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Red Hat License Challenged
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.
So now the /. editors are posting stories that they are going to immediately refute and say isn't a story at all? I love this place :).
More amazing is that this story will generate hundreds of comments.
Nosce te Ipsum
...commenting on this story, since the editors have already done it for us? Must be a slow day ;-)
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
At least things are getting more efficient around here. The editors are posting bogus news stories, then retracting them themselves before someone points it out. I call that progress!
... they are entitled to demand whatever concessions they think the market will bear.
Gee, when Microsoft (and other "bad" companies) does that kind of thing, everyone here gets upset. I wonder why that is.
The problem with Services contracts for Linux boxes is that you're allowed to install as many machines as you want (obviously - its GPL software). When clients only take out a service contract for some of their machines, then they have to have a certain amount of cover in their contracts to deal with the fact that you can pretty much guarantee that, out of the 5 servers you have, its always the one with the Service Contract that has the problem.
Creative server registering of this type has been catching them out for a while, so they are trying to minimise it with that change.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
At first when I read this headline, it scared me, especially with all the SCO stuff going on, its getting harder for me to explain to my bosses how the Linux licensing works and what is going on.
- tom -
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.
Then why is it news?
End why is it that all the legal stuf seems to have become so important in the Open-Source/Unix® world. Can't we just go on and write interesting programs and good code?
Move along people, there's nothing to see here...
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?
From the EULA: .. I didn't think you could add elements to the GPL and still call it a GPL license .. ?
"If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed Server."
Clearly, they are talking about the services, but I agree with the above posters, why post this as news if the letter itself is bogus ?
He also says:
Along these lines, simply installing GNU/Linux binds me to the following "extensions" to the GPL
But
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.
His relevant quandry seems to be:
And like the editor says, that's for the support services. If you want support, you pay for each server. If you're signed up for support for 3 boxes, RedHat has the right to come in and make sure you're running 3 boxes, not 6. Otherwise, they're going to charge you a support fee for 6.
Way to go Michael, for publicly spanking that boy.
/. where we all can ridicule him for his mistake.
This could have easily been relegated to "not news" since it's apparent that McNett simply misunderstood. But I'm all for public humiliation, especially here on
If this is your opinion, why are you reading? Why are you posting? You're acting like the religious nuts that listen to Howard Stern all day just so they can find something to complain about. If you don't like it, change the fucking channel.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
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!
There are some reasonable limtiations for the audits. If you buy a product including services, the burdon on RH would increase with every deployement, so it seems reasonable to charge per server. But how can you free the software and not the service ?
The point remains to be checked, is there a conflict with the GPL ?
The argument is that you can download and install all the open source parts of RH advanced server under the GPL without ever agreeing to this EULA.
The interesting side effect of all this is that you are free to run as many copies of RHAS as you want until you buy even one copy. Once you 'taint' your company with even one fully licensed and supported copy of RHAS, you have agreed to this per-server licensing, and audits to make sure that you have enough licenses to cover all of your servers.
This may violate the GPL in the part that says "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
RedHat doesnt have anywhere close to a monopoly on any market that it produces products for.
Microsoft has monopolies (ones that have been found guilt of illegally maintaining, even) in several markets.
What's wrong with saying-
/. is your can post your own reply AND other people actually READ them! Try that at your favorite newspaper site
"Okay, here's a story that you will prob see all over your favorite Free Software Slanted News Sites today. Here's what's wrong with it..."
The title says it all really: They are EDITORS. Not gatekeepers that post stories only, they have a staggering ability to actually add there own text. *yawn*
I see them taken to task often (and rightfully so) for posting dupes, unchecked links, etc...and they deserve the hassles on that stuff
Don't agree with his editorializing? Cool thing about
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Um, no. It's all about the service contract, not the software. If you aren't compliant, then your service sontract with redhat is invalid. You can happily continue to use the software all you want, but you're not entitled to their corporate support anymore.
As GPL does not say anything about service and support, there is no conflict whatsoever.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Pardon? I can't install the product without purchasing additional services from RedHat...?
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
This is more like buying 2 pickup trucks, one with an extended warrenty, and one with out, and trying to use the *single* warrenty on both vehicles.
It would seem to me that Red Hat, in the time it's been offering its Advanced Server product, hasn't audited anyone who's been sufficiently upset by it to complain publicly.
Contrast with the BSA/Microsoft--their "audits" are more akin to "raids", with all the hostility implied.
I'm with Michael on this one. Red Hat offers support per-server-installation. If you want the support, you have to buy it for all servers, because otherwise you can buy one contract and just sorta fudge which server it's actually attached to at any given time.
Coupled with reasonable restrictions on these audits, I see no reason to be worried about this. As has been said, if you don't want Red Hat's service contract, you can copy the GPLed bits of RHAS to your heart's content.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Here's a suggestion: read the story and the sources before commenting ? Even try reading the story posted at the top.
If you did, you would realise that this is to stop customer's abusing their service contract with RH. Shock, horror, customer's abusing a contract, surely not!
