[woodruffw]

I don't think the author is expecting charitable behavior: it's more that Red Hat was deriving extraordinary amounts of value from his work, and was (partially) compensating for that by making his (and others') support for RHEL easier by providing them will access to RHEL.

In other words: Red Hat's behavior here is almost certainly going to make end-level support for their OS worse, not better, all for a tiny slice of their non-paying install base.

[LaSombra]

Red Hat offers free subscriptions to developers. How doesn't it help in this case?

[CaliforniaKarl]

The sign-up path isn’t clear: When I signed up, it took a day for all the parts of Red Hat’s infrastructure to become aware of me. That delay wasn’t made clear at the time.

It expires every 12 months, and you have to take action to renew it, again with a not-very-clear path. It’s not possible to renew early (at least, I didn’t see how).

It adds extra friction: You don’t get a custom ISO or the like. Instead, you have to register your system during installation. It’s an extra step you don’t have to take.

There’s a subscriber agreement you must agree to, which not everyone wants to do.

[_ea1k]

It is worth adding that they can also take this way or reduce it at any time.

It isn't trustworthy in the same way that the downstream rebuilds were.

[burnished]

Because its a pain in the ass and going along with it is essentially signing yourself up for the next time they want to try squeezing for money.