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

Mon Feb 14 17:56:55 UTC 2005
Joe Polk <listuser at javelinux.com>

---------- Original Message -----------
> I'm not sure that I'd be willing to recommend CentOS to anyone if I 
> am at the same time bashing the very company who makes it possible. 
> I happen to like Red Hat and use not only RHEL, but Fedora and 
> CentOS -- both of which obtain sustenance from the bosom of Red Hat.
> 
> Why don't you recommend a recompilation of SuSE, instead?  Oh, I 
> forgot.   There isn't one (at least of which I am aware).
> 
> BK
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> http://lists.caosity.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
------- End of Original Message -------


I disagree. I have no problem bashing RH especially due to this. This is
rediculous. RH has adopted nearly all of the tactics that pitched the
community against Microsoft. I contend that they only distribute source
because they have to. They may very well 'give' to the community but they get
a lot too. This response was sent by their lawyers. I would imagine that if
heat comes down, they can back away and say, "well legal got a little
aggressive blah blah blah" and simply retract. But if it works and it keeps
people from adopting Centos or others from saying, "This distro is based on
RH" then hey, they get some cake. I stopped sending RH money because they
basically told end users, "Unless you're coming with a huge contract go run
Fedora." Fine, I'll take my money elsewhere. I went to SuSe. I came to CentOS
because I like the update model and I like RH's code. As a company, they are
becoming unethical and beasty. I have no time for that. It's tactics like this
that make me almost wish they'd go belly up. They need the chip knocked off
their shoulder. You can make money without becoming an ass about it. I'm
becoming more convinced they are looking for more respect from Sun and
Microsoft than from their customers. And if you think they're concerned about
what the community thinks, you're nuts. I think they feel they have enough
developers that the community is becoming a nuesance to them. They adhere to
the GPL only to the letter. If they weren't "trapped" by it, they'd adopted a
new license in a heartbeat.  In short, they seem to be a blend of Caldera and
Microsoft. Don't get me wrong, I know CentOS depends on their source, but
don't go defending them as a company. They would hold that back if they could.


--
<<JAV>>