The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.
I am not starting a flame ware, I hope. I'm just curious about what is minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I suppose we could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if that makes you feel more comfortable. (and not too OT)
Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and search to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul". What else would I have to do?
Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them? Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6, I have to isolate the non-GPL software and then replace it with something workable.
After that, what am I legally required to do? As far as all of the other RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed exactly as they are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel, it appears to me most of the discussion is about "re-branding", going through the packages and changing "RedHat" to "Centos" and swapping out icons.
Is that legally necessary? In my memory, there was a Linux distro called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except they re-compiled with gcc options for i686. I recall that in many of the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat" with some other name.
PJ
call redhat legal and/or please take this up with your own "paul" legal counsel
this is not the place
- rh
On 04/29/2011 11:17 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:
The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.
I am not starting a flame ware, I hope. I'm just curious about what is minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I suppose we could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if that makes you feel more comfortable. (and not too OT)
Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and search to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul". What else would I have to do?
Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them? Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6, I have to isolate the non-GPL software and then replace it with something workable.
After that, what am I legally required to do? As far as all of the other RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed exactly as they are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel, it appears to me most of the discussion is about "re-branding", going through the packages and changing "RedHat" to "Centos" and swapping out icons.
Is that legally necessary? In my memory, there was a Linux distro called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except they re-compiled with gcc options for i686. I recall that in many of the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat" with some other name.
This is not the PAUL Linux mailing list. It is the CentOS mailing list.
The CentOS project will not redistribute files signed by Red Hat, and we will not sign files that we do not create. Simple as that.
You also must make a "good faith effort" to not distribute any branding that makes your version of Linux tell people that it is Red Hat Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
That "good faith effort" is required for all packages (GPL or not).
And yes, it is legally necessary make that good faith effort not to infringe upon someone else's trademarks.
This is specifically called out here: http://www.redhat.com/about/companyprofile/trademark/
This PDF file tells you in great detail what you need to do:
On Apr 29, 2011, at 11:43 AM, Johnny Hughes wrote:
On 04/29/2011 11:17 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:
The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.
I am not starting a flame ware, I hope. I'm just curious about what is minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I suppose we could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if that makes you feel more comfortable. (and not too OT)
Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and search to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul". What else would I have to do?
Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them? Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6, I have to isolate the non-GPL software and then replace it with something workable.
After that, what am I legally required to do? As far as all of the other RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed exactly as they are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel, it appears to me most of the discussion is about "re-branding", going through the packages and changing "RedHat" to "Centos" and swapping out icons.
Is that legally necessary? In my memory, there was a Linux distro called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except they re-compiled with gcc options for i686. I recall that in many of the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat" with some other name.
This is not the PAUL Linux mailing list. It is the CentOS mailing list.
The CentOS project will not redistribute files signed by Red Hat, and we will not sign files that we do not create. Simple as that.
You also must make a "good faith effort" to not distribute any branding that makes your version of Linux tell people that it is Red Hat Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
I've always been surprised that CentOS ships /etc/redhat-release given the above paragraph.
On 04/29/2011 01:26 PM, Todd Rinaldo wrote:
I've always been surprised that CentOS ships /etc/redhat-release given the above paragraph.
Probably a programmatic requirement, if I was the betting type.
On 4/29/2011 1:46 PM, Digimer wrote:
On 04/29/2011 01:26 PM, Todd Rinaldo wrote:
I've always been surprised that CentOS ships /etc/redhat-release given the above paragraph.
Probably a programmatic requirement, if I was the betting type.
I could easily be confused as it has been so long now... I think Whitebox actually changed that to whitebox-release and maybe CentOS did the save very early on. But, many applications look for that file and if they see redhat-release, know their stuff can run on your system and you are off to the races. I suppose the final answer was it wasn't an infringement and solved a lot of other problems. Seems I had to edit this file or name to get something to run on a server like 4 or 5 years ago?
Am I required to remember everything I did from that long back? LOL There might be some stuff in the archives though... back in the early ver. 3 days.
