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Red Hat & Centos On Name Usage

Posted by Hemos on from the same-problem-as-a-long-time dept.

Mister Incognito writes "As you probably know, Centos is a free distribution compiled from sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. As requested, the distro has any references to Red Hat removed. But now Red Hat has decided that Centos must not even mention their name on the web site, or link to Red Hat, or even use metatags with its name on it. " Well, actually, what RHAT has asked for is that Centos comply with the their terms for using the name; Matthew Szulik has talked about this before, and should be noted that not all of the copyright stuff is "bad."

6 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Whitebox by gadago · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wounder if this also applies to whitebox linux?

  2. Really by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My copy of Mandrake still says Redhat when booting. They are an offshoot of Redhat, but haven't really been Redhat for a long time. Why is Redhat only targetting Centros?

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    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    1. Re:Really by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Because centos maintains full binary compatibility with RHEL, and uses all the RHEL packages.

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      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  3. No links? by stevey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Eerily similar to Orbitz story covered today we see the following in their email message:

    "Moreover, our client does not allow others to provide links to our client's web site without permission."

    So people can't link to Red Hat?

  4. Wrong playbook, perhaps? by Rahga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Moreover, our client does not allow others to provide links to our client's web site without permission."

    I enjoy the effort that Red Hat's lawyers seem to be applying to this, but I think that the statement above may have simply been a stock, typical IT notion used by lawyers and not something that Red Hat either believes or enforces. I could be wrong, though....

  5. Truthmark by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Red Hat can't stop Centos from stating which distro they're derived from. It's effectively required by the GPL, so the source inheritance can be traced. They can stop it in the subjective "advertising use", but documenting the fact is protected.

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    make install -not war