[Centos] Red Hat Legal Targets www.centos.org website content

[Scott Sharkey]

Dag Wieers wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
> 
> 
>>I think RH's going a bit overboard, as there really was no confusion as to
>>whether or not RH was supporting CentOS.
> 
> 
> Well, I would not necessarily draw that conclusion. People not accustomed 
> with terminology or the Internet can make wrong assumptions. I regularly 
> get a mail asking how they can update their RHEL distribution using my 
> repositories (when they specifically mean updates).

...

> That's why I think an official legal complaint should indicate what clear 
> actions they want. Maybe a few specific examples that they think indicate 
> the problem. They should be required to specifically tell what the problem 
> is instead of some vague legal terms that I will never know whether I 
> comply with or not.

...

> It would be nice to know exactly what is required in this situation. The 
> secrecy is causing FUD about the whole subject and is damaging Red Hat's 
> reputation indirectly too.


They would really prefer that you cease operations, discontinue your 
product, and force everyone to purchase their (overpriced) products. 
Unfortunately, for them, the GPL prevents them from actually trying to 
make that happen, so they resort to vague threats, and threats they know 
are unenforceable (like restricting linking - which I seriously doubt 
would hold up in any court anywhere, since they have "published" this 
info into a public forum (the internet)).  They are hoping you will 
think it's more trouble to comply, and fold your shop.

I no longer recommend that company to my clients for any Linux work, 
because they are completely out of touch with the Linux movement, and 
Linux' core values.  I now happily recommend any of their competitors 
when my clients ask me what distros.  I do recommend CentOS for most 
everyone.

-Scott