[WBEL-devel] Self Intro and some legal food for thought

[Paul Iadonisi]

On Sat, 2003-11-29 at 11:18, Tony wrote:
> I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that there were a few
> non GPL'd items in RH. Those would still fall under 'unable to use',

  There doesn't appear to be anything more restrictive than in the
original Red Hat Linux product line.  Certainly nothing proprietary or
with less than OSI approved standards.  I haven't gone through
everything with a fine tooth comb, but you can do this as a start:

rpm -qa -qf '%{name} %{license}\n' | egrep -v 'GPL|BSD|MIT'


> however
> I also agree with your point that *if* someone released the GPL
> components
> we aren't not tied to any license, and it would be free to use.

  Again, just to clarify...you are in fact always tied to a license
except in the case of truly *Public Domain* software.  You are not,
however, tied to a contract...in this case, the one you must agree to
from Red Hat in order to get your binary bits.

> RH also might have a copyright on the actual ISO images.. much as Theo
> does with OBSD.. That could prove problematic in your scenario as well,
> in the
> 'free to use RHAS' idea...

  True, they own the copyright.  But they grant copying rights by
GPL'ing the entire collection, which is not only implied by the COPYING
file at the top level of each CD, but also in the contract.  I have to
wonder how this jives with the restriction on distribution of their
trademarks, however.

> ( IANAL either, but I do follow this sort of thing, and always come up
> with loopholes for BOTH sides, but in the end, its always the Judge's
> opinion that matters, not ours )

  Agreed.  And my intention is not to cause trouble for Red Hat, even if
I am a little jaded.  Just looking at it from a different angle and
wondering if Red Hat has thought of this.  I could ask them, I suppose,
but like I said, I don't have the intention of exploiting this potential
loophole.
-- 
-Paul Iadonisi
 Senior System Administrator
 Red Hat Certified Engineer / Local Linux Lobbyist
 Ever see a penguin fly?  --  Try Linux.
 GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets