LWN: Comments on "A look at CentOS"

Timezone

yem — 2005-02-25T03:12:47+00:00

There is at least one - very welcome - difference in the installer: CentOS includes the full set of timezones whereas RHEL3 inexplicably excludes Pacific/* amongst others, requiring a post install config change.

A look at CentOS

leandro — 2005-02-24T15:25:07+00:00

> Red Hat may have been better off leaving the trademark issue alone

Not true. Leave alone trademark issues, and you end up loosing your trademarks.

Linking...

giraffedata — 2005-02-18T20:07:33+00:00

RedHat is clearly concerned about the context of the linking. They do not want you to say that your product is identical to RedHat but without the fees.

Sure, they're concerned, and justifiably so. But the point is that trademark law doesn't give them any right to do anything about it. Trademark law stops me from saying that my product is Red Hat; it doesn't stop me from saying it's equivalent to Red Hat.

Unless the context reaches the level of libel, I can't see any legal way Red Hat can stop someone from referring to its web site. People once thought HTML linking might be a form of copying or encouraging copying, and therefore be controlled by copyright, but courts have said otherwise.

Binary compatibility is great

wcooley — 2005-02-18T07:04:59+00:00

The binary compatibility is great. I've run a number of proprietary applications--Oracle 10g, WebLogic 8.1, Veritas backup clients, etc. which have performed with not difficulties. I package a number of things, which, along with Dag's packages, I use for various consulting projects--some of which are on RHEL3, some on CentOS3. In all, I'm much more able to support RHEL3 due to the existence of CentOS3; I (and many others, like Dag) probably would be unable to actually support RHEL3 were it not for the free clone projects.

There's a problem, though

dberkholz — 2005-02-18T05:57:46+00:00

It's not really about whether it's a waste of time, money or whatever. If Red Hat becomes aware of trademark violations, it _has_ to do something about it or risk losing its trademark altogether.

There's a problem, though

kael — 2005-02-17T18:30:26+00:00

You forgot to mention Red Hat demanding "Red Hat" be removed from meta tags on the Centos site as well.

As a shareholder of Red Hat, I personally feel persuing this line of action against CentOS is a waste of time and money. Red Hat's value add is service and support, CentOS is certainly not offering the same class of offerings. Or so I believe with the very brief mention of commercial CentOS in the article (that would have been worth persuing).

Linking...

jmalcolm — 2005-02-17T18:26:50+00:00

I am hoping that this is just a misunderstanding either by the lawyer or those of us reading his statements out of context.

RedHat is clearly concerned about the context of the linking. They do not want you to say that your product is identical to RedHat but without the fees. I do not think that they are saying that you cannot link to their site for any reason. Many, many sites link to RedHat and this is the first I have heard of such a policy.

Perhaps the reason that CentOS is so happy to comply with RedHat is not only the risk of legal action but also empathy towards the hand that feeds it. Finding a way to allow a community reproduction of RHEL without signifcantly impacting RedHat's bottom line is in the interest of both parties. Without RedHat there is no CentOS.

If RedHat had suddenly become as malicious as some of the net postings imply I very much doubt that SRPMS for RHEL4 would still be available to everyone. I just updated my CentOS 4 system this morning with a slew of new updates and I know that I have RedHat to thank for that as much as the CentOS team.

There's a problem, though

ballombe — 2005-02-17T10:07:05+00:00

I agree with you, especially since they do not mention it in the
trademark guideline. In fact they seems to want to enforce a much
stricter policy than the one advertised, which is a double standard
(because obviously there are lots of instance when they _want_ to be
linked).

I hope RH will not become a lawyer-run corporation.

There's a problem, though

JoeBuck — 2005-02-17T04:59:26+00:00

If this were only a case of Red Hat enforcing its trademarks, I would have no problem with their action at all. However, their lawyer asserted that Red Hat has the right to deny people the right to link to Red Hat's web site, despite several court decisions that say just the opposite. The exact quote from the lawyergram is "Moreover, our client does not allow others to provide links to our client's web site without permission.". That's news to me; my company internal site has many links to Red Hat's sites, and we never asked for or obtained permission.

I wish Red Hat great financial success (so they can continue to pay lots of talented hackers to work on free software), but I can't tolerate people saying that you have to get permission to make a link. Ever. Red Hat should be asked to retract that statement (or blame the overzealous lawyer for going overboard, which may well be what happened).

A look at CentOS

smoogen — 2005-02-17T03:29:34+00:00

I do not understand the last paragraph. First Red Hat has to protect its trademarks.. because in the end.. it is about the only thing they really own. Second, there is an implication that Red Hat doesnt want CentOS to get any attention...

When I worked at Red Hat, we would gladly tell a customer if Red Hat didnt meet their needs where they could get better support or product.. [hmmm that sounds worse than I meant it.] I recommended Slackware and Debian to customers who were really wanting what that product offered that Red Hat didnt. I would recommend CentOS to individuals who are looking for that kind of support and cost level. I would recommend Red Hat to people who want a different kind/level of support.

A look at CentOS

jmalcolm — 2005-02-17T01:47:26+00:00

The current tradmark debacle is what attracted my attention to CentOS. Since I switched from Slack all those years ago I have been pretty much in the RedHat camp. Not every machine justifies the RHEL investment though and I was tiring of the Fedora upgrade treadmill. I am very happy to have an alternative that feels like a member of the family.

I installed CentOS on an old IBM server and it seems excellent. It seems to be a truly faithful reproduction of RHEL. It even comes with all the RHEL bias. Fedora Core can handle other file systems as root but CentOS requires Ext3 it seems. I do not know about RHEL4 but CentOS 4.0beta includes apt-get which is excellent.

To me this illustrates the power of open source. It is simply amazing that a community can be built around the RHEL technology for a niche left unserved by RedHat's commercial activities. It is great to see products built with the best ideas from each effort.

I want to thank RedHat for making CentOS possible through their committment to Open Source and to the CentOS team for a great product. I hope that we can all continue to work together to our common benefit.

(Apologies to any PNALVs that take offense to the RHEL references)