First, let me thank you for your rapid, professional and pertinent answer. It
helps all of us to understand more accurately the issue.
license-violation(a)fsf.org wrote:
In general, these sorts of licenses apply only to the
bits which are not
under the GPL. In a typical Red Hat distro, this is mainly the Red Hat
Network client (but please check carefully).
To my understanding, this contract covers all the RedHat product and services.
They seems to mix the two notions. At least, it is not explained what software
exactly is covered by the proposed agreement. For me, product means RedHat Linux
Enterprise (ES, AS or WS) and service means RedHatNetwork, but this is only my
perception of the issue. There is no explanation from their side. When I visit
their web site, I don't see any way to purchase a product without purchasing the
RHN service. And the contract they propose covers both, so I conclude it also
covers the product alone, even if I don't figure out up to now how to have the
product alone...
Red Hat may price support at a per-pc price, and may
generally make
agreements which support this practice. Such agreements may say that
Red Hat won't sell you support for 50 PCs if you in fact have 500 PCs
running RH software.
I fully agree that they have freedom to sell services as well as softwares, even
free softwares, and that they have the freedom to price support on per CPU
basis, as example, and that they have the right to refuse me support for 50 CPUs
if I'm actually running 500 CPUs using the service, but as soon as the only way
to purchase the software is by purchasing the service, and the service bans your
right to install the software on supplementary CPUs (even if not using the
service from those supplementary CPUs), then the conditions of the GPL doesn't
seems met anymore to me... I have strong restrictions on my freedom to use the
software, which is by the way freedom N°0 from the definition of free
software...
"Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to _run_, copy, distribute,
study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds
of freedom, for the users of the software:
* The freedom to _run_ the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
[...]
The freedom to use a program means the freedom for any kind of person or
organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall
job, and without being required to communicate subsequently with the developer
or any other specific entity."
More precisely, in the GPL that covers most of the GNU/Linux system, it is
explicitely told that: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the
recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.". I feel the obligation to
purchase a chargeable service for any supplementary CPU running the software
against this statement.
You still have your full rights under the GPL -- but
Red Hat may simply
choose not to sell you support. This is probably what the RH rep meant
when they said that you "weren't allowed" to copy the software.
They don't say I'm not allowed to copy the software, they explicitely say in
this agreement that in this case I MUST PURCHASE a supplementary subscription to
RHN, and that they even have the right to check once a year in my premises the
amount of RedHat products that are running... They also confirmed me that if I
elected to stop a subscription, I lost the right to run the software... Isn't
there something wrong ?
I think they should correct their wording, saying that any new installed station
SHOULD lead to the purchase of a supplementary subscription, or IS NOT ALLOWED
to be patched nor upgraded by use of the RHN provided services or patches.
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 ?
Thank you for your time.
--
Brent Frère
Private e-mail: Brent(a)BFrere.net
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