Rocky Linux is a distribution whose objective is to create a free compilation of RHEL that can take the place of the classic CentOS
Shortly after Red Hat's announcement of restrict access to rhel code and the initial applications by Alma Linux and Rocky Linux. The latter has released more information about the upcoming changes to be made within the development process of the distribution.
With this, the project Rocky Linux, has made it known that he will not abandon his goal of continuing to offer a Linux distribution compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and will continue to do so by taking advantage of loopholes in the RHEL license to offer users a free alternative.
Regarding this action by Rocky Linux, it is mentioned that plan to use the Red Hat Developer Subscription program, which gives individual developers free access to RHEL for personal use, and the Red Hat Universal Base Image service (UBI), which provides RHEL-based container images at no charge.
In a blog post titled "Keeping Open Source Open," the Rocky Linux Project, for its part, outlines two different ways to obtain RHEL source code without violating Red Hat's license agreements.
Since the inception of Project Rocky, we have prioritized repeatability, transparency in decision-making, and ensuring that no vendor or company can take the project hostage. When we started, we discussed our model and our mission, and decided not to divide the Enterprise Linux community.
Rather, in the spirit of open source principles and standards, we have created something compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). By adhering to this approach, we maintain a single standard for Enterprise Linux and align with the original goals of CentOS.
However, Red Hat recently expressed its opinion that it "finds no value in a rebuild of RHEL." While we believe this view is narrow-minded, Red Hat has taken a strong stance and has limited access to RHEL sources only for its paying customers. These sources consist primarily of packages from upstream open source projects not owned by Red Hat.
Previously, we got the Rocky Linux source code exclusively from the CentOS Git repository, as they recommended. However, this repository no longer hosts all versions for RHEL. So now we need to collect the source code from various sources including CentOS Stream and RHEL SRPM.
Regarding the process to obtain the RHEL sources, it is mentioned that Rocky Linux plans to combine the sources and create a distribution that is identical to RHEL without infringing Red Hat copyrights. As already mentioned one option is to use the UBI container images which are based on RHEL and are available from various online sources (including Docker Hub). By using the UBI image, it is possible to easily obtain Red Hat fonts reliably and without problems. The method has been validated using Open Container Initiative (OCI) containers and works exactly as expected.
Another method that is being leveraged is pay-as-you-go public cloud instances. Thus, anyone can create RHEL images in the cloud and thus obtain the source code of all the packages.
"It's the easiest way for us to scale, because we can do it all through CI pipelines, spinning images in the cloud to get the sources via DNF, and automatically publishing them to our Git repositories," says the Rocky Linux team.
These methods are made possible by the power of the GPL., since no one can prevent the redistribution of software under the GPL. To reiterate, both methods make it possible to obtain RHEL and SRPM binaries legitimately without compromising commitment to free software or accepting rights-infringing TOS or EULA limitations.
According to Rocky Linux legal counsel, it is possible to get the sources of all received binaries, which allows Rocky Linux to continue moving forward according to the initial intentions.
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