On 10/19/2010 12:47 AM, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 06:44:34PM +0300, Deyan Stoykov wrote:

...

Available to partners? Aren't RH obliged to release the source as usual?

Yes, to partners :)

I'm pretty sure Deyan is referring to their GPL obligations to make the source code available for most of it.

Given their heavy historical commitment to GPL, I have no doubt it will show up very shortly. They have always done a good job there.

On 10/19/2010 04:10 AM, Nicolas Thierry-Mieg wrote:

Benjamin Franz wrote:

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...

Yes, to partners :)

I'm pretty sure Deyan is referring to their GPL obligations to make the source code available for most of it.

GPL doesn't say you have to distribute source code to the whole world, only to people you distribute the binaries to (ie the partners here).

Clauses 2b and 3b of GPLv2 would appear to say otherwise.*

2b)* You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

*3b)* Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;

"any third party" and "all third parties" not "the third party". It is a subtle but important distinction. It means you can't be *selective* about who gets it as I read it. Everyone or no one are your options.

On 10/19/2010 04:16 AM, Karanbir Singh wrote:

hi Guys,

On 10/19/2010 12:00 PM, Benjamin Franz wrote:

...

I'm pretty sure Deyan is referring to their GPL obligations to make the source code available for most of it.

.. this has nothing to do with it...

Yes, it does.

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-guide.html

"Second, note that the last line makes the offer valid to anyone who requests the source. This is because v2 § 3(b) requires that offers be “to give any third party” a copy of the Corresponding Source. GPLv3 has a similar requirement, stating that an offer must be valid for “anyone who possesses the object code”. These requirements indicated in v2 § 3(c) and v3 § 6(c) are so that non-commercial redistributors may pass these offers along with their distributions. Therefore, the offers must be valid not only to your customers, but also to anyone who received a copy of the binaries from them. Many distributors overlook this requirement and assume that they are only required to fulfill a request from their direct customers. "

Once you publish/distribute GPL licensed code to *anyone*, your obligation to provide source kicks in for *everyone*. In practice, few people hammer at a company "in process" over it. But you *can*.

On 10/19/2010 05:03 AM, Karanbir Singh wrote:

On 10/19/2010 12:52 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:

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Once you publish/distribute GPL licensed code to *anyone*, your obligation to provide source kicks in for *everyone*. In practice, few people hammer at a company "in process" over it. But you *can*.

I am not a lawyer, but you blurb seems to indicate that the issue is applicable to people with the object code, which would make my last point valid.

Only on v3 license code. Most code is still under v2.

Also, there are legalise around exactly what is considered a product / code snippet / build script and distribution - which is what makes things like NDA's workable.

Actually, the GPL forbids using 'add on' agreements like NDAs that attempt to make it so an end user can't recompile or redistribute the code. The authors thought of those attempts to 'end run' the GPL's obligations when they wrote it. That is why clause 4 of the v2 license (or clauses 8 and 10 of the v3 license) exists.

*v2: 4.* You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

NDAs that attempt to impose *restrictions* on the GPL while still publishing/distributing to a third party can't overcome the basic legal obligations of the GPL and this is *by design*. And yes, code snippets and build scripts are covered, too. See clause 3 of the v2 license.

Being as deeply involved in a FOSS exercise like CentOS as you are, you really should take the time to fully understand the license that enables it to happen at all.

On 10/19/2010 05:37 AM, Karanbir Singh wrote:

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Only on v3 license code. Most code is still under v2.

and what license is the distro shipped as ?

That is a very good question. The *support and subscriptions* are under RH's own license. The *code* in the packages are under the licenses of the people who wrote it (generally not RH) and range over Apache, Perl, BSD, GPL, and a few other licenses. If RH wants to *only* publish the GPL (and similarly licensed) code, they could do that. But they would have to go package-by-package and separate them out. The kernel itself is GPL v2, btw.

...

...

Also, there are legalise around exactly what is considered a product / code snippet / build script and distribution - which is what makes things like NDA's workable.

Actually, the GPL forbids using 'add on' agreements like NDAs that

And how does the GPL get involved in relationships and partnerships that exist between people ?

That is what it does. It *licenses* distribution between people. You can't say "it's under GPL - but you can't redistribute it because I've made you sign an NDA". It violates the license that *you* accepted to use it yourself in the first place. RH can only use code written by other people *if they accept the license it is published under*. Otherwise *RH* itself does not have the right to use it at all.

