> -----Original Message----- > done. > > Red Hat has made, and is continuing to made, an important and expensive > contribution to the community. Although you may legally continue to > distribute your own copies of the AS SRPMs, if everyone does it, > eventually Red Hat will be forced to discontinue the product. If it > doesn't make money and has no prospect to make money, don't expect any > legitimate business to continue to do it. Red Hat expects to be able to > pay their staff, and rightfully so. > > .../Ed >
There is no argument that RedHat are in this for money. Personally, I find nothing wrong with that. Furthermore, I am sure that IT organizations, and re-distributors will be glad to pay for the services provided by RedHat. However, the issue at hand is the license agreement. Reading the quotes sent by Dmitry Melekhov [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > The term "Installed Servers" means the number of servers on which > Customer installs Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. The initial number of > Installed Servers is the number of copies of Advanced Server that > Customer purchases </quote> > <quote> > 4. REPORTING AND AUDIT. If Customer wishes to increase the number of > Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional > Services for each additional Installed Server. During the term of this > Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to > Red Hat the right to audit Customer's facilities and records from time > to time in order to verify Customer's compliance with the terms and > conditions of this Agreement. Any such audit shall only take place > during Customer's normal business hours and upon no less than ten (10) > days prior written notice from Red Hat. Red Hat shall conduct no more > than one such audit in any twelve-month period except for the express > purpose of assuring compliance by Customer where non-compliance has been > established in a prior audit. Red Hat shall give Customer written notice > of any non-compliance, and Customer shall have fifteen (15) days from > the date of such notice in which to make payment to Red Hat for any > additional Installed Servers, such payments to be determined by the > number of additional Installed Servers multiplied by the applicable > annual fee for Service per server. If Customer is found to have > underreported the number of Installed Server by more than five percent > (5%), Customer shall, in addition to the annual fee for Service per > Installed Server, pay a penalty equal to twenty percent (20%) of the > underreported fees. > </quote> I find them nulled and voided by the GPL as quoted by Samuel Flory [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] **4.* You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance. *6.* Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License. To sum it all up - RedHat have a product - providing distribution media and support. Some people will be glad the product exist and will purchase it. I think it is a GOOD product, which will help Linux catch up in the IT world. However, they should not try to intimidate users from re-using the product, in source or binary format, while at the same time they abide to the GPL themselves. BTW, I talked directly with a SuSE distributor regarding their SLES product, same concept as AS, and he confirmed my ideas. You pay for the services, you are allowed to do with the software whatever you want. Dan -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
