What price do you want?

[Xose Vazquez Perez]

Buck wrote:

> The real dilemma is that the provider, whether Red Hat or another Linux
> operation, needs to make a profit or they will go away (I assume).

Yes, they don't be the charity sisters.

> Linux was created with the idea of offering an operating system at NO
> COST required, an open license to allow a user to have and use as many

not true, then false. LiNUX was created because Linus T. wanted a
OS for his very very new  i386 system. DOS based OS were shit, and he wanted some
more professional. But SCO UNIX, now it's funny ;-), cost toooooo much.
Then he only got one possibility. To write his OS.

> copies as desired without violating the copyright and to be freely
> distributed.  I believe his goal is to have offered a product available
> that anyone with a computer can afford.

He wanted to do a better MINIX, with a free/open license but the Linux
license was not decided until 0.12 or thus. Thanks to Ari Lemmke, Linus
got GPL.

> What bothers me is that the GNU license on the product says that If I
> have the product and wish to distribute it, I can - without recourse!
> But Red Hat now requires the buyers of their product to sign a contract
> that takes that very purpose out of the license.  If I were to work for
> a company that has that product, that contract would prevent me from
> getting a copy to learn from or from installing it on another computer
> for a backup at the office without paying for it again. 
> 
> If Red Hat's contract is deemed legal, then they have just effectively
> found a way around the GNU license.  Now they can take what is required
> to be public by license and taken it for themselves and restricted the
> distribution.

Do you remember Cygnus ? It's same business model.
Are you saying that M.Tiemann, D.Henkel and J.Gilmore were breaking GPL ? X-)

not to know how to read is not supported ;-)

http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/rhas-isos
http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

-- 
Smoking Crack Often