Recent Features
| |||||||||||||
SCALE: Advocating FOSS at the DoDSCALE: Advocating FOSS at the DoDPosted Mar 20, 2013 4:14 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)In reply to: SCALE: Advocating FOSS at the DoD by njwhite Parent article: SCALE: Advocating FOSS at the DoD
so how does Red Hat get away with distributing GPL patches to support subscribers but prohibit them from re-distributing the broken out patches to others under pain of loosing their paid-for support contract?
(Log in to post comments)
SCALE: Advocating FOSS at the DoD Posted Mar 20, 2013 7:35 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
They simply can't prohibit them from doing that.
Whether or not any "If you do stuff allowed by the GPL, we will stop doing business with you" clause in RedHats' support contract(s) is a restriction on the GPL is another question. No one has sued them yet.
Anyone distributing such patches is fully licensed to do so, however.
Another question is whether RedHats' distribution of collapsed sources (sources with all patches folded in, and very hard to separate back out) is in violation of the GPL, when the GPL clearly says that the sources that must be distributed are that form which is preferred for making modifications, and when RedHat clearly prefer working on the pristine-upstream+patches sources (as with any sane distributor). There's been long discussions on that subject on LWN before - best to read those.
|
|||||||||||||