Dear Red Hat: Are you dumb?
Disclaimer:  I&#x27;m a former Red Hatter but my opinion is my own<p>Red Hat, you <i>NEED</i> to fix this.  I get that it sucks to have your business built on selling support, and a couple of companies have popped up selling cheaper support but not taking on the cost of building the thing.  I get that (you think) it&#x27;s going to cause problems for you (it might, I&#x27;m not sure yet).  But you&#x27;re torching an <i>insane</i> amount of good will that was built up over 20 years of good and mostly selfless deeds.  You are making yourselves an enemy and a villain, rather than a friend.  You need to stop the bleeding.<p>I don&#x27;t have any answers, but I have some ideas:<p>1.  Continue to make it so that rebuilders like Alma or Rocky can exist as bug-for-bug by having access to the source, but reach an agreement with them not to offer or sell support.  If those don&#x27;t agree, other projects will emerge who <i>will</i> agree and will take their place.  Don&#x27;t make their lives unnecessarily hard by throwing up roadblocks in their way.  There will probably be popup companies selling third party support for Alma&#x2F;Rocky etc here and there, but I doubt that type of support competition makes a serious dent to enterprise sales.  In fact, I think it helps you by increasing adoption.  A rising tide raises all boats, especially in this field.<p>2.  Figure out a way to let individuals and small developers use real RHEL without having to dick with subscriptions or licensing or activation.  Be liberal with this and <i>make it easy</i>