Gregory's ServerThis is what IBM demands from open-source developers. Meanwhile, they cried about the RHEL source code and called those distro users freeloaders or parasites. Anyway, FLOSS devs don’t own anyone anything. If you need support, pay for the contract. The sad thing is IBM/RHEL said they need to pay for their devs, and when you take it free, it is hard to maintain enterprise distro, but when it comes to other FLOSS devs/projects, they don't think the same logic applies. LOL https://twitter.com/maximilianhils/status/1680193548212228097
 51 comments
@EdCates yes. The initial request seems like management sat on his back while he was typing this email. It was not his intention as a dev but as a dev paid by IBM. Either way, it doesn't look good on IBM's part. That is what I think. @Linux_Is_Best @nixCraft or even better, try a Unix compatible distribution. I mean, one that doesn't use redhat's systemd  @nixCraft this is the second time in about a month I’ve seen a big company nonsensically call a single dev’s request to pay them or fuck off a “thinly veiled extortion attempt”; the first was Reddit and Apollo’s dev also, I didn’t expect to see an example of a red hat employee being toxic and demanding free labor so soon after my last post talking about this, but I’ll take it as a sign it’s getting worse @funnelfiasco @nixCraft oh sorry, what I referred to as red hat is in fact ibm/redhat. redhat is not a company to itself but rather another proprietary component of the ibm ecosystem  @funnelfiasco they do not. I’d love to find other who originated the email. @zzt @nixCraft @jerry @funnelfiasco @zzt @nixCraft By the way ... the developer in question @max is active here in the Fediverse! :ablobcool: @jerry @funnelfiasco @zzt @nixCraft @max This dude even host his own (#ActivityPup compliant) @gotosocial server 😳 @ASP @jerry @funnelfiasco @zzt @nixCraft @gotosocial Let me tell you, @gotosocial is pretty fantastic! :) @funnelfiasco @zzt @nixCraft we have contracts with IBM for various dev/BA work, they ALL talk like this. Output is everything for them so they dgaf about any of the soft skills, stakeholder engagement, being nice to people. They just want you to Do The Thing @zzt @nixCraft @alextually @funnelfiasco ahh the old “he who has the gold is a fucking asshole” rule  @nixCraft @nixCraft if I ask IBM a Blade server (did they do them anymore?) and they ask me to pay, is that a thinly velated extortion? @nixCraft also the code is MIT licensed, so IBM could had done the work by itself and even didn't have to share the source again @lcruggeri @nixCraft If you're a huge corp and you go to IBM and say "our customer base is growing too fast for us to handle, when are you going to give us new servers for free", then you're an asshole. Doubly so if at the same time you're also locking up other people's FOSS code under the guise of ensuring you get paid fairly for your work.  "If you expect me to treat this like a job, I expect you to pay me like it's a job." "This is EXTORTION!" 🤔 @nixCraft the sad thing is how moronic corporate management thinking is. Here's a no brainer opportunity for IBM to offer their client a paid contract to fix the issue, and sub contract the floss dev to deliver it. Everybody wins. But of course, that would take >0 effort. There's no vision in any of these industry people anymore. @nixCraft although, of course what is likely happening is IBM has a multi bazillion dollar software contract that's really a branded stack of MIT licensed libraries, while anybody with enough experience to build it internally has been made redundant, leaving a room full of client relationship managers to deliver in zero time.  @nixCraft This story has nothing to do with RHEL. The IBM dev apologised for his behaviour. But I guess the clickbait urge wins again? ;)  @jwildeboer @nixCraft What do you mean, nothing to do with RHEL? Isn't Red Hat an IBM brand? @jwildeboer @nixCraft confusing ownership is not unexpected from people who think that RHEL is a company (or anyhow else an actor). @jwildeboer @nixCraft I'm sad that the newly fashionable Red Hat hatred has completely obscured the actually interesting and important issue: this "customers are prohibited from using software with known high/critical vulnerabilities" bit (by no means specific to IBM, I've heard it in other contexts). Sounds like weaponizing CVEs, potentially against any open source.  @jwildeboer This is not a refutation. What you’re doing here is a pretty novel approach to your stated job though. Good luck with that, or something. @donaldball So far you only did rhetoric games and offered no argument to counter my point that this story is not related to Red Hat or RHEL. So I wish you a nice Sunday and I will step out to enjoy summer life in Munich :)  @nixCraft if ibm leadership thinks paying people to do work is a form of extortion it's probably time for new leadership lmao  @nixCraft I would just point them to the software license that says "This software is provided free as-is" and if they don't like it "free as-is" then they can pay to make it as they want it, including security patches for finance & banking institutions. @nixCraft The phrase “thinly veiled extortion attempt” is peak irony coming from either RedHat or IBM. @nixCraft Ubuntu is great if you need it to be free. Also the pricing of their support contracts is much more reasonable :)
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It is good that the original commenter has now issued an apology to this FLOSS dev.