This was an incredible read; thanks for sharing! After I got over the gut punch, I'm finding it really difficult to be upset with RHEL. What are the essential things I want RHEL to do? I want them to provide their source code to their customers. They're still doing that. I want them to contribute code upstream and to related projects. They're still doing that. I want them to continue to advocate for software freedom. They're still doing that. I get that the FLOSS community can be....shall we say recalcitrant?....when it comes to ecosystemic changes. And I know a lot of us view this as a Bad Move (tm). But I just can't muster up the anger. And I continue to appreciate all the positives RHEL and IBM have brought historically and continue to bring to the FLOSS community. Every change is a loss, and every loss has to be mourned, but I just can't be angry about it.

Full of 'excuses', don't want to repeat, you can google many articles about gpl violation (or not). My opinion is this is bad. Your based on thousand other people's free/open source work, and added your work, if you want to limit/restrict public access, then don't use gpl based linux, go back to your AIX. ( This restriction is violation GPL, I know lawyer with huge money can argue anything, so again imo)

I read the entirety of that and while I agree on many points, I find other points reductive and simplistic takes on what is actually a complicated root issue - capitalism and it driving of centralisation, profiteering and, of course, enshittification (which people have become more aware of in recent years and which is an ongoing and worsening issue just by itself).

Very well written article, very much worth a read.