On top of that, it just seems logical granted the RHEL binary compatibility thing. It's used by many apps to detect the distro you're using, so...
2011/4/29 John Hinton webmaster@ew3d.com
On 4/29/2011 1:46 PM, Digimer wrote:
On 04/29/2011 01:26 PM, Todd Rinaldo wrote:
I've always been surprised that CentOS ships /etc/redhat-release given the above paragraph.
Probably a programmatic requirement, if I was the betting type.
I could easily be confused as it has been so long now... I think Whitebox actually changed that to whitebox-release and maybe CentOS did the save very early on. But, many applications look for that file and if they see redhat-release, know their stuff can run on your system and you are off to the races. I suppose the final answer was it wasn't an infringement and solved a lot of other problems. Seems I had to edit this file or name to get something to run on a server like 4 or 5 years ago?
Am I required to remember everything I did from that long back? LOL There might be some stuff in the archives though... back in the early ver. 3 days.
-- John Hinton 877-777-1407 ext 502 http://www.ew3d.com Comprehensive Online Solutions
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
John Hinton wrote:
On 4/29/2011 1:46 PM, Digimer wrote:
On 04/29/2011 01:26 PM, Todd Rinaldo wrote:
I've always been surprised that CentOS ships /etc/redhat-release given the above paragraph.
Probably a programmatic requirement, if I was the betting type.
I could easily be confused as it has been so long now... I think Whitebox actually changed that to whitebox-release and maybe CentOS did the save very early on. But, many applications look for that file and if they see redhat-release, know their stuff can run on your system and you are off to the races. I suppose the final answer was it wasn't an infringement and solved a lot of other problems. Seems I had to edit this file or name to get something to run on a server like 4 or 5 years ago?
Am I required to remember everything I did from that long back? LOL There might be some stuff in the archives though... back in the early ver. 3 days.
Actually, it annoys me - it *should* be LSB release, not redhat, I always thought.
mark
On 4/29/2011 2:01 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Am I required to remember everything I did from that long back? LOL There might be some stuff in the archives though... back in the early ver. 3 days.
Actually, it annoys me - it *should* be LSB release, not redhat, I always thought.
Well, if LSB actually meant you could run something unchanged across distributions. I've never had much hope for that.
[This reply isn't directed at John; his message just makes a good place to reply....]
On Friday, April 29, 2011 02:50:27 PM John Hinton wrote:
Am I required to remember everything I did from that long back? LOL There might be some stuff in the archives though... back in the early ver. 3 days.
For the archives (not directed to John, but to the thread in general), go look at the archives of Red Hat's taroon-list and taroon-beta-list lists. Also educational is looking at nahant-list and nahant-beta-list, and rhelv5-beta-list and rhelv5-list, and finally rhelv6-beta-list and rhelv6-list, all available at the http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo Mailman interface.
And, of course, to get some real background into the whole Fedora/RHL split, read through shrike-list, at the same url
And then go to http://www.uibk.ac.at/zid/systeme/linux/rhel-rebuild-l.html and read a while in those archives.....
On 04/29/2011 12:26 PM, Todd Rinaldo wrote:
On Apr 29, 2011, at 11:43 AM, Johnny Hughes wrote:
On 04/29/2011 11:17 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:
The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.
I am not starting a flame ware, I hope. I'm just curious about what is minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I suppose we could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if that makes you feel more comfortable. (and not too OT)
Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and search to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul". What else would I have to do?
Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them? Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6, I have to isolate the non-GPL software and then replace it with something workable.
After that, what am I legally required to do? As far as all of the other RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed exactly as they are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel, it appears to me most of the discussion is about "re-branding", going through the packages and changing "RedHat" to "Centos" and swapping out icons.
Is that legally necessary? In my memory, there was a Linux distro called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except they re-compiled with gcc options for i686. I recall that in many of the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat" with some other name.
This is not the PAUL Linux mailing list. It is the CentOS mailing list.
