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
