Ray Van Dolson wrote:
>>> You can not redistribute the redhat-logos or redhat-artwork binary
>>> packages to others unless you are selling your media. You also can not
>>> distribute those 2 source or binary RPMS without editing and removing the
>>> logos / trademark related things in them. Since the ISOs in question on
>>> the Bittorrent sites distribute those files, they are illegal per Red
>>> Hat's trademark policies.
>>>
>>> Now USING the RHEL discs (not distributing them to others, but installing
>>> on your own equipment) is a totally different story (and much more
>>> restrictive). You may not install any RHEL packages that are provided by
>>> Red Hat on ANY machines that you have not purchased an entitlement for.
>>> That means on test machines, production machines, whatever. No
>>> entitlement, no install allowed. It does not matter whether you want
>>> "Support" or not.
>>>
>>> Red Hat has the right to audit your equipment for up to 1 year after your
>>> last license expires for compliance.
>> wow, that goes way beyond what I thought. Can you point to an
>> authoritative reference for this? I'd like to hit some guys over the head
>> with it at work, they install RHEL4 all over the place without contracts
>> (or updates), it drives me nuts, I keep saying "USE CENTOS" and its like
>> 'oh, vendor XYZ says they only support RHEL', and my arguing that they
>> aren't paying for any support doesn't seem to matter.
>>
>
> What we need is a case that's been taken to court and a verdict given.
> :) I've long tried to get an answer from RH as to whether or not I can
> reinstall their media on other machines just "without" buying an
> entitlement (after all you can continue using RH after the 30 demo
> expires).
It doesn't matter much whether they enforce that or not. As soon as a
security vulnerability is discovered that you can't get the update to
fix you are pretty much fried anyway. Personally, I wouldn't want an
old RHEL4 with no updates on my network.
The other thing people need to consider about most licensed software is
that you really need to triple the price that you'd expect when you are
considering it, because if you need to keep something running all the
time you will need a primary and backup system plus a test install where
you can experiment with changes.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com