On Tuesday 04 November 2008 02:04:24 am Jeffrey Watts wrote:
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 9:20 PM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
On Monday 03 November 2008 12:15:51 pm Jeffrey Watts wrote:
Actually that's not why they do that.
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.
Nothing legally obligates RedHat to provide source for their own tools (RPM, etc). If they do, nothing legally forces them to permit redistribution of these tools.
Well, the fact that the software is licensed under the GPL would obligate them. :)
Not quite. The copyright holder can do whatever they want. The GPL only obligates licensees. RedHat could in theory license RPM under the GPL and then refuse to give you source. At this point, you would be unable to legally redistribute RPM yourself because YOU are bound to the GPL.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
Not quite. The copyright holder can do whatever they want. The GPL only obligates licensees. RedHat could in theory license RPM under the GPL and then refuse to give you source. At this point, you would be unable to legally redistribute RPM yourself because YOU are bound to the GPL.
If it's GPLed, then YOU have the right to make copies of the source code, and the right to modify the source code. While it does not specify where you are allowed to receive that source code, if the licensor fails to make that source code available to you, then from a practical standpoint, they haven't GPLed the code at all.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Monty J. Harder mjharder@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
Not quite. The copyright holder can do whatever they want. The GPL only obligates licensees. RedHat could in theory license RPM under the GPL and then refuse to give you source. At this point, you would be unable to legally redistribute RPM yourself because YOU are bound to the GPL.
If it's GPLed, then YOU have the right to make copies of the source code, and the right to modify the source code. While it does not specify where you are allowed to receive that source code, if the licensor fails to make that source code available to you, then from a practical standpoint, they haven't GPLed the code at all.
I think what he is saying is that RedHat doesn't have to release RPM as GPL as they are the copyright holders.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:29, Monty J. Harder mjharder@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
Not quite. The copyright holder can do whatever they want. The GPL only obligates licensees. RedHat could in theory license RPM under the GPL and then refuse to give you source. At this point, you would be unable to legally redistribute RPM yourself because YOU are bound to the GPL.
If it's GPLed, then YOU have the right to make copies of the source code, and the right to modify the source code. While it does not specify where you are allowed to receive that source code, if the licensor fails to make that source code available to you, then from a practical standpoint, they haven't GPLed the code at all.
"Where you are allowed to receive" What? I can't say that's wrong because I don't even know what you meant, but it's certainly not clear. What is clear is that §§ 6a-6e of the GPL do specify exactly five methods by which source may be provided. Including the source with the original work is recommended, as it is the simplest, and fulfils all your obligations immediately.
Notice to Michael (If he's still breathing after the direction this thread has taken): This thread (like every other discussion related to Linux) has now decomposed into mindless GPL ranting. You should know the whole point of Linux was to give otherwise sad, lonely geeks something they can argue about as if it were important. The fact that it happens to be the most efficient operating system in the history of man kind happens to be icing on the cake. If you were seeking actual relevant advice on converting to Linux, you may disregard the remainder of this thread, as it has been doomed now for a few days.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Billy Crook billycrook@gmail.com wrote:
You should know the whole point of Linux was to give otherwise sad, lonely geeks something they can argue about as if it were important.
So you're saying that when Linus decided to reverse engineer the Minix kernel, he was otherwise sad and lonely?
Hmm.
I guess I can't really argue against that.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 13:23, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Billy Crook billycrook@gmail.com wrote:
You should know the whole point of Linux was to give otherwise sad, lonely geeks something they can argue about as if it were important.
So you're saying that when Linus decided to reverse engineer the Minix kernel, he was otherwise sad and lonely?
Hmm.
I guess I can't really argue against that.
Sounds like a bug. You're wrong.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Billy Crook billycrook@gmail.com wrote:
I guess I can't really argue against that.
Sounds like a bug. You're wrong.
I can't argue because I have better things to do, not because I agree with the claim.
He certainly had a lot of free time on his hands. Given that, I can conclude he was probably single. :)
J.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 1:23 PM, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
So you're saying that when Linus decided to reverse engineer the Minix kernel, he was otherwise sad and lonely?
Yup, I caught that... starting to scan the first few lines and decide from there... Doesn't change the fact that I plan on being there tomorrow night to place faces with names. I am very thankful for the information that I have gotten so far - I was worried that the answer would have been something like "windows users shouldn't bother..." or something. I am currently up to my eyeballs in different distro's (thank God for decommissioned desktops and kvm's)...
I am also enjoying the turn in directions to the licensing side because that is what our current licensing vendor mention when she caught wind that we were thinking of using OS for some things - got the terse email regarding 'hidden clauses' in the Linux licensing and that OS software isn't really 'free' because it isn't supported... I love it when vendors go into a panic because a cash cow is thinking of leaving the pasture...
