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Red Hat License Challenged

Posted by michael on from the challenge-is-good dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "David McNett has noticed an apparent discrepancy between the Red Hat Linux EULA and the GPL. He has written an open letter to the FSF asking for their opinion on the matter. Does Red Hat have the right to "audit your facilities and records" to ensure compliance with their license?" McNett misreads the Red Hat documents. Their contract is for the various services, not the software, and for the services they are entitled to demand whatever concessions they think the market will bear.

5 of 391 comments (clear)

  1. FSF = oracle? by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why should the FSF be able to interpret Red Hat's inconsistent licensing terms? Wouldn't it be more natural to natural to ask Red Hat for a clarification first?

  2. Not so fast... by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, I see his point.

    RH is saying that if you signup one of your servers to participate in their support services, that they have a right to audit your site (which may be ok), but they seem to imply that if you have 5 other RH servers (that arent participating in their services), they have a right to backbill you (with penalty) as if those servers were participating.

    Now, maybe its legally ok for them to ask you to agree to this - but it does seem at quesition wether its 'ethical', and how they can reconcile that with the GPL.

    I would definately be interested to read the FSF's response when they publish it.

  3. Well- Interesting arguement, but... by Frightened_Turtle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, assuming I read his letter correctly, Red Hat states that the set up of their system, which is based on Linux, is copywrited. Sort of like the difference between a Ford pickup truck and a Dodge pickup truck. We all know what a pickup truck is, so the styling between the two is apparently what is covered. Perhaps this is the concept Red Hat is drawing on.

    But I guess the question is, when adding a second server to the system, does this count as violation of the license? When I buy a pickup truck, I can modify it in any way I feel like -- but I will void the warranty on the truck. This means that I can't get free work done should something fail, because that failure could be caused by one of the modifications I made.

    The GPL pretty well allows users to modify whatever they want, so long as they share what they did with the public. But if you created an application that can be run in a GPLed environment, but is not actually part of it, I would assume that this application is to be considered your intellectual property and therefore you can place your own licensing on it.

    So- Does Red Hat have any proprietary code in there? I guess in such an event, they could demand that you purchase more licenses for the extra servers you want to add. But if not, then I guess all they could do is claim you voided the warranty, and declare you inelligable for any tech support or warrantied upgrades.

    But, that's just my opinion. I think I'll leave this for the legally-experienced to hack out.

    --


    Whew! This water sure is cold!
  4. His reading looks ok to me... by mccalli · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Specifically, here are the clauses he's bringing to attention (reproduced from the article):

    • "If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed Server."

      Pardon? I can't install the product without purchasing additional services from RedHat...?

    • "During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer's facilities and records from time to time in order to verify Customer's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement"

      OK - so Red Hat can come in and check I'm not claiming their services for more installations than they authorised their services for. Entirely reasonable. However, "terms and conditions of this Agreement" include the contentious point above, which is certainly not agreeable to.

    Not being a RedHat Enterprise customer, I don't have a copy of the license to hand. To any that do: is the term 'Installed Server' defined anywhere? If so, what is the definition please? If it's just a server with an installation of the code on it, then there would appear to be a problem. If the definition is along the lines of 'a server with an installation for which services are also being claimed', then there would appear to be no problem.

    Anyone able to clarify that?

    Cheers,
    Ian

  5. It was good to post this article! by Theovon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People complain about Slashdot staff being stilly for posting an article which they immediately retract. Those people don't get it.

    Not to say that Slashdot is necessarily good journalism, but a good journalist cares about presenting the truth to the reader. (I guess there aren't many good journalists in the world.) In this case, we have someone with an open letter who is passing misinformation. Slashdot editors take this opportunity to publically point out the error in the article in an equally (if not moreso) open manner. This helps everyone.

    Slashdot did a good thing.