[robespierre]

Despite all the legal bickering, the GPL isn't really that complicated. If you want to use GNU software for your own purposes, and you make changes to that software, that's fine. But if you make changes to that software and offer those changes as a commercial product, you are required to make the changes (source code) available freely to the public. Also, you (as a modifier of GPL code) are free to charge what ever amount you wish for physical media, which back in the day would have been tape. From what little I know about the FSF (I really don't pay any attention to it), they have a legal team that's ready to pounce on any organization that violates the GPL, whether willingly or by mistake.

The Software Conservancy is exactly that "legal team", and johhnym posted a link from them outlining the issues. There is no requirement in the GPL (version 2 or 3) that requires source code to be available to the public. Only the party to which the compiled code is conveyed has the right to receive the source code (and there is a 3 year sunset period). This is section 6 of the GPL3. Additionally, what Red Hat does is to punish you for exercising that right by terminating your support contracts. And they are under no obligation to sell RHEL to someone who they know will base a community distribution on it.

The existence of RHEL as a highly funded, multinational corporation made to profit from open source is a sign that some of the fundamental ideas behind copyleft are flawed.

EDIT: Now I admit that's a dichotomy that's always plagued the GPL; if its source code is freely available (and this would be prior to the availability that there is now via the Internet), then you (they, the FSF) get to charge the big chashola to anyone who wants a tape of the software? Presumably, if you showed up at the FSF office with your own blank rail of tape and asked them to copy the GNU software to it, that would be without charge? I have no idea...

There were companies producing CDROMs of "freeware" (including MIT, BSD, and GPL licensed source code) to make it available to those without fast internet connections. One of the oldest was called "Prime Time Freeware" which cost $50 and included a book of printed READMEs and a CDROM set.