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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
... 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 -
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.
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!
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.
The news is somebody worrying about the redhat EULA and taking their interpretation to FSF for an opinion. The comment by michael is just that - a comment, not a retraction or whatever.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
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.
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