RHEL without License?

[Ian Waring]

> I'm not sure if this question has been brought up
> before or not. I was asked by someone if they can
> continue running RHEL after their yearly subscription
> has expired. They don't want to pay and don't mind
> living without the security updates and access to RHN.
> Is this legal or not? Please provide links from Red
> Hat documentation if possible to support your
> position. Thanks for your time.

I'm the Red Hat Business Manager at one of Red Hat's UK distributors - and 
the guidance we always give is "carry on". Matthew Szulik said as much in 
one of his interviews earlier this year. In the final analysis, you pay for 
the update service and any telephone support. If you don't need either, the 
software is unemcumbered. That's one of the beauties of Linux - compliance 
is typically far down the list of admin tasks for any end user company.

The only warnings that run contrary to this are Red Hat Desktop evaluation 
kits - mainly on some of the contents of the "extras" CD - which are subject 
to individual terms from folks like Adobe, Real Networks, Citrix and alike. 
Even in those cases, it's largely down to whether they'll chose to change 
their own terms and conditions in the future. The current terms appear to 
work the way the rest of the Red Hat distribution does.

Ian W.

-- 
Ian Waring - Simplicity Sells!
ian.waring at gmail.com