[CentOS] RHEL on The Pirate Bay, Mininova, etc

[Les Mikesell]

Johnny Hughes wrote:
>
>>> And in this case, the precedents of hundreds years of contractual law
>>> would have to be overturned. The GPL license covers source code
>>> access. The RHEL license covers binary access without restricting your
>>> rights towards source code.
>>
>> I don't recall any distinction between what you can do with binaries 
>> and source mentioned in the GPL beyond the requirement that sources 
>> must be made available too.  And section 6 (of GPLv2) states explictly 
>> that "You may not impose any further restrictions...".  Of course not 
>> all of RHEL is covered by the GPL.
>>
> 
> They are not imposing any restrictions on the software ... you have 
> signed an agreement that as long as you are entitled to get updates from 
> RHN that you will not do those things (it is an if/then statement). 

But those things involve restrictions on the software.

 > It
> is a contract, no one is forcing you to sign it.  If you do sign it, 
> then you are obligated to to meet the requirements in it.
> 
> If you don't like the conditions, then cancel the subscription and you 
> can use their software without updates.

It's not a matter of liking it or not, I just don't understand how 
someone can distribute software with a license that says as a condition 
of redistribution you can't impose further restrictions along with a 
required contract that imposes further restrictions - regardless of a 
tie-in with a subscription.

> Red Hat is a great open source company, it is because of the way they 
> distribute their source code that CentOS can exist.

No argument there, but restrictions are restrictions.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com