Here's how it works. I install 50 copies of RH on my servers. I take out a service contract for just one of them with RH. Guess which is the server that always seems to have the problems....
RH's licence change for it's *services* stops that abuse.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
That is exactly what it is. If you want support for ten servers then you have to buy support for ten servers. If they didn't license there support that way companies would buy one support contract and use it for all there servers. Don't want the support contract? Don't buy it. You can still install Red Hat on all your servers for free.
Disclaimer. I own Red Hat stock
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.
As far as I understand, audits as a contract stipulation are perfectly legal as long as they're worked out in advance and agreed by both parties.
Hostile audits (BSA tactics) are or ought be illegal, but contractually-stipulated audits are the same thing as me saying to you "I give you permission to come into my house and look around at some future date of your choosing." There is nothing inherently legal about that.
Now, if you show up at the door without me agreeing and demand to search the place, THAT'S illegal.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
First, unlike the slashdot editors, ;) IANAL. That said, I'm fairly sure a lot of people aren't reading this, and haven't looked at the RHEL license. As if they ever do. ;) (The letter mentioned in the article is only concerned with RH Enterprise Linux versions by the way, and the clauses do not appear in the other versions as far as I could see.) Really though there are some serious points here. I'd suggest that everyone who is really interested in this should go look at the license agreements online on Red Hat's site. Some other people have already quoted some of it, but I'll give a brief summary here of the questionable parts.
Read that carefully. (just like it says! heh) It says that if you do not agree to the Subscription Agreement then you must not use RHEL. It doesn't say you can't use RHEN or Red Hat Support Services, it says you can not use Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Here it says clearly, if you want to install RHEL on additional systems, you must purchase support for each system from Red Hat. Notice that it uses the term "Installed System" which it has already defined as "the hardware on which the Software is installed" and the Software was defined in the first part to mean RHEL in general. It does not mention RHEN or support services. It is strictly defined as hardware that has RHEL installed on it.
The Agreement also goes on to talk about various auditing and fines for not buying support for all your systems, but it looks like we've pretty much already gotten to the primary problems I think. If you use RHEL (which is licensed under the Gnu GPL) and you haven't purchased support, you are in violation of the Agreement. Then again, I don't see how the Agreement can be valid, since it places additional restrictions on the use of the software, which is prohibited by the Gnu GPL.
This is SO educational! -- Kintaro Oe
Software (quote): 'This Subscription Agreement (the "Agreement") is between Red Hat, Inc. ("Red Hat") and any purchaser or user ("Customer") of Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (or Red Hat Linux Advanced Server), Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES or Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS (collectively, "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" or "the Software").'
Installed Services (quote): 'The term "Installed Systems" means the number of Systems on which Customer installs the Software.'
So Installed Systems applies only to the systems that have "the Software" which they explicitly define as specific ENTERPRISE packages. These packages include "services". If a person does not want "services" they can get a non entreprise version and install it whereever to their heart's content.
Hmmm... I don't think that's what RedHat wants, but it seems to be the end result. I would think that they would come up with some scheme to label "THIS" box as the one that's suppored rather than sending their customers elsewhere.
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
I am not a laywer. Nor am I embarassed by having been confused by these documents. They *are* confusing, as is evidenced by the spectrum of commentary we're now seeing here on slashdot.
Neither is michael a lawyer, which is why I sent my email requesting clarification to the FSF and not Slashdot, but that's neither here nor there. I welcome the additional exposure of my confusion to other people who may be able to provide a meaningful analysis.
I do not agree that the EULA and additional license cover only the services side of Red Hat's offering. In fact, to my eye the read exactly the opposite -- expressly disallowing the installation of the Red Hat product in the absence of a matching service agreement. These documents would appear to me to be specifically denying me the ability to install the software without buying services. I do not believe that the GPL permits such subversion and I am unconvinced that Red Hat has found a loophole that allows this sort of restriction on usage.
Even if they have found a loophole in the GPL, I think that most would agree that such restrictions on usage are not in keeping with the spirit of the GPL and I am very interested in hearing the FSF's opinion on the matter.
Thanks for all the feedback, those who provided reasoned commentary.
Yes. "What the market will bear" does imply finding the point at which the burden is just shy of driving customers away. You think of this burden as a level of abuse, but another term for it is "price". Part of the price may be monetary, part of it may be agreement to terms set out by the company.
Don't take Microsoft for instance. They are extremely atypical. Take Random Company X for instance. They don't "take" more and more concessions. They don't "abuse the customer" more and more. They offer a more restricted product, and customers then decide if they still want it. Everyone had better expect to "bear as much as they can bear"; this is how prices are set in a market.
The problem with Microsoft isn't the supposedly extreme restrictions they put on their software; the problem is whether you realistically have the choice to not use it. With MS I would argue you don't neccessarily have that choice. But with RedHat? Does anyone feel locked in to RedHat??? Seems to me like "the market is entitled to tell them to fuck off", so they are free and expected, yes even "entitled" to ask for "whatever concessions they think the market will bear". This doesn't damage capitalism, this is capitalism. The threat to capitalism worth worrying about is successful capitalists.