[WBEL-devel] An "Issue" with WBEL (pun intended)

[Johnny Hughes]

I don't think leaving an /etc/redhat-release would be a trademark issue 
... and after doing some more studying, it will be an issue with several
other 3rd party applications.

Having just the file won't work though ... you need a file called
/etc/redhat-release and it needs to be owned by a package named
redhat-release-3ES-1,  redhat-release-3WS-1, or redhat-release-3AS-1.

Because the command frequently used by these apps to check the redhat
version is:

rpm -qf --qf "%{VERSION}" /etc/redhat-release

In WBEL it returns an error (even if /etc/redhat-release is a link to
/etc/whitebox-release), in RHEL 3 AS it returns 3AS.

In WBEL, the query:

rpm -qf --qf "%{VERSION}" /etc/whitebox-release

returns

3WB

So I don't know how we want to handle the whole /etc/redhat-release
issue ... but in 99% of the cases it will be a shell script that is
looking for the info ... and we should be able to do any number of
things to make it work on a case by case basis (if the program isn't
modified by the owner to work with WBEL).

-Johnny Hughes
On Sat, 2003-12-13 at 09:45, Simon J Mudd wrote:
> grwm@gnuleaf.net (g whitley mott) writes:
> 
> > On Sat, 2003-12-13 at 10:52, Simon J Mudd wrote:
> > > It would be better IMO that the redhat-release package mimicked the RH
> > 
> > unfortunately the Red Hat in /etc/redhat-release is a trademark, and has
> > to go, for whitebox to avoid legal problems.
> 
> What exactly is the "trademark". The name? The fact that we call the
> system RedHat Enterprise Linux (It doesn't)?
> 
> Having a package named redhat-release whose content says RedHat.... is
> a trademark infringement? I don't think so. It's too easy to write an
> rpm that does that.  Having /etc/issue saying that it is RHEL may be a
> problem, unless underneath it says that the package(s) is/are modified
> from the orginal sources....  Having a file called /etc/redhat-release
> has the same problem?
> 
> i don't know. What is true is that we can't pretend that the OS is the
> same thing as RHEL, but the white box website doesn't try to pretend
> that.  It's also clear that the origin of WBL is RHEL.
> 
> Why have people looked at WBL and not Mandrake or something similar? i
> think simply because they want a RH compatible OS at a cheaper price
> and that only holds if WBL is close to indistinguishable from RHEL.
> 
> Perhaps my ideas here are flawed or others on this list have a
> different point of view.
> 
> In any case forking another OS from RHEL just makes it more difficult
> for application developers to build packages which install without
> problems.
> 
> I've had a hardtime trying to support a Postfix RPM on different
> various versions of RedHat, Yellowdog and Mandrake Linuxes and white
> yes compiling from source solves all problems, a lot of people find it
> convenient to install a pre-built binary package.  If you have to do
> different things so it works on WBL it just won't get done.
> 
> Maybe one day I want to put Oracle on WBL or Sybase or another
> commercial product and it would be nice to know that I can just
> install it without worrying.  (Support is a different issue but on a
> home machine this may not be an important issue.)
> 
> Simon
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