On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 14:14, Gabriel & Emily wrote: > > My point was that to be ethical, only paid subscribers should be > > downloading the isos period, from whatever source. Anyway. > > I flat-out disagree. Subscribers get access to RedHat's network and > support. The world gets access to the code! What's next - not sharing your > CD with you buds at the UUG until they show up at Comp U.S.A?
If you use SuSE or OpenBSD, then yes, you cannot share the CDs you have purchased. The ISO itself (in these cases) is copyright. Redistributing the ISOs is a violation of copyright. The RPMS or the binaries or the packages or whatever can be freely distributed. Also SuSE has lots of proprietary stuff in the installer and utilities that RedHat will never have. Now this doesn't necessarily apply to RedHat. However, I agree with the following slashdot comments: "Re:How about some ethics ? (Score:5, Insightful) by alaric187 (633477) Alter Relationship on Monday March 31, @02:54PM (#5632718) No, you've got the facts right. It's just that most people here want free as in beer and not free as in speech. I swear if Microsoft was free most of the people here would be switching to it right now. This open source thing is just a red herring for "I want free stuff because I deserve it." Thanks in advance to mods for extra tasty troll points. Also, notice I said most not all, I know there are lots of people that believe in open source." and "Re:How about some ethics ? (Score:2, Insightful) by stratjakt (596332) Alter Relationship on Monday March 31, @03:14PM (#5632898) (Last Journal: Sunday September 29, @01:10PM) GPL only means they have to make the source accessible, it doesnt mean they have to give away the iso with all the binaries prebuilt and all the scripts and whatnot that make it an easy-for-joe-dips*** package. Don't want to wait a week for all that convenience? Download all their GPL'd source and build it yourself. OR let's just rename it the GGGPL (gimme gimme gimme public liscense)" That said, I support the GPL and people can indeed to what they want with the software, but there is a difference between being allowed to do something and being ethical about it. > > RedHat has a problem; It went into business selling a product that is open > source and free. They didn't write 1/100th of the code that they are > distributing. Whatever types of fees they want to charge their customers, > is their business. True. But see the previous comment. > > I think it's great they make a distribution of the various packages (it > happens to be my favorite distro - for now), but it doesn't concern me if > someone downloads software with an open license from a source other than the > distributor. It's that ability to do so that has made so many of the open > source projects as great as they are. Without the freedom to do this RedHat > wouldn't have the great apps to put together for the great distro that > RedHat is. > > Now, before some of you get exercised about "supporting the companies" and > so on.. I do believe in supporting them - all of them. I would be much > more likely to send some money or submit a patch to fix a bug to the folks > that maintain the code for PostgreSQL (or OO.org, GIMP, GNOME .... than the > company that the rolls it into the RPMs; that would be support. > > Thanks for letting me rant. > > Gabe > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list -- Michael L Torrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
