Oracle Linux is the only recommended Linux distribution for Oracle applications.
Late last month We share here on the blog the news about Red Hat's decision de restrict access to rhel code, since the code will no longer be published in the public CentOS git and since this change the only public source for RHEL packages is the CentOS Stream repository, so Red Hat customers and partners will still be able to download the code of the packages corresponding to the RHEL versions through the company's customer portal, access to which requires an account.
This news divided the community, since it caused a lot of controversy and revived the topic about the acquisition of Red Hat by IBM and that this will not be good for the distribution or for the community.
And it is that with Red Hat's decision to restrict access to the RHEL code, it happens to affect in an "indirect" way those distributions that are based on RHEL, such as AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux, which They have already ruled on the case. and they have made known the changes they will make in their development sheet.
Now Another of the distributions that was affected is that of Oracle and which has announced its willingness to continue to maintain compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux in its Oracle Linux distribution, despite Red Hat's restriction of public access to the source code of RHEL packages.
Losing access to reference source packages increases the likelihood of compatibility issues, but Oracle is prepared to address these issues if they affect customers.. Oracle also welcomes the creation of derivative distributions, both public and commercial, and is willing to work with other distribution vendors to facilitate collaboration on Oracle Linux and certify Oracle products for other distributions.
Interesting. IBM doesn't want to keep releasing RHEL source code publicly because they have to pay their engineers? That seems strange, given that Red Hat, as a successful independent open source company, chose to publicly release RHEL source code and pay its engineers for many years before Red Hat was acquired by IBM in 2019 for $34 billion.
The blog goes on to mention CentOS. Not surprisingly, CentOS was top of mind for the author trying to justify retaining the RHEL source. CentOS had been a very popular free RHEL compatible distribution. In December 2020, IBM effectively removed it as a free alternative to RHEL. Two new alternatives to RHEL have emerged instead of CentOS: AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. Now, by withholding the RHEL source code, IBM has attacked them directly.
It is observed that Oracle is trying to help create the best server operating system linux-based, distributed without restrictions, freely available to all and that allows you to obtain economic and high-quality technical support.
Oracle participates in the community and makes significant contributions to the development of the Linux kernel, file systems, and tools, which not only benefits its customers, but all Linux users.
About Orcale's decision to continue with compatibility with Oracle Linux on RHEL, it is mentioned that this it was primarily based on a desire to avoid unnecessary fragmentation in the Linux community. The achieved compatibility level allows Oracle software to be certified for RHEL, even if it is built and tested only on Oracle Linux.
Unlike Red Hat, Oracle has always provided free access to source builds and packages, and is committed to doing so in the future without requiring additional agreements that Oracle believes violate users' rights under the GPLv2.
Finally, if you are interested in being able to know more about it, you can consult the details in the following link