:)
Michael Haworth
-----Original Message----- From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Billy Crook Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 12:51 PM To: Monty J. Harder Cc: kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: Conversion to Linux
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:29, Monty J. Harder mjharder@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
Not quite. The copyright holder can do whatever they want. The GPL only obligates licensees. RedHat could in theory license RPM under the GPL and then refuse to give you source. At this point, you would be unable to legally redistribute RPM yourself because YOU are bound to the GPL.
If it's GPLed, then YOU have the right to make copies of the source code, and the right to modify the source code. While it does not specify where you are allowed to receive that source code, if the licensor fails to make that source code available to you, then from a practical standpoint, they haven't GPLed the code at all.
"Where you are allowed to receive" What? I can't say that's wrong because I don't even know what you meant, but it's certainly not clear. What is clear is that §§ 6a-6e of the GPL do specify exactly five methods by which source may be provided. Including the source with the original work is recommended, as it is the simplest, and fulfils all your obligations immediately.
Notice to Michael (If he's still breathing after the direction this thread has taken): This thread (like every other discussion related to Linux) has now decomposed into mindless GPL ranting. You should know the whole point of Linux was to give otherwise sad, lonely geeks something they can argue about as if it were important. The fact that it happens to be the most efficient operating system in the history of man kind happens to be icing on the cake. If you were seeking actual relevant advice on converting to Linux, you may disregard the remainder of this thread, as it has been doomed now for a few days. _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
On Tuesday 04 November 2008 02:20:44 pm Haworth, Michael A. wrote:
I am also enjoying the turn in directions to the licensing side because that is what our current licensing vendor mention when she caught wind that we were thinking of using OS for some things - got the terse email regarding 'hidden clauses' in the Linux licensing and that OS software isn't really 'free' because it isn't supported...
What does support have to do with freedom?
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 5:58 PM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
What does support have to do with freedom?
Look, now Luke is trying to sell bras.
He or she means "free" as in beer. In other words, just because the Open Source software doesn't cost any money to buy it doesn't mean it doesn't cost a company money to support, which is very true. Hence why I advocate that businesses look into a support partner of some kind for support escalations.
The good news, however, is that in general that kind of support is very reasonable, and from a total cost of ownership perspective in almost any scenario Free software solutions will be cheaper overall.
Jeffrey.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 5:58 PM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
On Tuesday 04 November 2008 02:20:44 pm Haworth, Michael A. wrote:
I am also enjoying the turn in directions to the licensing side because that is what our current licensing vendor mention when she caught wind
that
we were thinking of using OS for some things - got the terse email regarding 'hidden clauses' in the Linux licensing and that OS software isn't really 'free' because it isn't supported...
What does support have to do with freedom?
On Wednesday 05 November 2008 02:17:05 pm Jeffrey Watts wrote:
He or she means "free" as in beer. In other words, just because the Open Source software doesn't cost any money to buy it doesn't mean it doesn't cost a company money to support, which is very true. Hence why I advocate that businesses look into a support partner of some kind for support escalations.
"Free of charge" is not too important.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Haworth, Michael A. Michael_Haworth@pas-technologies.com wrote:
Yup, I caught that... starting to scan the first few lines and decide from there... Doesn't change the fact that I plan on being there tomorrow night to place faces with names. I am very thankful for the information that I have gotten so far - I was worried that the answer would have been something like "windows users shouldn't bother..." or something. I am currently up to my eyeballs in different distro's (thank God for decommissioned desktops and kvm's)...
I am also enjoying the turn in directions to the licensing side because that is what our current licensing vendor mention when she caught wind that we were thinking of using OS for some things - got the terse email regarding 'hidden clauses' in the Linux licensing and that OS software isn't really 'free' because it isn't supported... I love it when vendors go into a panic because a cash cow is thinking of leaving the pasture...
:)
Well be sure to research this if you have any fear. However, in my experience the suggestion is entirely untrue.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 14:20, Haworth, Michael A. Michael_Haworth@pas-technologies.com wrote: ...
for some things - got the terse email regarding 'hidden clauses' in the Linux licensing
...
One quite refreshing thing about Free Software is that most of it uses only a small handful of licenses. In the proprietary world, most software comes with its own unique license, and so it's SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult to stay aware of all their conditions and restrictions.
Linux is licensed exclusively under GPLv2. The majority of software included in GNU-based distros, and Free Software in general is licensed under one of the generations of the GPL. It's unusually short and to the point for a software license, and exceptionally clear.
For the official info on the GPL: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
On Tuesday 04 November 2008 07:52:36 pm Billy Crook wrote:
One quite refreshing thing about Free Software is that most of it uses only a small handful of licenses.
