicly available sources, that would effectively kill all of the RHEL rebuild projects.

Regards,

Tom

 

[jerrm]

Last time I checked Centos Linux != RHEL.

Exactly.

The source will continue to be released on git.centos.org.

That part remains unclear to me, but I don't think it's particularly relevant.

The work flow has changed from Fedora->RHEL->CentOS to Fedora->CentOS->RHEL. The issue then becomes will RH continue to post final release versions to the CentOS8 git mirror, or add a release tag in the CentOS8 Stream repo.

At one point both Alma and Rocky had decided to take sources directly from RH instead of CentOS because of the uncertainty, but that may have changed already.

 

[piaftnt]

Exactly.



That part remains unclear to me, but I don't think it's particularly relevant.

The work flow has changed from Fedora->RHEL->CentOS to Fedora->CentOS->RHEL. The issue then becomes will RH continue to post final release versions to the CentOS8 git mirror, or add a release tag in the CentOS8 Stream repo.

At one point both Alma and Rocky had decided to take sources directly from RH instead of CentOS because of the uncertainty, but that may have changed already.

To be clear, I have not followed either Alma or Rocky mailing lists. The information I have is mostly from the Most of the information is from the Centos-devel list. Several people with @redhat.com and @centos.org email addresses have said that sources will continue to be published via git.centos.org going forward. In my mind, that is the important part of this discussion. I know there has been a bunch of discussion about git tags but I do not remember the details.

As long as RH continues to release the sources in some consumable form, I suspect that Alma, Rocky or whoever will figure out how to use them.

Regards,

Tom

 

[jerrm]

have said that sources will continue to be published via git.centos.org going forward.

Yeah, that's been pretty clear. the question seems to be will you be able to easily tie a specific git commit back to a specific RHEL release version. Rocky/Alma/etc are all promising bug for bug compatibility. Time will tell, but we may not really know until this time next year.

The CentOS mirror is a community nicety, but not all that relevant to GPL compliance.

 

[kenn10]

 

[hawk#1]

In an effort to improve install and download performance and reliability, we are introducing a new download site with an experimental Debian installer for Incredible PBX 2021. With the exception of WebMin, NeoRouter, and some Debian repo modules, all remaining components now are hosted on this new platform. You can try it out here:

cd /root
wget http://downloads.incrediblepbx.net/IncrediblePBX2021-D.sh
chmod +x IncrediblePBX2021-D.sh
./IncrediblePBX2021-D.sh

New downloads.incrediblepbx.net server performance:

Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by Nitel (Dallas, TX) [3.78 km]: 2.699 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 1378.54 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed................................................................................................
Upload: 765.20 Mbit/s

I just wanted to mention that this fast download above also appears to have broke the ability to use your Gmail to relay email. If you try to run the gmail setup script, it will not complete the script. If you scroll up and look at the script as it was running you will find that some file(s) were not installed, not configuring sendmail support and the script never completes.

 

[wardmundy]

I just ran it two days ago without a problem. Maybe just a hiccup.