On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, Michael McCarthy wrote:
> Hi Guy,
> I disagree the ethical point is that they are intending to profit
> on the intellectual property/creativity of the developers who have
> contributed to the development of "their" distribution.
> Then limit the distribution of this "recognizable" content.
I am on Guy's side.
As to "profit", I would like to remind you at least some little facts:
1. when RedHat has gone IPO they offered shares to many developers for free.
those who took the offer and sold in time made a reasonable bundle.
2. there are more committed to free software than some other distros:
a. Are there any _official_ SuSE isos ?
AFAIK you can install only trough ftp (right try this over a modem),
and not all packages are available (commercial, etc.)
b. What about Mandrake ?
Do I have to sign for the "club" ?
As far as I know RedHat is the only widespread "commercial" distro for which
the isos are available straight from _their own_ web site (not third party),
_no_ strings attached!
Oh, yes they are bound to release the sources of LGPL/GPL but _not_ required
for isos. And they could have easily add some commercial packages, like SuSE.
3. Somebody ;-) forgot that RedHat itself develops (has contributions) quite a
significant amount of _free_ software. At least AFAIK they have/had big
contributions to Cygnus, Gnome, gcc and the kernel itself just to name few.
The Gnome situation is particularly ironic since they've pushed for it particularly
because at the time KDE was not considered sufficiently free (QT issues). And
now they are considered evil ?!?
The trademark is among the very few things they have and they want to protect
their reputation.
What if I would do some perfectly legitimate things (not illegal or stuff) and
then sign "Michael McCarthy" ? Would _you_ like it ?
Let see: some third party tries to make a (small) buck out of the free isos and
then they complain when they are asked _nicely_ to rename their wares.
So far I just smell the envy. ;-)
Humm....
--
Ryurick M. Hristev mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Computer Systems Manager
University of Canterbury, Physics & Astronomy Dept., New Zealand
