[CentOS] Does Huawei break the license of CentOS?

Wed Feb 21 16:58:37 UTC 2018
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

On 02/21/2018 10:02 AM, Peter Kjellström wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Feb 2018 09:31:20 +0800
> Genghuang Wang <wangtianjiao.wang959 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hello, Peter, thanks for your reply
>>
>> 1. Huawei DOES change the distribution EULA, if type in the following
>> command: vi /usr/share/eula/eula.en_US
>> you can see it changed to "HUAWEI EulerOS-2.0"
>> which is a copyright one, let alone original GPL license.
> 
> That EULA may be meant to apply to Euler OS specific components or it's
> just a, likely incompatible, corporate legal boiler plate. Either way,
> it does not overide individual GPL components repective licenses.
>  
>> According to CentOS Linux EULA
>> The Distribution is released as GPLv2. Individual packages in the
>> distribution come with their own licences.
> 
> Maybe someone from the CentOS project or Redhat can comment further on
> this. To me it seems they don't, at a first glance, use any CentOS
> specific things but rather rebuilds upstream RHEL in a similar manner
> to CentOS. If so then we're back to the license of all the individual
> components...
> 
>> So the Distribution license is violated in this sense.
>>

But, they are NOT distributing CentOS Linux, but something else.  As
long as they follow the license requirements for individual componets /
packages from which they are using the source code, that is the
requirement they have to meet.  If they use an open source license to
build an individual package, they have to meet the requirements of that
project.  The 'combination' of a set of packages into different work
under a different name means you have to meet the requirements of the
individual things you included.  If they BASE off of and do not CLAIM to
be something, they get to decide how they distribute what they created
.. based on the component parts.  (IMHO .. IANAL)

>> 2. GPL is a strong copyleft license, which means that any derivative
>> work to be open-source under the same GPL license, this to be prevent
>> it from switching to some more permissive license. So release under a
>> copyright license with the statement linking to "open source
>> license",which is done by Huawei, is not allowed.
> 
> I'm well aware of what the GPL is. Clearly any rebuilt/modified
> packages/components with GPL license will still be GPL.
> 
> rpm query on EulerOS packages (sampled) does not claim Huawei license
> but seems to retain original GPL.
> 
>> 3. Euler OS by Huawei does not have any public source code repository.
> 
> Well they don't have to. However they have to provide source upon
> request. Convenient src.rpm repo is going beyond what is required.
> 
> In the end I supose that's all it boils down to. Will they provide
> source if poked?

Exactly .. this is the key.

> 
> /Peter 

If they retain all the individual licensing on all the packages, and
modify the centos-release and other centos* packaging, they are likely
following the letter of the law.

Of course, they have to give source code if requested by users who have
their binaries (assuming the license is copyleft and requires it for
that package).

IANAL, but if they remove the pieces of CentOS Linux that contain
trademarks (the centos-* ... the * being release, indexhtml, artwork,
etc.) AND if they build and sign their own stuff based on the CentOS
source code, AND they follow the original licensing requirements for the
individual packages, then again, they are likely meeting all
requirements.

As stated a couple times already .. this is just my opinion based on my
understanding.  I am not a lawyer, nor do I speak for anyone except myself.

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes

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