On 10/19/2010 06:10 AM, mehdi wrote:

how open yum.conf in mode read write

1. You need to do it as the 'root' user. Log in as 'root' and then you will be able to edit it.

2. Please don't hijack unrelated threads. To start a new topic, post a completely new message with a usefully relevant subject line.

On Tue, 2010-10-19 at 14:21 +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:

Hi,

On 10/19/2010 02:09 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:

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That is what it does. It *licenses* distribution between people. You can't say "it's under GPL - but you can't redistribute it because I've

Ok, so that is the point I am trying to make here. RHEL6 isnt released as a product. They have an in-development code snapshot that they are offering to a bunch of people to come look at with them for comments, feedback, prep whathever.

Also worth keeping in mind is that the RC to partners does not prevent one of those partners from publishing the sources if they want for code where licensing and their agreement with Red Hat permits them to. I am not in a position to comment on that since I have neither seen the agreement that Red Hat have in place for these said partners, nor am I one of them.

http://www.redhat.com/partners/

John

On 10/19/2010 11:24 AM, JohnS wrote:

On Tue, 2010-10-19 at 14:21 +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:

...

Hi,

On 10/19/2010 02:09 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:

...

That is what it does. It *licenses* distribution between people. You can't say "it's under GPL - but you can't redistribute it because I've

Ok, so that is the point I am trying to make here. RHEL6 isnt released as a product. They have an in-development code snapshot that they are offering to a bunch of people to come look at with them for comments, feedback, prep whathever.

Also worth keeping in mind is that the RC to partners does not prevent one of those partners from publishing the sources if they want for code where licensing and their agreement with Red Hat permits them to. I am not in a position to comment on that since I have neither seen the agreement that Red Hat have in place for these said partners, nor am I one of them.

http://www.redhat.com/partners/

This is an interesting list. And to me, sending out a RC to a small selection of the partners is a grand idea. Looks like this partner list includes just about any aspect of real world computing. For instance, I would want my RC to be installed on as many new and varied computer systems as possible to check for compatibility issues. Each of these partner groups has a specialty. Seems extremely logical to send a RC out to them. Also, as they are 'partners' and not the world, would this be any different from sharing the RC around within the RedHat offices?

Either way, this thread is really sounding a lot like we are just getting antsy for CentOS 6! ;) I'm chomping at the bit for like 2 years now. Fortunately I selected a titanium bit because if I ever manage to chew through it, I must migrate to Fedora. :) Patience grasshopper.

Can we start asking when CentOS 7 is going to be released now? HAH!!!

Thanks CentOS team!

John Hinton

On 10/19/10 7:31 AM, Jerry Franz wrote:

On 10/19/2010 05:03 AM, Karanbir Singh wrote:

...

On 10/19/2010 12:52 PM, Jerry Franz wrote:

...

Once you publish/distribute GPL licensed code to *anyone*, your obligation to provide source kicks in for *everyone*. In practice, few people hammer at a company "in process" over it. But you *can*.

I am not a lawyer, but you blurb seems to indicate that the issue is applicable to people with the object code, which would make my last point valid.

Only on v3 license code. Most code is still under v2.

V3 just makes it explicit. v2 wasn't intended to force anyone to distribute source to anyone who didn't have binaries, and if it did, it certainly couldn't dictate terms (i.e. you could charge any price you wanted for it).

...

Also, there are legalise around exactly what is considered a product / code snippet / build script and distribution - which is what makes things like NDA's workable.

Actually, the GPL forbids using 'add on' agreements like NDAs that attempt to make it so an end user can't recompile or redistribute the code. The authors thought of those attempts to 'end run' the GPL's obligations when they wrote it. That is why clause 4 of the v2 license (or clauses 8 and 10 of the v3 license) exists.

*v2: 4.* You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

NDAs that attempt to impose *restrictions* on the GPL while still publishing/distributing to a third party can't overcome the basic legal obligations of the GPL and this is *by design*. And yes, code snippets and build scripts are covered, too. See clause 3 of the v2 license.

Being as deeply involved in a FOSS exercise like CentOS as you are, you really should take the time to fully understand the license that enables it to happen at all.

There are many different licenses covering code in Linux and *bsd distributions. It doesn't make sense to consider one of them any more important than the others. Especially the one that often prevents 'best of breed' combinations of components from being possible with its restrictions.