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CentOS 5 Released
jonesy16 writes "Only a few weeks behind the release of Red Hat Enterprise 5, CentOS announced today the immediate release of version 5 of the free derivative of RHEL 5. Torrents are available for both i386 and x86_64. New features include compiz and AIGLX support as well as better virtualization and thin-client support. Package updates include Apache-2.2, kernel-2.6.18, Gnome-2.16, and KDE-3.5."
I know you're trolling but in my last job we had CentOS running on 30+ servers (the rest were Win2k3 servers). I find CentOS to be stable, easy to maintain and navigate around, and most importantly reliable with regular and prompt updates.
I want an enterprise quality Linux to run a database server on it. But I don't want to pay the Redhat price tag; CentOS gives me the quality of Redhat Enterprise Linux for free. So it's running my database server and doing so quite well too.
What jobs were the Cent servers doing? How well did they integrate into Windows Active Directory?
I sometimes think about adding some Linux machines to Windows networks, but worry about passing security back and forth.
Given the traffic on the mailing lists, I would say yes, a whole lot of people are using it. In my organization, all desktops and secondary servers run CentOS. We keep RHEL on a few critical servers just for the sake of our (sysadmin) jobs.
Strange. The last thing I'd want in an enterprise server is compiz.
We use CentOS at work extensively for our engineering stations and the IT dept. uses it on their Linux servers. Very stable, and compatible with our engineering tools, and the IT people don't have to worry about licensing.
Who uses CentOS? Well, the website of this *ahem* rather famous city runs on it :)
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
We use Cent where I work. There's a special "Server" CD that strips out pretty much everything that's not a major requirement. I think they're taking the same path that Microsoft has with Windows: you put one version on the server, and another version on the client, and it's all tested to work very well together. In that respect, Compiz on the client might be considered a feature.
"I do a grep for shit, bollocks, and tits before checking in code. I'm professional..." -RECURSIVE_META_JOKE, reddit.com
And it's not only enterprise-quality, but since it essentially is RHEL without the branding, all documentation for RHEL works for CentOS as well. Though the Cent OS user can't depend on support from Red Hat, he could still use something like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed or whatever. If only all enterprise-level software was both well-documented in the public sphere and had Free versions out there.
About 75% of the University of Wisconsin Computer Science dept. (graduates + faculty + computer labs) uses CentOS. That's, I dunno, 400 computers?
The only use I see for something like CentOS is for a dev or UAT environment, when you're running the same RHEL version in production. This gives you two (three) essentially identical environments, but you've only gotta pay the man for one copy.
You're doing it wrong.
CENTOS is ideal for any dev work that will eventually be deployed to RHEL, as its basically the same binaries with the redhat copyrighted stuff removed. ( and sans support contract ...)
we tend to set up vm's as dev and staging environments per project, last count there was about 30 dormant and 5 active on our vmware box.
as for the compiz & desktop candy.. you can thank fedora for that finding its way to centos... of course you dont have to install or even use it.
I'm a big fan of the servercd version, containing just the bare minimum for a server installation and really hope the developers will produce one even for version 5.
Centos rocks!!!
I used to use CentOS for my server boxes, however version 3 left a very bad taste in my mouth. I then attempted to roll out CentOS 4 on a new box I was preparing for a customer (seeing if it was any improvement over version 3) and it had some problem that prevented it from rebooting for the first time after the install. I've switched to running Fedora 5/6 on my servers and everything has been much more stable.
OMG, pirates!! I'm sooo calling the BSA.
Wehre you trying to do a RAID-1 Mirror on a SATA controller by any chance? I have had to rewrite the grub config to the "secondary" drive more times than I care to mention
I know you are trolling but yes. CentOS is great for Development were your System Admins' take care of everything and if you move the machine to production you can get a CentOS or Redhat maintenance contract.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
You're just an armchair fanboy who knows nothing about the real state of OSS. You clearly have no idea of who RedHat employs, what they do and the projects RedHat host and support. Ever even seen http://sources.redhat.com? No of course not. Why would you? You're just a user.
RH admitted that 300+ packages in RHEL5 are rpms from FC6. RHEL 5 strongly resembles of FC6... it is nothing but augmented version of it anyway ...and CentOS is exactly that as well.
