Craig White wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 14:41 -0600, Christofer C. Bell wrote:
On 2/23/06, Craig White <craigwhite@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
there are some things that you aren't considering...
1 - Red Hat isn't required to put all their SRPM's on the net - free for
download, they only need to provide the SRPM's to purchasers and that
could be via other methods...it's simply the method that they are
choosing.
Thanks, Craig, for your insight. This here is something I'll have to
give some thought to, and could very well change my opinion. In
essence, by doing this, Red Hat Software is saying, "here's our source
code. If you want to rebuild RHEL, knock yourselves out." This is
the only counterpoint I've seen posted here that I feel has some
weight worth considering.
----
Now stacking on this thought - Red Hat actually does derive benefits
from putting the source code out and people 're-packaging' or
're-spinning'...
- more users, identify, report and sometimes offer bug fixes
- more users who are hell bent on using 'Free as in beer' Linux
distributions that become familiar with the 'Red Hat' way as opposed to
other distribution.
- larger user base of overall packaging methodology motivates
'proprietary' software vendors to develop packaging for RHEL packaging.
Craig
Which brings me to one more question that no one has asked:
Is Red Hat even interested in anyone "defending" its "intellectual
property" as some here have chosen to do?
Don't any of Red Hat's "defenders" think they ought to check with Red
Hat first?
Temlakos
