Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Rock stable distribution with great support & documentation.

Best used as a server.

Red hat cancels your subscription if you share the source code (basically punishing you for doing what are suppose to be able to do with the source code).

see the free software foundation criticism

Generally, we don't agree with what Red Hat is doing. Whether it constitutes a violation of the GPL would require legal analysis and the FSF does not give legal advice. However, as the stewards of the GNU GPL we can speak how it is intended to be applied and Red Hat's approach is certainly contrary to the spirit of the GPL. This is unfortunate, because we would expect such flagship organizations to drive the movement forward.

in practice other RHEL clones found workarounds to build them so this isn't a huge issue but it does make me trust Red Hat less. the reason there was no lawsuit might be just because the clones want to avoid the risks of going to court.

there was also criticism from the software freedom conservancy about this and other business practices.

Software rights activists, including SFC, have spent decades talking to Red Hat and its attorneys about how the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) business model courts disaster and is actively unfriendly to community-oriented Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

There is, however, no doubt that this provision is not in the spirit of the GPL agreements.