The CentOS project will not redistribute files signed by Red Hat, and we will not sign files that we do not create. Simple as that.
You also must make a "good faith effort" to not distribute any branding that makes your version of Linux tell people that it is Red Hat Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
I've always been surprised that CentOS ships /etc/redhat-release given the above paragraph.
redhat-release is hard coded into several of the files.
For the record, redhat (in lower case, and use for things like redhat-release, redhat-config-network, etc. is not the trade mark and is something they decided to name their packages. "Red Hat" is the trademark. You will notice that in EL6, the directory on the ISOs is Packages and not RedHat ... and things are named system-config-network and not redhat-config-network (that started in centos4).
The critical part is that you take away things that say "This is Red Hat Enterprise Linux". But you do not want to take away "credit for work" where it is attributed.
That "good faith effort" is required for all packages (GPL or not).
And yes, it is legally necessary make that good faith effort not to infringe upon someone else's trademarks.
This is specifically called out here: http://www.redhat.com/about/companyprofile/trademark/
I've just read that document and it seems to say that you could take all of the RPMs exactly as they are built by RedHat and include them on a disk, and you can label the disk "Centos 6", and you are completely within the guidelines.
PJ
On Friday, April 29, 2011 03:49:47 PM Paul Johnson wrote:
I've just read that document and it seems to say that you could take all of the RPMs exactly as they are built by RedHat and include them on a disk, and you can label the disk "Centos 6", and you are completely within the guidelines.
Read http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=66
On 04/29/2011 02:49 PM, Paul Johnson wrote:
That "good faith effort" is required for all packages (GPL or not).
And yes, it is legally necessary make that good faith effort not to infringe upon someone else's trademarks.
This is specifically called out here: http://www.redhat.com/about/companyprofile/trademark/
I've just read that document and it seems to say that you could take all of the RPMs exactly as they are built by RedHat and include them on a disk, and you can label the disk "Centos 6", and you are completely within the guidelines.
Except for 2 SRPMS files you COULD do that. These 2 you can not do that with:
redhat-logos anaconda
Specifically from the PDF file: You must modify the files identified as REDHAT-LOGOS and ANACONDA-IMAGES so as to remove all use of images containing the “Red Hat” trademark or Red Hat’s Shadowman logo. Note that mere deletion of these files may corrupt the software.
However, as I said, you also have to make a good faith effort to not infringe ... and there are many other things that are infringing.
And not only that ... as I stated before, the CentOS project will not distribute files we did not generate (because the files have to be signed). We are not going to generate sign files made by someone else or publish files signed by someone else.
Then there is also the case of the "compilation" and the files that would need to be changed because you had to change the two files above.
But, legally, yes, someone COULD distribute some of the RH files.
But if someone tells you that FILEA has infringing content, then you have to remove it. As I said, Red Hat has made a good faith effort to put all the images in those 2 SRPMS, but they are not all in there. There are many other places where things need to be changed to be within the spirit of the requirement.
On 4/29/2011 3:08 PM, Johnny Hughes wrote:
But, legally, yes, someone COULD distribute some of the RH files.
I thought these days you couldn't get the binaries in the first place without also getting a support contract where the terms you agree to say you can only install on the licensed machine.
On 04/29/2011 03:16 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 4/29/2011 3:08 PM, Johnny Hughes wrote:
But, legally, yes, someone COULD distribute some of the RH files.
I thought these days you couldn't get the binaries in the first place without also getting a support contract where the terms you agree to say you can only install on the licensed machine.
Installing and distributing are 2 different things.
NOW ... people USING those distributed files would have issues.
If you have ANY upstream licensed products, you would not be able to use any files that were made by upstream and signed by them (regardless of who distributed them to you) and still meet your agreement.
You can, of course, use CentOS and not have that problem.
On 4/29/2011 11:17 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:
Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them? Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
I don't think that's a reasonable conclusion. There's a reason one is called a 'test' version, after all. Things often work better after fixing the things found in tests...
