One RHEL for multiple systems [LWN.net]

One RHEL for multiple systems

Posted Nov 6, 2003 21:08 UTC (Thu) by skarkkai (subscriber, #4128)
Parent article: Red Hat Linux ends - now what?

My company asked, and was told directly by Red Hat, that when you buy one RHEL license, you're allowed to install it to as many of your computers as you wish. However you will only get support for one installation per license. Therefore, for those users who don't need the official RH support (which I believe is the majority), the price of arbitrary number of RHEL boxes is the same as the price of one.

I do not know if it's permissible to freely distribute the RHEL ISO images (that is, to outside of the company who has bought a license). This, as far as I can tell, depends on if the ISO image contains any non-free software - or can there be other legal factors? Nobody seems to know for certain, but I would love to get a definitive answer to this.

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One RHEL for multiple systems

Posted Nov 12, 2003 11:55 UTC (Wed) by ateras (guest, #10113) [Link]

Interesting. I asked the same thing and got a quite different answer pointing to section 4 of the subscription agreement, which says (in part):

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4. REPORTING AND AUDIT. If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed System, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed System. During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer's facilities and records from time to time in order to verify Customer's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
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It seems that the answer depends on the wording of the question, on who at Red Hat answers the query, or both. ;-)

Some people are taking an alternative approach by taking SRPMs and compiling the system themselves:

http://www2.uibk.ac.at/zid/software/unix/linux/rhel-rebuild.htm

Could someone who already owns a new RH Enterprise Linux 3.0 package give more information whether it contains any software with a proprietary license? If yes, are they essential components to make the system work? Of course, this is a thing which may change in the future.

I am quite sure that at least distribution of the images is not allowed. They probably to include some copyrighted documentation and graphics for which redistribution is prohibited even if the software would all be Free.