You have the right to do whatever you want with the software. You don't have the right to force someone else continue to work for you and provide you with updates.
I don’t understand why this isn’t blindingly obvious. A copyright holder releasing their software under an open license is a huge privilege given to their customer. It doesn’t matter what reading they are doing it - marketing, hoping for external contribution, goodwill, etc. - it is their right to choose a license. It is also their right to change their license at any time.
While I’ve not chosen RedHat for my own projects, I used it for nearly two decades at companies where it was already in place. Some of those had support contracts, others didn’t. Based on my experience, RedHat is one of the main reasons Windows didn’t completely take over backend systems. They offered a cohesive, supported server OS that could be run for less than the cost of Windows or Unix servers on nearly any hardware. I could enumerate the things I don’t like about RedHat Linux, but in an enterprise setting, the volumes of documentation, mature and complete set of repositories, and huge community essentially negate my own preferences.
Their new licensing may make them irrelevant going forward, but I’m thankful for all they’ve done overall… except for systemd, burn it with fire! ;-)
It’s not about forcing, it’s about someone threatening you with an unfavorable outcome if you exercise your rights. That is (as I said repeatedly) not against the letter of the GPL (IMO). But it’s a chilling effect on exercising your rights.
