2 Nov
2004
2 Nov
'04
5 p.m.
Serge Marelli wrote:
Actually... NO!
The GPL states that if you "distribute" the software (in ANY form,
binary or not) then you're obliged to provide _means_ to find the source
code and you're _obliged_ to grant permission to modify and
re-distribute in _any_ form your user wish.
You're not allowed to put ANY limitation to the rights of users!
Maybe you are right. But *who* cares??? Not even the FSF! That's how
Redhat's business model works since they dropped consumer Redhat (7.3,
8, 9). We are paying 700 Euro for each server/year at work for Redhat
Enterprise ES (2.1 & 3) and are still limited to 2 CPUs per server. If
you have more than 2 processors per machine you have to take the AS
version for 1300 Euro per machine/year. The source RPMs are still free
and downloadable from Redhat's site, but not the binay RPMs. If you want
to use Redhat Enterprise without any restrictions, you have to recompile
everything yourself or use http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/ Redhat is fully
GPL'ed (inclusive the installer).
Universities who used consumer Redhat (7.3, 8, 9) on Linux clusters for
numerical computations are migrating to other distros, because Redhat
Enterprise is not affordable anymore on midsized clusters (ie 64 node
clusters).
This is the reason why I am advocating for Slackware on non Oracle
servers at work ;-) Downside of Whitebox Enterprise Linux: Oracle is
only certified for the real Redhat. Oracle will never help you if you
have problems with a recompiled version of Redhat Enterprise Linux.
Redhat made much money and is doing very strongly since they introduced
their new business model and as far as *I* know, the FSF didn't
complain! Only Sun is attacking Redhat and says that Solaris is less
expensive and less restrictive than Redhat Linux. Sun is only comparing
Enterprise grade Un*x systems (ie Oracle certified), Slackware, Debian,
Fedora do *not* count!
Greetings, Patrick