Conversion to Linux

[Jeffrey Watts]

I appreciate your position, but you have to realize that if you're using
CentOS, you're not using it for the GPLed parts.  You're using it because
Red Hat built and regression tested an extremely stable distribution.
You're using it because Red Hat spent the time and money to make third party
apps like Oracle run well on it.  You're using it because they took the time
to integrate things like SELinux.

If making a stable enterprise OS were trivial, there wouldn't be a CentOS
project - folks would just use something else.  Every person that uses
CentOS because it's "cheaper" are taking dollars away from Red Hat.  Like or
dislike them, they are probably the single largest contributers of code to
the Linux community (though I believe IBM is a close second now).  The
dollars that folks spend to buy RHEL fund the Linux community directly.

Sure, it's legal to re-apportion GPLed code, and Red Hat certainly doesn't
stop the CentOS folks from taking their work.  But it's uncool.  Free
Software is not about free beer.  If folks want an enterprise quality
distribution they ought to support the company that worked hard to provide
it.  If you want to use RHEL and don't want to pay for it, I would recommend
that you use Fedora.

As I said before, this is my opinion.  One can certainly do what they want,
as it's certainly legal.  But I for one believe in investing in the Linux
community with my wallet.

Jeffrey.

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 9:36 PM, Monty J. Harder <mjharder at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> That is simply untrue.  CentOS is every bit as moral as Red Hat itself, and
> everyone else who abides by the spirit (as well as the letter) of the GPL.
> The people who use GPL code but don't play fair are the immoral ones.  We
> all draw that line in slightly different places (see "Tivoization") but
> CentOS is on the "fair" side, at least from where I sit.
>
> Red Hat gets to use the work of everyone who contributes code under the GPL
> or a compatible license, and it's perfectly moral for them to do that,
> because those contributors have agreed that it's OK with them.  That makes
> it every bit as moral for CentOS to use the code too.
>
> What would be IMmoral would be for CentOS to use RH logos, or to represent
> in some way that RH will support CentOS users, or is responsible for any
> changes that CentOS may introduce once they have the sources.  They don't do
> that.  They make it clear that they are recompiling the source that Red Hat
> releases under the GPL.  They even avoid using the words "Red Hat" except
> where it would be legally forbidden without Red Hat's express permission
> (see http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
>
> Red Hat's business model is fundamentally the same as Novell or
> Canonical's:  They sell support.  The difference is that Red Hat only
> distributes the RH-branded product to its support customers, while Canonical
> has promised us that they'll never split the code base over support
> licensing.  One reason: making a pay-only version could make many of us
> suspect that it's wandered over into that questionable-morality area.  The
> very existence of clones like CentOS proves that Red Hat is abiding by their
> moral and legal commitments to the countless coders whose work they use,
> proving that RH is a good community member.  That gives them geek cred to go
> along with the PHBs feeling all warm-n-fuzzy about doing business with The
> Name In Linux.
>
> Red Hat gains something else of value from the cloners' existence:  There
> is now a far larger base of machines running binaries compiled from the same
> sources that RH uses, so if a CentOS user finds a bug, and reports it to the
> CentOS folks, they can confirm that the bug does in fact exist, write it up
> and get information to upstream, which would include RH.  RH isn't having to
> do any work to support these machines but gets these gamma testers to help
> them find bugs.
>
> And, of course, some CentOS users will decide they want support, and buy
> Red Hat.  In that respect, CentOS can be a powerful marketing tool for RH;
> it allows a prospective customer to build a server, install CentOS and the
> apps they want to run on it, and do a shakedown cruise.  Once that looks
> good, they may choose to install branded and supported RHEL, and sleep well
> knowing that someone has their back.
>
>
>


-- 

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
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