On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 23:54, Christofer C. Bell wrote: > > > > That would be easier to understand if you'd explain how it > > is different for Red Hat to redistribute the underlying > > packages which they didn't write than it is for someone > > else to redistribute them again in something that approximates > > the same bundled group. > > Sure, Les. Red Hat is devoting effort to distribution creation and > maintenance, and developing the glue software that holds all that > together (the installer, the system configuration tools, "Red > Hat-isms" in the boot process like /etc/sysconfig, SELinux > integration, etc). CentOS isn't doing any of that work. They claim it is non-trivial to make a freely redistributable version from the RH srpms. If you asked over on their mail list they'd probably give you an estimate of the time it really takes. They also add options not supported by RHEL4, like putting firewire, reiserfs, and xfs support back in. They aren't just copying existing binaries, but others can copy what they have done. > Red Hat takes raw upstream software and turns it into a distribution. > I think that's great and there are obviously a number of other people > doing the same thing (Debian, SuSE, et al). CentOS is doing any of > that work. How would anyone be better off if they re-invented yet another way of building a distribution? > CentOS is taking a distribution created via someone else's hard work > and rebranding it as their own. And in turn, openfiler and SMEserver continue on to produce even more distributions. That's the way open source is supposed to work. > They're essentially relying on Red > Hat Software, Inc., for all their distribution and release > engineering. I don't care for that. > At anyrate, Les, I appreciate your (and other's) desire to understand > my position, however irrational it may sound to you. It would be rational if Red Hat had not chosen to work with open source to begin with, but the point of being open is that others can continue to modify it even in ways that you might not have chosen yourself. With the GPL in particular it is a obligation to permit others to do that if you do it yourself. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
