On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 15:10 -0600, Mike McCarty wrote: > 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. > ---- first a factual error...what you are buying from Red Hat is an entitlement...not software. Therefore, if you have an available entitlement, you can use any version of RHEL you choose. If you buy an entitlement for ES/i386, then you can use RHEL 3 ES/i386, RHEL 4 ES/i386 or when released RHEL 5 ES/i386 - the version of RHEL is not material to the entitlement so you wouldn't have to buy anything any time a new release was issued. You are not buying software at all...you are buying an entitlement, which is an SLA (service level agreement) for a machine hardware type. second, officially, Red Hat has stated that their only concern is that their trademarks are not infringed and thus all of their artwork and textual trademarks embedded within the 're-spin' are removed. I think it can reasonably be inferred that they see both the plus's and the minus's of the 're-spins' and have decided that the plus's far outweigh the minus's. Now if CentOS (or someone else doing a 're-spin') starts offering SLA's, I think you can anticipate some serious reservations will come from Red Hat. Craig
