hi all, I'm a newcomer to CentOS but not to linux and open source. I have a point of view as a user, as a developer and as an owner of a little llc in Hungary. > I don't know if it's true. Maintaining CentOS is (I over-simplify) rebuilding RH's SRPMs. > Without the SRPMs, it takes a lot of people to backport patch all the > packages, compile, test/QA,... It's what the Fedora Legacy project is > currently doing and it is a lot of work for a lot of people. Work very > different in nature from the "simple" rebuilding required to maintain > CentOS. I think this guy has the point. If RedHat would just satisfy the requirements of GPL that would be enough that they snail mail their patches. Or put a printed edition into a library somewhere in the states or - the most extreme case and disputable - they should tell they got the money for support and not the modification and not redistribute the patches. On the other hand the guy misses the point that CentOS is able to survive if RH doesn't release SRPMS. It would be harder but not impossible. To be clear: yes, I'm sure half of the management of RH just gives back the code because they have to. BUT. What do you think why the big players in industry like HP, Intel, IBM etc. support linux kernel developement and other open source projjects? Just because they are interested in having another platform not just Windows and Solaris and there's a hype and request from users. But they have to be sure they can give support. The big players and big companies rely on official support. That's where RedHat comes into the scene. They make the relationship with comapanies like oracle, building test centers, do a lot of Q/A and pay lots of of develepoers. And what a surprise: lot of IT managers wouldn't support their effort with as less money as 100$/year/system. Which would be more than enough if all the companies who would like to use RHEL just pay this amount of money. So RedHat wants to make sure they can pay the developers and of course make a profit, too. That's the way goes. RedHat takes the way of "ransom support" - get it whether you want or not - but that's much more honest than other companies strategy and pricing. If there's no RHEL there's no patches and 5 years of continous support and security updates - a must for the middle sized companies with serious IT management and infrastructure. There would be no CentOS, WhiteBox, TaoLinux etc. What I dislike in this situation is that they not allow to use the RedHat and RHEL expression if the website just says that CentOS isn't related to RedHat and "just" rebuild the sources. Thanks your attention, Ago