On Tue, Nov 01, 2011 at 01:57:29PM -0400, Rob Kampen wrote:
Tony Mountifield wrote:
In article CALKwpEyuPRU5Az9xU_d_BrJc0m_E9XDLH1T5iuB2U8rvRZevTg@mail.gmail.com, Brian Mathis brian.mathis+centos@betteradmin.com wrote:
When Redhat announced the changes they made it very clear they were trying to prevent other companies (like Oracle and Novell) who were providing support to RHEL customers at reduced rates. They have never said they were concerned with the free clones and in fact have helped CentOS many times in the past (according to statements from the core developers).
Redhat knows that the free distros help them maintain market share, and gain customers who need full support eventually. The issues CentOS are seeing are simply collateral damage to the larger war against the other big companies who are trying to provide services by cheating.
Except that the other day, Johnny posted this:
I can tell you that we have been contacted by upstream to make sure we **UNDERSTAND** the new AUP restrictions on distribution. I can also tell you that we (CentOS) are doing everything in our power to meet the restrictions as they were explained to us.
which sounds like RH making it clear that their changes are aimed at CentOS too.
This sounds more like a butt covering exercise by lawyers, remember this all comes from the USA where there are FAR TOO MANY lawyers. To be able to enforce a possible claim under this AUP restriction, they will need to show that those involved with use of the code, under this new clause, understand and have been communicated with.......etc. As I said, a butt covering exercise - rather than any expressed attempt at intimidation or enforcement - just my $0.01 worth.
Pity... perhaps RH have had a change of manager somewhere...
Can someone point me to some place where I can learn what the "new" AUP restrictions are? I'm sure there's a docuyment somewhere on the RH web site, but how would I know which parts are new (since I haven't been faithfully reading it from time to time.) ??
Also, one wonders, since most of it is GPL (or gpl-compatible), how can they place acceptable use policies on it? (some of the non-gpl parts, sure, but...)