Is that legally necessary? In my memory, there was a Linux distro called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except they re-compiled with gcc options for i686. I recall that in many of the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat" with some other name.
If you are remembering from long ago, it was probably before Red Hat decided to restrict redistribution (remember, the thing that helped them build the community that generated the most of the content they ship and found/fixed lots of bugs...).
Given the difficulty of getting Centos 6 released - maybe this is not the correct group to ask. Just saying. ;)
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Paul Johnson Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 12:17 PM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: [CentOS] I have RHel6. How does that turn into Centos 6?
The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.
I am not starting a flame ware, I hope. I'm just curious about what is minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I suppose we could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if that makes you feel more comfortable. (and not too OT)
Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and search to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul". What else would I have to do?
Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them? Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6, I have to isolate the non-GPL software and then replace it with something workable.
After that, what am I legally required to do? As far as all of the other RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed exactly as they are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel, it appears to me most of the discussion is about "re-branding", going through the packages and changing "RedHat" to "Centos" and swapping out icons.
Is that legally necessary? In my memory, there was a Linux distro called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except they re-compiled with gcc options for i686. I recall that in many of the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat" with some other name.
PJ -- Paul E. Johnson Professor, Political Science 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504 University of Kansas _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
centos-bounces@centos.org wrote:
Given the difficulty of getting Centos 6 released - maybe this is not the correct group to ask. Just saying. ;)
Actually, telling us just how hard and complex and detail-burdened it would be to kick off "BlueSox", a homolog to CentOS rebuilding of "RedHat", might calm down some of the anxiety we've endured this year. I've come to understand that "hard" is not a matter of innovation, it's a matter of enduring 1: highly boring build-inspect-tweak-repeat cycles 2: repeated for a large number of packages. 3: Being so careful with the fine details that businesses world-wide trust your statement "It's Done".
Russ Harrold commented on this as a 'nose-to-the-grindstone' labor; I can't comment on how much nose is required.
Insert spiffy .sig here: Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary parts.
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On 4/29/2011 2:16 PM, Brunner, Brian T. wrote:
3: Being so careful with the fine details that businesses world-wide trust your statement "It's Done".
Part of the "must-be-perfect" requirement for release seems to be imposed by the package name/version compatibility with upstream. There's no way to fix a build mistake and make yum update it. I wonder if this could have been relaxed with a tweak to yum so it could recognize repository and 'rebuild' tags such that (a) it wouldn't replace a package with one from a different repo without a config or command line override and (b) within a repo it would understand increasing rebuild numbers as newer updates.
On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 21:56, NOYK service.account@insightbb.com wrote:
Given the difficulty of getting Centos 6 released - maybe this is not the correct group to ask. Just saying. ;)
It seems to me that is exactly why he was asking. The OP doesn't really want to create Paul Linux, he wants to know what CentOS does to RHEL to make it CentOS. Superficially, grepping for "redhat" in the source and compiling doesn't sound like 6 months worth of delays. I thought it was a clever, respectful way of asking the question.
That said, I do appreciate how much work goes into a CentOS release. I do know that it is not a simple grep! So the answer to Paul's question intrigues me as well.
Paul Johnson wrote on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:17:23 -0500:
After that, what am I legally required to do?
This is not the place to ask.
I've just read that document and it seems to say that you could take all of the RPMs exactly as they are built by RedHat and include them on a disk, and you can label the disk "Centos 6", and you are completely within the guidelines.
It doesn't matter if you can or not. I wished you hadn't started this thread. Just more dead weight for the list. Please kill it by not replying yourself.
This list once was a valuable peer-to-peer support list but has been turning into a meta-centos/rhel discussion list lately. There was already a lot of off-topic "linux-only" stuff on it in the past that didn't qualify for "centosy" things, but that at least was technical and some people might still benefit from it when working with CentOS. But this and the other discussion we had here lately is of interest to only a tiny minority. Admins, please stop this trend! Please consider opening a "centos-discuss" list that will welcome this sort of topic so we can get a "clean" list back. Thanks. I'm tired of evading dozens and dozens of posts to find the few valuable ones.
