Actually that's not why they do that.<br><br>The source would get out regardless of what they do, as any customer
who purchased a copy of RHEL would be legally able to release the
SRPMs. The GPL requires that customers receive a copy of the source. They make their SRPMs publicly available because they want to be transparent and because they want their changes and improvements to Open Source programs to be fed back into the projects that originated them. They want to make it easy for their customers to customize their software for their needs.<br>
<br>They certainly didn't publicly release them in order to encourage someone to take their work, rebrand it, and undercut their core business. That's silly.<br><br>Jeffrey.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Billy Crook <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:billycrook@gmail.com">billycrook@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I think the very fact that RedHat voluntarily, and outside of any<br>
obligation of the GPL, makes their sources publicly available to<br>
everyone, demonstrates that they tangibly encourage, or are at least<br>
complicit with the existence of CentOS.<br><br></blockquote></div>-- <br><br>"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine<br>