Comments | nugget: Letter to FSF on Red Hat GPL compliance:

nugget

Letter to FSF on Red Hat GPL compliance:

Jun 11, 2003 15:51

(Followup: the total of my correspondence with the FSF can be seen
here. The FSF continually demonstrates that they aren't even familiar with the Red Hat EULA, and finally RMS gives me a brushoff because he lacks the energy to read the license.
Today I sent a letter to the FSF asking for their opinion on an apparant discrepancy I've noticed in the ( Read more... )

Comments 34

think before you write anonymous June 12 2003, 05:30:31 UTC

from slashdot today:

Red Hat License Challenged

Posted by michael on Thursday June 12, @08:20AM

from the challenge-is-good dept.
An anonymous reader writes: "David McNett has noticed an apparent discrepancy between the Red Hat Linux EULA and the GPL. He has written an open letter to the FSF asking for their opinion on the matter. Does Red Hat have the right to "audit your facilities and records" to ensure compliance with their license?" McNett misreads the Red Hat documents. Their contract is for the various services, not the software, and for the services they are entitled to demand whatever concessions they think the market will bear.

Re: think before you write anonymous June 12 2003, 08:42:38 UTC

they license support, not the software (the GPL software ( ... )

Re: think before you write anonymous June 12 2003, 16:52:51 UTC

The binary ISO's from what I recall have binary images that are not covered under a redistributable arrangement, so in order to redistribute them Redhat AS CD's, you would have to remove the Images and replace them with something else.

Re: think before you write anonymous June 12 2003, 19:52:27 UTC

>so how can they audit "support"?

The support and services are per machine.

>supposedly one would violate their EULA if he installs the software on >1 server and then asks RH for support for all these servers.
>but how can RH prove someone has done that?

If unregistered/unsupported machines use Red Hat Network, they can tell. Tech support personnel can also often easily tell if someone calls with very certain issues and call back with other seemingly unrelatable issues, or hardware that is obviously not the same as the entitled machines. But, it's hard in either case to prove.

>they come to your server room and then what?

Probably just cancel all support and network entitlements.

Thread 5

section 6 of the GPL anonymous June 12 2003, 05:32:30 UTC

Doesn't that allow one to legally copy GPL'd software in both source and binary forms? How can redhat say its distribution is GPL'd then demand you pay for each copy? Redhat was a favorite on clusters up until these recent changes. I can assure you people worldwide are now re-considering whether using RedHat is appropriate for clustering based on these "new rules" they have put forth.

Two separate issues anonymous June 12 2003, 05:44:07 UTC

The GPL covers the software; you are free to copy the GPL software within the confines of the licence. The EULA covers the services provided with the software; it states that if you take up RH's support on any server, you must have it on all servers. If you don't subscribe to Red Hat's support services, you are only bound by the GPL.

In other words, the two licences do not conflict; one says that if you want support for one server, RH insist you buy support for all your RH servers. The other says that you can copy the software without warranty.

Re: Two separate issues nugget June 12 2003, 09:25:45 UTC

While such an interpretation would make sense, it is in fact not at all what the documents actually say. The EULA forbids you from installing the software on a machine without purchasing a service agreement. The EULA attempts to cover installations of the software, not just installations for which the customer has purchased a service agreement for. The customer is not given the option of not subscribing to Red Hat's support services.

/. and nugget anonymous June 12 2003, 05:48:18 UTC

Heh, regarding the first post, that sounds like something Slashdot would do. Post a story saying "Oh, somebody's challenging Red Hat's license claims but they're wrong so we'll post a story on it anyway."

The only thing that makes this funny is that it's Nugget.

Make a new distribution a change the name anonymous June 12 2003, 06:04:56 UTC

What I will do is to create a new installation media without the redhat-artwork removed and install my new distribution. When RedHat comes to do the accounting, I will tell them that i have 1 RH AS and X MyLinux Super Server (or whathever you want)