Patrick Kaell <sparc(a)kayoon.net&gtt> wrote:
Serge Marelli wrote:
Actually... NO!
The GPL states that if you "distribute" the software (in ANY form,
binary or not) then you're obliged to provide _means_ to find the source
code and you're _obliged_ to grant permission to modify and
re-distribute in _any_ form your user wish.
You're not allowed to put ANY limitation to the rights of users!
Maybe you are right. But *who* cares??? Not even the FSF!
That's what I want to check.
We are paying 700 Euro for each server/year at work
for Redhat
Enterprise ES (2.1 & 3) and are still limited to 2 CPUs per server.
Nothing wrong with asking money for the RHN service, or even for free software.
But I have a problem with the limitation on free installation on ANY host.
I don't have any problem with a RHN subscription pricing scheme that depends on
the amount of supported systems, or even on their "size" (number of CPUs,
number
of concurent users, ...) but on the break to GPL licence when they forbid you
from freely install the software on as many computers as you want.
Redhat is fully GPL'ed (inclusive the installer).
This is a valuable information to me.
Universities who used consumer Redhat (7.3, 8, 9) on
Linux clusters for
numerical computations are migrating to other distros, because Redhat
Enterprise is not affordable anymore on midsized clusters (ie 64 node
clusters).
As soon as you consider as unusable an unmaintained system, indeed.
Oracle is only certified for the real Redhat.
Not obvious to see on their web site what distros are officially supported, but
I saw info about SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server), so I could imagine you can
switch to SLES... Maybe same limitations apply to SLES, I don't know yet. I use
(even at customer's side) SuSE Linux Professional, which is allowed to be
copied, installed and distributed freely, and that can be updated without any
restriction from their YOU (YaST On-line Update) servers or replications of it.
Oracle will never help you if you have problems with a
recompiled version of
Redhat Enterprise Linux.
I can indeed imagine.
Redhat made much money and is doing very strongly
since they introduced
their new business model and as far as *I* know, the FSF didn't
complain !
Once again, nothing wrong with this BUT if they impose conditions on the
redistribution and installation of GPL'ed software. Let's see what the FSF
legal
dpt will answer... (sorry about having taken by mistake a private e-mail as
their official answer).
Greetings, Patrick
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