Red Hat Continues Damage Control Clarifies Term Freeloader

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Red Hat Continues Damage Control, Clarifies Term ‘Freeloader’

Red Hat continues its efforts to put out the dumpster fire it started when it restricted access to RHEL source code, this time by clarifying its use of the term “freeloader.”

In a LinkedIn response to developer and open source advocate Jeff Geerling, Red Hat VP Mike McGrath responded to criticism of the company’s use of “freeloaders,” and who it applies to:

Finally, I wanted to say something about the term “freeloaders” I’ve seen many use it. This is a mostly internal term we have at Red Hat, it looks like at some point it slipped out in the public. So what does it mean? A freeloader is when a large enterprise business has 20 RHEL licenses, 150,000 community rebuild systems, and sometimes hundreds of user accounts and hundreds of kbase searches per month. It’s not the enthusiasts, it’s not the hackers and coders, it’s not the academics, and it’s not the people that use rebuilders because they can’t afford it. We really try not to use the term, but when we do, it’s about the large companies that can afford to pay but don’t.

Interestingly, McGrath does not respond to Geerling’s other questions, most importantly this one:

I am still waiting for Red Hat to address the core of the problem—the repeated breaking of community promises (first CentOS 8 being killed mid-cycle, then RHEL git sources being killed mid-9 cycle), and the ‘clever’ EULA workaround that they are using that counters the spirit of the open source license they are bound by (after all, they are, to a degree, “freeloaders” of the Linux kernel!).

Red Hat has developed a well-earned reputation of not living up to its promises within the open source community. While the company is now trying to say its actions are only aimed at these “large companies that can afford to pay but don’t,” and not at “people that use rebuilders because they can’t afford it,” the company has burned through so much goodwill within the open source community that it’s doubtful many will believe such assurances.

Red Hat Continues Damage Control, Clarifies Term ‘Freeloader’
Matt Milano

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