It's not so simple [LWN.net]

It's not so simple

Posted Feb 28, 2011 23:16 UTC (Mon) by pzb (guest, #656)
In reply to: It's not so simple by jonabbey
Parent article: Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source

No, the nasty bit is:

Any unauthorized use of the Subscription Services is a material breach of the Agreement, such as (a) only purchasing or renewing Subscription Services based on some, but not all, of the total number of Units of Red Hat Software or other Red Hat Product that you deploy, install, use or execute [...] For the purposes of this paragraph (for example, in calculating the total number of Units of Software), Software would include versions or copies that have the Red Hat trademark(s) and/or logo file(s) removed.

This would suggest that RHEL customers have to pay Red Hat for a subscription for each of their CentOS, Scientific Linux, etc systems in addition to their RHEL systems.

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 0:40 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (2 responses)

That would be the wrong interpretation. I believe paragraph is meant to address customers who purchase a subscription for a RHEL product, let that subscription expire and keep the system running RHEL and then start a second subscription to start up a second RHEL product instance. On and on such that they have many RHEL instances in service but are only paying subscriptions on a few of them. Even versions that have been manually manipulated to hide the fact that it was a RHEL product installation. You can easily replace small portions of the system software on a running RHEL system such that no trace of the Red Hat protected marks are present on the system and still be using nearly entirely the executable code as built and certified by Red Hat.

Basically the idea is.. if you are going to install RHEL then the deal is you will be paying subscriptions for all the RHEL you run in-house. If you decide the subscription isn't a good value, then you can stop paying it and still run the RHEL system..but you have to stop paying it for _all_ the RHEL systems you have. You can't drop half your system...its all systems or none...no in-between. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I do not believe that the clause is intended to nor can be can be used to enforce payment to count CentOS or Scientific installs..or even Oracle installs. None of these are Red Hat branded products at any point. None of these products were ever eligible for services from Red Hat under the service agreement. They are distinctly different products from distinctly different vendors.

-jef

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 0:45 UTC (Tue) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring how you came by your interpretation. "Software would include versions or copies that have the Red Hat trademark(s) and/or logo file(s) removed." sounds to me like an exact description of CentOS.

You say that clause only applies if I remove RedHat's trademarks, but not if the CentOS project does so?

It's not so simple

Posted Mar 1, 2011 0:55 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

No its not an exact description of CentOS. CentOS is a full rebuild of the underlying source code. It is NOT rebranded Red Hat built and certified binaries.

I'm saying that the act of rebuilding from source is different _product_. CentOS is not a Red Hat product offering in any form. It's not certified by Red Hat and does not get access to subscription services Red Hat sales you when you get RHEL.

An installed RHEL system with with binaries built and certified by Red Hat that has been modified post-install to hide the fact that it was originally installed on the system as a branded Red Hat product. Those are the systems at issue here in this clause. These situations are absolutely most definitely distinctly different than choosing to install CentOS.

-jef