On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Reindl Harald h.reindl@thelounge.net wrote:
Exactly my point. Everything is about derived works. So binaries cannot be exempt from the requirement that the work as a whole can only be distributed under a license that permits free redistribution and that additional restrictions cannot be added
*which restrictions from your fantasy are you talking about?*
I'm talking about the consequences Red Hat applies if you were to exercise the right that the GPL says you have to redistribute copies. If the threat of such consequences aren't a restriction, what would be?
I realize that Red Hat does, in fact do more than required in other areas so this is just a philosophical point, but I don't see how their treatment of binaries meshes with the letter of the GPL.
I also realize that since CentOS and other derivative distros rely on the 'more than required' parts (non-GPL'd parts, source in easily reusable form, etc.), it could all go away on a whim, just like the freely redistributable binaries did, so even if you are happy with today's scenario, there's no reason to expect it to last.
On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Reindl Harald h.reindl@thelounge.net wrote:
Exactly my point. Everything is about derived works. So binaries cannot be exempt from the requirement that the work as a whole can only be distributed under a license that permits free redistribution and that additional restrictions cannot be added
*which restrictions from your fantasy are you talking about?*
I'm talking about the consequences Red Hat applies if you were to exercise the right that the GPL says you have to redistribute copies. If the threat of such consequences aren't a restriction, what would be?
I realize that Red Hat does, in fact do more than required in other areas so this is just a philosophical point, but I don't see how their treatment of binaries meshes with the letter of the GPL.
I also realize that since CentOS and other derivative distros rely on the 'more than required' parts (non-GPL'd parts, source in easily reusable form, etc.), it could all go away on a whim, just like the freely redistributable binaries did, so even if you are happy with today's scenario, there's no reason to expect it to last.
<snip>
The only leverage RedHat has to prevent people from redistributing RHEL binary media are the trademarks contained within the three packages I mentioned previously. They are included on the installation media (obviously). GPL does not apply to trademarks (only copyright), so even though those three packages are technically GPL, they can't be redistributed under RedHat's trademark guidelines. The srpms can't even be redistributed except by RedHat (they are available on their public FTP server).
RedHat's trademarks are the only reason why you can't take the RedHat ISO and distribute it to whomever you want. You can however take any of the packages minus the three packages containing trademarks and distribute them in binary format, there is no real benefit to doing that though when you can simply build the rpms from source.
On 08/16/2013 03:12 PM, Andrew Wyatt wrote:
RedHat's trademarks are the only reason why you can't take the RedHat ISO and distribute it to whomever you want.
Not exactly. The aggregate collection, just because it contains GPL-licensed software, is not necessarily under the GPL as a whole, and the ISO itself is copyrighted.
Further, out of the 2108 packages I have installed on one of my RHEL6 systems, 678 of them are not GPL-covered.
And then there's:
[root@www ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.4 (Santiago) [root@www ~]# rpm -q --queryformat "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE} %{LICENSE}\n" redhat-logos redhat-logos-60.0.14-1.el6 Copyright 1999-2010 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. [root@www ~]#
In other words, if you distribute an ISO, and that ISO contains the source code or binary code of redhat-logos, that's a copyright violation as no one but the copyright owner, Red Hat, Inc., has the right to distribute it. So you can't distribute that ISO due to both a copyright violation and a trademark violation.
Now, GPL does specifically cover binaries; that's the whole of section 2. The last paragraph of section 2 I've already quoted, and that makes clear that RHEL the distribution, which is an aggregation of programs, some covered by GPL, some not, is not all covered by GPL just because it includes some GPL-covered programs.
The case of redistributing an ISO containing the binary or source RPM of redhat-logos is clear; it's not freely redistributable.
The cases of GPL-covered binary RPM's being redistributed has not been tested in court to the best of my knowledge. And I don't plan to become the test case.
Of course, I am not a lawyer, and I reserve the right to be wrong. But it's clear that Red Hat has cleared their policies, contracts, licenses, and agreements with their own lawyers, and those lawyers know a great deal more about that than any of us (with at least the one notable exception of Russ) does. One of those lawyers is now the primary editor on groklaw.net...... I met him (Mark W.) in Asheville, and he's a nice guy, and he really is the expert on these things.
On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Lamar Owen lowen@pari.edu wrote:
On 08/16/2013 03:12 PM, Andrew Wyatt wrote:
RedHat's trademarks are the only reason why you can't take the RedHat ISO and distribute it to whomever you want.
Not exactly. The aggregate collection, just because it contains GPL-licensed software, is not necessarily under the GPL as a whole, and the ISO itself is copyrighted.
Further, out of the 2108 packages I have installed on one of my RHEL6 systems, 678 of them are not GPL-covered.
And then there's:
[root@www ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.4 (Santiago) [root@www ~]# rpm -q --queryformat "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE} %{LICENSE}\n" redhat-logos redhat-logos-60.0.14-1.el6 Copyright 1999-2010 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. [root@www ~]#
In other words, if you distribute an ISO, and that ISO contains the source code or binary code of redhat-logos, that's a copyright violation as no one but the copyright owner, Red Hat, Inc., has the right to distribute it. So you can't distribute that ISO due to both a copyright violation and a trademark violation.
Now, GPL does specifically cover binaries; that's the whole of section 2. The last paragraph of section 2 I've already quoted, and that makes clear that RHEL the distribution, which is an aggregation of programs, some covered by GPL, some not, is not all covered by GPL just because it includes some GPL-covered programs.
The case of redistributing an ISO containing the binary or source RPM of redhat-logos is clear; it's not freely redistributable.
The cases of GPL-covered binary RPM's being redistributed has not been tested in court to the best of my knowledge. And I don't plan to become the test case.
Of course, I am not a lawyer, and I reserve the right to be wrong. But it's clear that Red Hat has cleared their policies, contracts, licenses, and agreements with their own lawyers, and those lawyers know a great deal more about that than any of us (with at least the one notable exception of Russ) does. One of those lawyers is now the primary editor on groklaw.net...... I met him (Mark W.) in Asheville, and he's a nice guy, and he really is the expert on these things.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Well look at that, TIL about the redhat logos package. Even if they couldn't copyright the ISO itself (though I think you are probably right that they can), since it contains a non-GPL logos package that's also protected under trademark law it's effectively illegal to redistribute on multiple fronts.
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Andrew Wyatt -
Lamar Owen -
Les Mikesell