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.
I guess Craig picked up on something I missed here. I thought
you knew about this, and so sorta took it for granted. This is
part of what I had in mind when I said "If someone offers
me something without expectation of recompense, and I take
it without giving any recompense, then I don't think I've
done anything reprehensible."
You'd have to ask Red Hat what their motives are for providing
source in that manner, but I woulnd't be surprised if part
of the reason is that people who get used to using CentOS
and other respins like Scientific Linux at home will then
recommend using the *supported* RHEL version at work.
Sorta like manufacturers of integrated circuits supplying
onesy-twosey amounts of chips free of charge to experimenters,
hoping that the experience will carry over to companies
oredering 1000s of parts.
Otherwise, they'd simply put a key into the package of RHEL,
which would be needed to navigate to the website for
download of source. But even then, anyone who had purchased
a copy of REHL and downloaded the source would be free
per the GPL and LGPL to respin from what he downloaded.
He'd just have to buy a new copy each time there was
a new release.
ISTM that RH has simply decided that the "hobby" market
Linux is not one they wish to pursue any more, so they
simply pulled out completely, and transformed the
"hobby" interest into FC, which is beneficial to them
without requiring formal support.
Mike
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