Kai
On 4/30/11 6:31 AM, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
This list once was a valuable peer-to-peer support list but has been turning into a meta-centos/rhel discussion list lately. There was already a lot of off-topic "linux-only" stuff on it in the past that didn't qualify for "centosy" things, but that at least was technical and some people might still benefit from it when working with CentOS. But this and the other discussion we had here lately is of interest to only a tiny minority.
But the difference from upstream is really the only thing specifically "centosy", and since it's binary compatible, that would leave us discussing the artwork.... Besides, we are just twiddling our thumbs here. We should probably be discussing how the eventual change to bios-order NIC naming is going to play out since that will affect a lot of us that move disks and copy images around - but Centos doesn't do alpha/beta releases (which does seem centos-specific) so we don't have anything to try.
Les Mikesell wrote on Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:33:21 -0500:
But the difference from upstream is really the only thing specifically "centosy", and since it's binary compatible, that would leave us discussing the artwork.... Besides, we are just twiddling our thumbs here.
Are we? I don't see this and I don't understand your remark. I suppose you didn't understand *my* request. I ask that people behave so that this list remains a valuable source for peer-to-peer support. With all that recent "discussion" it is not anymore. As it seems that people cannot behave, then please let's have a list where people can be referred to if they digress. I've been subscribed to this list for more than five years now, I'm considering unsubscribing because of the sheer amount of off-topic stuff.
Kai
On 4/30/11 1:09 PM, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
But the difference from upstream is really the only thing specifically "centosy", and since it's binary compatible, that would leave us discussing the artwork.... Besides, we are just twiddling our thumbs here.
Are we? I don't see this and I don't understand your remark.
Has it really been so long since the upstream release that you've forgotten that we might someday see a corresponding CentOS version and have to start figuring out how to use it?
I suppose you didn't understand *my* request. I ask that people behave so that this list remains a valuable source for peer-to-peer support.
I do understand it, but since you wanted specifically Centos issues, it's hard to complain about the topic of how RHEL differs from Centos, since that and a few quirks of yum are really the only things specific to Centos. And it's not like an extra message or two is going to displace any technical information.
Les, I don't understand you, sorry. You talk about something that I didn't ask for. You seem to make something of this thread that it isn't.
it's hard to complain about the topic of how RHEL differs from Centos
Are you referring to this thread? It's not about differences. It's about how to build Centos in a better way than it has been done till now. This doesn't belong here. Maybe it belongs on the devel list or on a new list, not here.
And I think you know very well that this thread is just the latest in a series of similarly off-topic threads about "centos politics/policy" and I'm referring to them as a whole.
Kai
On 4/30/11 4:31 PM, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Les, I don't understand you, sorry. You talk about something that I didn't ask for. You seem to make something of this thread that it isn't.
You asked for something 'centos-y'. And there really is nothing specific to centos other than it's differences from upstream., most of which aren't technical.
it's hard to complain about the topic of how RHEL differs from Centos
Are you referring to this thread? It's not about differences. It's about how to build Centos in a better way than it has been done till now.
I didn't see either a question or an answer about anything but the differences in this thread. And while the answers weren't new, they were centos-specific and interesting.
And I think you know very well that this thread is just the latest in a series of similarly off-topic threads about "centos politics/policy" and I'm referring to them as a whole.
Maybe, but it's not like we could be filling the mail list capacity with descriptions of how great it is to be using all the new features yet anyway.
-- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com
On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 01:48, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/30/11 4:31 PM, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Les, I don't understand you, sorry. You talk about something that I didn't ask for. You seem to make something of this thread that it isn't.
You asked for something 'centos-y'. And there really is nothing specific to centos other than it's differences from upstream., most of which aren't technical.
Might I suggest to investigate Scientific Linux as well?
SL is also RHEL-based, but I do believe that some other packages are added. SL has had a 6.0 release, as well as 4.9. I don't know about 5.6, though.