Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

Posted Nov 4, 2004 4:46 UTC (Thu) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624)
Parent article: Enterprise Linux: is it broken?

> The per-CPU nature of RHEL subscriptions irks some people in the
> community. The restriction applies to support, however.

I'm not sure if that's completely correct, it also includes a license
for the Redhat trademarked logos and *I believe* (though it is very hard
to verify this) that this is per node, and if you install it on more than
the number of systems you have purchased for then you are breaking the
trademark license and can be sued.

However, Redhat do say that you are completely free to alter the SRPMS to
replace the trademarked logos and build RPMS from those, and then you are
free of these restrictions.

Hence how the NPACI Rocks cluster distribution is able to continue by
rebadging everything (as does White Box Linux I believe).

> If you just want the security updates, just get them directly from Red
> Hat's advisories and install them yourself.

Again I believe you have to be careful if the update contains trademarked
content.

> Red Hat has imposed no restrictions on the software which are
> inconsistent with its licensing; it is hard to see who is harmed
> by its activities.

The software continues to be free, and you are able to rebuild the RPMS as
long as you strip the trademarked logos, and even RMS doesn't seem to have
a problem with this.

Redhat have done a lot for the free software community, including having
purchased software and open sourcing it (viz GFS, and hopefully soon with
Netscapes LDAP server), and to do this sort of thing they need to make
money.

The main issue I've seen is with clusters, where paying per node per year
can really kill your budget.

It's really interesting to see that the next Ubuntu release will include
Kickstart support.. ;-)

NB: I reserve the right to be wrong on some or all of the above.
Corrections welcome!

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