If only it was that small... On my desktop machine, my approved licenses list is not at all short: GPL-1 GPL-2-with-linking-exception LGPL-2 Arphic wxWinLL-3 FDL-1.1 EPL-1.0 as-is freedist publicDomain: ANTLR BSD-based: FLEX MIT xev xkill xvinfo xdriinfo xfontsel xorg-server compositeproto libXres tcp_wrappers_license libXxf86misc xf86rushproto font-bh-ttf font-bitstream-type1 xf86vidmodeproto xf86-input-joystick xlsatoms xbitmaps xinit rgb font-util xwud libXfont pixman printproto xf86-video-fbdev fontsproto makedepend libXi libXfixes xf86-input-mouse libXaw mkfontscale xmodmap iceauth util-macros xineramaproto fontconfig libdrm evieext bitmap xhost libXtst libXrender libXrandr libXres libXinerama libXScrnSaver twm libXp xbacklight font-misc-meltho libFS recordproto libxkbfile randrproto font-sony-misc openssl xf86-video-ati smproxy libXdmcp libXvMC xf86bigfontproto liblbxutil Retroactive-Auto-Upgrade: glproto inputproto xsetroot xset xwd sessreg xgamma libfontenc xrefresh libXau libICE xpr xf86dga xcursor-themes xrandr xdpyinfo bdftopcf libXxf86dga libXext font-misc-ethiopic libXpm font-screen-cyrillic font-bitstream-speedo resourceproto xsetmode libXcursor fixesproto libXrandr bigreqsproto xf86-input-keyboard libSM libXfontcache CMake xprop font-arabic-misc renderproto xf86miscproto font-cronyx-cyrillic xmessage xclock JNIC font-mutt-misc libXxf86vm xtrans scrnsaverproto xf86dgaproto xf86-input-evdev damageproto xcursorgen xproto xlsclients libX11 appres xwininfo libXmu xf86driproto xcmiscproto xauth libXft libXdamage xf86-video-vesa luit mkfontdir JamesClark JasPer2.0 PHP-3 PAM font-misc-cyrillic FTL RSA-MD4 RSA-MD5 BEER-WARE Info-ZIP xextproto xkbevd sip fontcacheproto Public-domain: font-micro-misc font-winitzki-cyrillic font-misc-misc OracleDB CPL-1.0 imagemagick BZIP2 vim FESTIVAL BitTorrent Subversion Sudo lsof w3m PSF-2.2 IBM MPL-1.1 gnuplot (interesting) vlgothic mplus-fonts IPL-1 Apache-1.1 EPL JDOM icu dom4j jdepend saxpath jaxen jcraft WTFPL-2 CDDL CDDL-Schily NPL-1.1 xorg-docs JPython bea.ri.jsr173 APSL-2 OpenSoftware
AMBIGUOUS-no-fee: font-bitstream-100dpi x11perf font-adobe-75dpi libxkbui font-isas-misc font-sun-misc xcmsdb xsm libXv font-schumacher-misc CNRI setxkbmap font-adobe-100dpi trapproto font-dec-misc videoproto kbproto xkbutils font-bitstream-75dpi xrdb libXt xkbcomp
UNCERTAIN-TRIVIAL: xorg-sgml-doctools UNCERTAIN-LIKELY-OK: encodings font-alias font-cursor-misc
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 09:09, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
On Tuesday 04 November 2008 07:52:36 pm Billy Crook wrote:
One quite refreshing thing about Free Software is that most of it uses only a small handful of licenses.
If only it was that small... On my desktop machine, my approved licenses list is not at all short:
Actually Luke, I meant to mention that benefit of Gentoo. As you've just demonstrated, it's package manager, emerge, makes license type easily sortable and available information when choosing what to install. You've even been able to block nonfree licenses. My point though, was that multiple programs share, and reuse licenses in GNU+Linux, as where they do not in Windows. Even the MS EULA is not just one document. It's a seperate document for every product.
And in the Proprietary world, you also usually have to buy one license to install server software (sometimes one per core!) and another license for every instance of a user using that software. Even if you took the money out of it, having separate licenses for running, and making use of software is just arcane!
I get your point, and appreciate it. However given the fact that the main product they're selling are the Free Software packages that have been configured, tested, and certified, it'd be rather pointless for them to make system-config-printer (for example) non-Free.
And even if they did, CentOS would simply be the 98% of the system that's Free. I don't believe any of their tools are non-Free now (and RPM isn't exclusively under the control of Red Hat any more, hasn't for a while), so it's not like you couldn't run a RHEL system devoid of Red Hat's tools.
Regardless, this is a minor issue. :)
Jeffrey.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Luke Dashjr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
Not quite. The copyright holder can do whatever they want. The GPL only obligates licensees. RedHat could in theory license RPM under the GPL and then refuse to give you source. At this point, you would be unable to legally redistribute RPM yourself because YOU are bound to the GPL.
-
Arthur Pemberton -
Billy Crook -
David Nicol -
Haworth, Michael A. -
Jeffrey Watts -
Luke Dashjr -
Monty J. Harder