Christofer C. Bell wrote:
I really really nate "me too" posts, but this is something I very strongly agree with. My sense of ethics prevents me from using or recommending any rip-off of RHEL.
in that case, why aren't you using Windows? I don't know to what extent RH actively welcomes the cloning projects, but I do know the Ubuntyu projects do. There was a recent case where screenshots of a Ubuntu derivitive that looked a lot like Ubuntu, and the Ubuntu reaction was "We fouled up. We really should make it easier to rebrand."
There's little moral difference between using Fedora, which takes upstream source without paying for it, adds value in packaging and (limited) support and passes it on, and using one of the RHEL clones where the project takes upstream source without paying for it (in this case RH SRPMs), adds value in packaging and (limited) support and passes it on.
The process is the same in both cases, and in both cases the upstream suppliers give the source away for free.
Note that a lot of RHEL is covered by licences that do _not_ require the release of source: Red Hat gives everyone the source to it all.
Note that RH does not have to give everyone the source to anything, the GPL only requires the source where binaries are supplied, and RH would fully meet its obligation by shipping media (CD or DVD) containing both and by shipping online source updates only to those with a current RHEL licence.
RH protects its product by use of trademarks: I cannot build from source and claim _my_ product is RHEL. Read RH's trademark guidelines for more detail and more accuracy.
-- Cheers John -- spambait 1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Z1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Tourist pics http://portgeographe.environmentaldisasters.cds.merseine.nu/ do not reply off-list
