Well, that's certainly an unpopular opinion.

I just can't go with you on it =P

RedHat creates a product called RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) that is a paid support product, mostly targeted at businesses (and things like Academia/Laboratories/etc).

At one point, there was a Wholly seperate product, created outside the RedHat umbrella, called CentOS, that quite literally took the sources of RHEL, removed the RHEL branding, and rebuilt it, allowing folks to "mostly" be able to use RHEL, without paying RedHat for a support contract.

In 2014, the CentOS Project/Product was "purchased" by RedHat, and then in 2020, RedHat decided that CentOS would no longer just be a "rebuilt" RHEL, but instead would become the development space for RHEL, called CentOS Stream. This made many people very unhappy, and they decided to start the Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux projects to provide roughly the same product that prior versions of CentOS had provided.

Additionally (I don't actually know exactly when), at some point, Oracle started doing basically the same thing that CentOS had been doing, and rebuilding the RHEL sources, and selling it, as "Oracle Linux"

So net effect of what this means, is that RHEL sources will no longer be publicly available at git.centos.org, and will only be available to RedHat customers (i.e. you must have signed up for an account/license with RedHat for RHEL). This may make things more difficult for Rocky, Alma, and Oracle, to provide the same "Bug for Bug" compatible product to RHEL.

Most of what people are upset about, is because they're willfully misreading the GPL (GNU Public License) which covers an awful lot of the RHEL sources.

The GPL requires that if you distribute software, licensed under the GPL, that you also must provide the folks that you distribute that software to, with the sources you used. It doesn't specify how you have to provide them, you could make them available for download, you could mail folks a DVD with all the sources on it, (honestly, I think you might be able to just print them all out and send them on dead trees, and still be compliant).

What most of the folks are upset about, is there is a clause within the GPL, that says something about providing the sources "without restriction on redistribution" or some such. And they view that RedHat can choose to terminate your license to RHEL, if you redistribute RHEL sources/software as violating the GPL. But the GPL cannot dictate business relationships. Redhat cannot stop one of their customers from distributing sources that they are licensed to have. But they are well within their legal rights to terminate that license, and provide no further access, if you distribute them. (i.e. you have an RHEL license, and version 1.0 of a library is covered under that license, you redistribute that source, and RedHat must allow that, but they're under no obligation to continue that business relationship, and provide you continuing access to version 1.1)

That's a rough rundown on the history. What does this mean for the average linux user? Nothing, really. Unless you happen to use Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, or Oracle Linux. It doesn't affect Debian, or Ubuntu, or openSUSE, or Arch, or anybody else. RedHat will continue to contribute back upstream to projects like the linux kernel, or GNOME, or what have you, they will continue to sponsor and hire developers, they just will no longer be providing free and open access to the RHEL Sources.

It's not a question of legality really, but more one of an ethical nature. It sort of depends on you, as to whether or not you're bothered by RedHat doing this or not.

Negative. If the seat is that untrustworthy, I'll just find a different toilet.

No, nothing RedHat is doing affects Nobara. Nobara is based on Fedora, which is upstream of RedHat. Nothing is changing.

They do. It's called openSUSE Leap

The dsektop environment really doesn't have anything to do with it. That's up to the video drivers and display server, be it X11 or Wayland. I haven't any idea which desktop might offer you the best tools for configuring those things though. Just as a rough guess, I'd guess KDE Plasma, perhaps XFCE?

No, this doesn't affect Fedora in any meaningful way. Fedora is upstream of RHEL.

They aren't. None of this affects their submissions back upstream to things like the Linux kernel, GNOME, Systemd, or any other software they include within RHEL/CentOS Stream

Yes, Printer setup on openSUSE is still a clusterfuck, for reasons. You're best off in openSUSE KDE to just point your webbrowser at http://localhost:631 and log directly into CUPS and setup your printers that way.

If you want all your web video and whatnot to work, you need to install the codecs from Packman, in their entirety, or use a flatpak'd web browser. openSUSE won't ship patent encumbered codecs from the official repositories.

Unless you really know what you're doing, with Leap, or Tumbleweed, stick with the OSS and non-OSS repos provided. They are the ones that have been through the openQA process, and are officially "supported". If you enable a bunch of home: devel: or other repositories, just assume that they're unstable, and use at your own risk. If you're looking at a repository on OBS, and don't see openSUSE_Tumbleweed as one of the build targets, then forcing the install with a Leap or SLE package, may, or may not break things.

Regarding zypper ref and autorefresh, I can't recall exactly, but there is the chance that just running zypper dup and hoping that it refreshes everything on it's own, with non-standard repositories may fail, which can lead to some weird edgecases.

Just in general, you're going to want to run zypper ref && zypper dup (not the other way round) As far as YaST being targetted more at Leap than Tumbleweed, you're exactly right. And there's a reason that we don't ship it with newer flavours of the distribution.

Nobody panic.

https://queer.party/@Lyude/111089178374415532

It's still around. I'm using it right now, in fact. Makes for a pretty damn good phone service as well, in conjunction with JMP

Most projects haven't found any value in maintaining their own flatpak repositories. We considered it at one point for openSUSE Aeon/Kalpa, but decided it's un-necessary duplication of work.

This is nice for Oracle to say. That being said, Oracle are not "The Good Guys™" and never have been. They might be legitimately honest about Oracle Linux and their commitment to being open and free, but they're horrible about so many other things, and always have been.

This pretty much sums up my exact feelings about this whole thing. And saves me from having to write it.

I'd say I'm disappointed, but I'm really not. I knew this was basically how this was going to play out. I've already been called a paid shill, and stupid a handful of times today elsewhere, for not wanting to burn RedHat to the ground for this decision.

People need to get outside and touch some grass.

Well none of that sounds like sketchy behavior on the part of the Management Company.

Not at all.

No, it really doesn't. Anybody is welcome to start their own seperate flatpakrepo. Fedora already does this. Any organization could do the same, if they chose to.

I've been using openSUSE Aeon/Kalpa (Formerly openSUSE microOS Desktop) for close to 2 years now, and I don't see any good reason to return to a traditional distribution.

Mostly because they're uneducated fools, that haven't any actual idea what the hell they're talking about.

Unless you're pulling sources, and building everything yourself, everything you get from most major distributions is "pre-compiled".

People hate anything new, they fear change, and they like drama, that's all it is.

I will never claim they are authentic, or even great, but I will destroy the 2 for a buck tacos.