Re: [Lilux-info] Re: [gnu.org #213194] RedHat conditions of use - Lilux-info

2 Nov 2004

On Tue, 2004-11-02 at 03:27 -0500, Patrick Kaell via RT wrote:
...
  REPLIES GO TO REQUESTORS BY DEFAULT.

 <URL: http://rt.gnu.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=213194 >

 Brent Frère wrote:

  The RedHat behaviour leads to declarations of
high-tech leaders that says that
 due to the support conditions imposed by "OpenSource" companies such as
RedHat,
 RedHat Linux is actually becoming proprietary software. I was shocked when I
 heard this, and that's why I wished to check the exact licence conditions. I
 slowly begins to conclude that indeed, through its mandatory and very
 restrictive agreement conditions, the RedHat distribution does not meet anymore
 the criterias imposed by the GPL, nor the very basic principles of Free
 Software.

 What are your conclusions about this ?  
 My understanding is that the GPL protects only the source code and not 
 the binaries: 
That's not accurate.  

...
  1. Redhat *must* provide you the source code of their
modified GPL 
 software if you buy their product. 
Yes.

...
  2. You have the freedom to reproduce, modify and use
the source code on 
 as many machines you want. 
Yes, and the binaries.

-- 
-Dave Turner
GPL Compliance Engineer
Support my work: http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=novalis&p=FSF