Advanced Server free?

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 13:38 6/10/2004, Eric Wood wrote:
>To continue with that though, that (to me) would "imply" that possession of
>RH's code would mean WBEL *shouldn't* be redistributing what it has - even
>if RH is offering up SRPMs to the world.  Because, WBEL and it's downloader
>aren't RH customers and don't have the pure RHEL binaries.

They are not in violation of the GPL since they have been freely given 
source code. The source code is not encumbered by the support contract, and 
they are not in violation of RH's trademarks since they carefully follow 
RH's instructions on removing trademarked items from the distribution. So 
WBEL is OK since they take source which was freely given, then build 
binaries from that, and redistribute binaries to whomever they please. To 
be compliant with the GPL, WBEL must also make source available to whomever 
it supplies binaries.

>Yeah, I know WBEL <> RHEL but the symantics are confusing.  That's why I
>frequently hear the "you'll be out of compliance" rather than a more strong
>statement - "illegal".  I still think this refers mainly to support and
>binary format of updates.

It is! Red Hat is trying to leave people an open door to continue using 
their products for free if they are willing to spend time and effort on it, 
which WBEL is. Red Hat is furthermore trying to sell support and updates by 
subscription, which is what the contract is all about. Clearly RH also 
hopes that some people will choose to pay them instead of using a free 
"clone" simply to support their efforts. Let's hope they succeed in a big way!

Cheers,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com