On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 14:54 -0600, Christofer C. Bell wrote: > On 2/22/06, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 13:18, Christofer C. Bell wrote: > > > > > That is *not* the spirit of Free software. That *not* > > > "the whole idea." > > > > The whole idea of the GPL is that if you receive something you > > must be allowed to redistribute it without any additional > > restrictions and any modifications must also be covered by > > the GPL. And if you do redistribute you must make the source > > available. > > That's right, and the underlying justification, the reason, is "being > a good neighbor." I don't think taking Red Hat's work, stripping it > of trademarks, and then sending it back out the door (regardless of > how *legal* it is) is morally justifiable. It's not "being a good > neighbor." > I do not agree: the idea is that doftware is free. Anybody is free to use the software and build a business model on it. The business model for free software is to make money on it by selling something YOU SUPPORT. Support here is a lot more than packaging the software: it is about having somebody you can call in case of problems. The packaging makes that support both easier and useful. RH does make money on selling support contracts on freely available software. Their value is in the consultancy, not the software. What Centos does is making the same software available to others but is does not, and can not offer the same value to a company using it. they need somebody they can call and tell them to fix a problem. I really miss this support/consultancy aspect in your approach. If you take your approach one step further, you have to conclude that what RH does is not good neighbourship either: they do only repackage the stuff but do not pay the authors either. GPL allows them to do so intentionally. They sell support and that is what they make a living on -- Louis Lagendijk <louis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
