Remember what I said about hearsay? Everything in Fedora is FOSS, everything in RHEL is also FOSS (because it’s in CentOS Stream). All the code is released, not behind a “paywall”. All that Red Hat have done is make it more difficult for companies to sell a 1:1 “bug for bug compatible” RHEL clone - those are the “free loaders” being spoken of and who they’re targeting, not the Linux community, it’s people like Oracle (who incidentally are also the ones fanning the flames of this drama).
I’m no fan of Canonical, but even with your description you’re really sensationalising things there as well. The point is by supporting Debian you’re inadvertently supporting Canonical - I don’t think that’s a problem myself but it seems you have double standards.
I would like to quote for you from Gnu.org, Richard Stallman’s organization that invented the idea of free software. Here he explains what that means. I’ll link to the full webpage below.
"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can.** If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.** If this seems surprising to you, please read on.
The word “free” has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of “free software,” we’re talking about freedom, not price. (Think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, study and change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes."
Remember what I said about hearsay? Everything in Fedora is FOSS, everything in RHEL is also FOSS (because it’s in CentOS Stream). All the code is released, not behind a “paywall”. All that Red Hat have done is make it more difficult for companies to sell a 1:1 “bug for bug compatible” RHEL clone - those are the “free loaders” being spoken of and who they’re targeting, not the Linux community, it’s people like Oracle (who incidentally are also the ones fanning the flames of this drama).
I’m no fan of Canonical, but even with your description you’re really sensationalising things there as well. The point is by supporting Debian you’re inadvertently supporting Canonical - I don’t think that’s a problem myself but it seems you have double standards.
I would like to quote for you from Gnu.org, Richard Stallman’s organization that invented the idea of free software. Here he explains what that means. I’ll link to the full webpage below.
"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can.** If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.** If this seems surprising to you, please read on.
The word “free” has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of “free software,” we’re talking about freedom, not price. (Think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, study and change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes."
(Emphasis mine)
Source: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
As you can see, anyone who obtains the code CAN redistribute it unchanged, bug for bug…
I rest my case.
You haven’t even made a case to rest.
Can you read? Read the full article.