[Fwd: Fedora Foundation]

[Jay Turner]

On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 15:14 -0400, Chasecreek Systemhouse wrote:
> On 4/6/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> > Not necessarily all the best of breed components but what fits into RHEL
> > product space. RHEL is open source too. So its Free in that aspect
> 
> RHEL is not open source in that I can download and use it without
> paying a support fee for it.  Piggy-back support clauses are standard
> with regard to "the software is free however you may only use it so
> long as your support contract is paid up."  Not a bad thing; even
> RedHat has to feed itself (in a corporate sort of way.)
> 
> That is where open source product lines differ: commercially
> "available" open source and "truly" open source.
> 
> If I am mistaken, regarding either above, please enlighten me.

A little confusion here.  RHEL is indeed open source and you can indeed
download and use it in any way you would wish for free and without
signing a support contract.  The hitch is that you'll need to download
the source packages and recompile the distro.  With respect to the SLA,
it actually reads that if you have one licensed RHEL installation then
all of your RHEL installations need to be licensed.  This is really the
only way for Red Hat to prevent someone from paying for support on a
single system then deploying tens/hundreds/thousands and using the
single support entitlement to receive support for the whole bunch.

- jkt

-- 
--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
Jay Turner, QE Manager           jkt at redhat.com               Red Hat, Inc.

          If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z,
     X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. - Albert Einstein
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