[WBEL-devel] Re: [WBEL-users] Question about RHEL Licensing

[clacour@clacour.com]

>> As _RHEL_, no that's not true. If you take the RHEL CDs and install
> I agree. Because the RHEL cd's contain trademarked redhat artwork and
> logos that are not GPL'ed.
>
> My only point is that you could create drop in replacements for the non
> GPL'ed items and respin the iso without having to rebuild the entire
> system.  You can also freely redistribute binary RPM's with an apt
> repository as long as you excluded the non GPL'ed items.
>

Ah, I understand now.

I agree, and I've been pushing (a little, sort of) for the same thing.
Take the binary RPMs, except for the two verboten ones, and provide new
artwork for their replacements.

The biggest reason I favor that is that you are pretty well guaranteed
that you could replicate any problem on a real RHEL box. The more things
that get changed, the less certain you can be that what you have will be
"just like Red Hat".

As I understand it, John Morris (the initiator of all this), wasn't
convinced that doing what the EULA said would be enough, and didn't want
the potential liability.

My personal inclination is to build one with just those two packages
changed, then report myself to Red Hat, saying in essence, "Speak now or
forever hold your peace."

In a lot of ways, the idea that Red Hat deliberately made it easy to make
a free (but non-Red Hat) copy makes sense. They've GPL'd practically
everything they've ever done.

Only reason I haven't done it so far is that all I have is an ADSL
connection. At 128 kbits/sec upload speed, someone pulling down that CD
image would take a LOOONNNGG time.