On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 12:55 -0600, Collins Richey wrote:
Just what 'major work' is it that Red Hat actually does?
Probably, when you get right down to it, mostly work with the kernel and paying the salaries of some kernel hackers, although the assembly of rather well crafted releases certainly qualifies as work.
Thanks for your input, but please don't assume that I am ignorant of the way open software and licensing works. I'm very fond of CentOS (a believer in the community support model), and I'm looking for ammunition to support it in every way possible.
---- 1 - the kernel is GPL
any customizations that Red Hat makes and distributes MUST be released to the community per the GPL license. That is the point of the GPL license. To their benefit, they are using the kernel which includes code by others who have likewise contributed.
2 - assembly - aye, there's the rub
of course there's a lot of community involvement in the development and testing of the assembly - that's presently called Fedora. It used to be called Red Hat Linux.
I am not criticizing Red Hat's efforts nor their contributions. They are symbiotic to Red Hat's formation, growth and profitability as a corporation. Likewise, they have substantially benefited from a code base that they didn't contribute to either. Where would they be without sendmail and apache?
As for the concept of ammunition - CentOS is a distribution and is only different from Debian or SuSE or Gentoo in that it uses RHEL packaging methodology. The concept that CentOS is doing something improper by using RHEL packaging is somewhat of an insult to the people that do the packaging for CentOS and unduly credits Red Hat for ownership of that which they cannot own.
Craig