Yes, used on hundreds of servers at a University in the UK with no issues. Stuff that has commercial support goes on RHEL; but the rest goes on CentOS to maintain an identical environment to administer.
How about on an Enterprise Desktop???? Maybe you have heard of those :P
A few people use it ... well, maybe more than a few as we have had 2 million unique IP Addresses do updates against our yum repositories in the last 12 months.
Heh, there must be a mod from Tuttle out there.
Apparently you haven't heard of this thing called RPM and how you can install or remove packages whenever it pleases you. Besides, if you don't actually run X on your servers, the only side-effect of having it installed is wasting some disk space.
Well, Duke University Shared Cluster Resource (http://www.csem.duke.edu/, over 1,100 processors and still growing) has used CentOS for the last couple of years, and it was working just fine.
You can also do:
/dev/sda /boot is on the first partition)
/dev/sdb
grub
grub> device (hd0)
grub> root (hd0,0) (if
grub> setup (hd0)
and then the exact same for
Then both disks are bootable via grub. After that you won't have to mess with grub.conf again.
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Yes, you're right. I still cannot think of many compelling reasons to run a server with a default run level of 5
All I see them doing is exercising their rights under the GPL using others' copyrighted code, which is, surprise surprise, exactly what Red Hat does with the vast majority of the code in their products...
"Only a few weeks behind the release of RedHat Enterprise 5"? Whereas StartCom released its clone almost two weeks ago! However /. doesn't think it was news ;-) , but Linux-Watch did...
His point is that most of the code in Red Hat products is not owned or written by Red Hat, as is the case with every other distro. They simply feature freeze and stabilize it, and then sell support contracts for it. They are selling support, not the product.
If Red Hat did not want this to happen, they could simply not base their product on GPL software. Of course, if they did that, they would never have become profitable in the first place, because there is no way they could have built a product as capable as RHEL5 from the ground up completely on their own and stayed in business.
Red Hat, while contributing as you point out, piggyback's on other peoples' work, and CentOS is doing the exact same thing to Red Hat. I don't see an issue here.
Separated at birth?
Tuttle City Manager Jerry A. Taylor
Dwarf Dopey
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
I know that I'm feeding the troll... but the entire atmospheric science department (and Marshall Spaceflight Center employees, and National Weather Service employees on the UAH network) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville uses CentOS. In my experience, it's a very solid *nix build, with good coding implementation built in. My only beef is the network op not giving me root access... but then again, that's b/c they don't trust anyone in that department.
Debian is best for running non-commercial stuff on, but for most HP stuff and VMware server etc (that officially support RHEL4) CentOS is the way to go. The server install (single CD with all the stuff you need) rules, hope they make one for CentOS5 soon.
When installing for example VMware Server, all the stuff one needs is already in. Even the kernel modules load without any recompiling.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
What about students, both formal and informal? Red Hat is the most popular distro when it comes to finding books. A free (as in beer) clone that you can work the exercises & examples on without the distraction and niggle of differences is a Good Thing(tm).
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
http://www.tuttle-ok.gov/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SE C={CC5DEFB6-1B2A-4783-A5F8-A92275C95081}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_A._Taylor
City Manager Jerry A. Taylor
Jerry A. Taylor I am pleased to serve the citizens of the City of Tuttle. I am dedicated to working with the City Government Officials and citizens to ensure Tuttle maintains the qualities that makes it a great place to live. Many challenges lie ahead to meet the rapid growth of this community. The citizens of this city worked many hours to help develop a consolidated plan for growth of the city through the year 2020. This plan ensures that future growth is managed in an orderly manner. Having a plan provides direction and guidelines to ensure city services are available to accomodate the demand resulting from increased growth. I welcome new ideas to enrich the community and provide a better quality of life for all residents. Please call me, or come by my office at City Hall. My door is always open and I answer all calls.
No, his "point" was very clear. He believes that Red Hat do not pay for the work they are using. This is demonstratively wrong, as Red Hat do employ a large number of high profile OSS developers and directly support some very important OSS projects. They obviously use other OSS projects that they do not support, but Red Hat are putting in just as much as they get out. So for Red Hat it is a zero sum game and they make all their money from support contracts.
Now, projects like CentOS are not paying for OSS developers and are not putting anything in to the OSS projects they are distributing, so lets not try and pretend they have the moral high ground or anything. All CentOS are doing is spending a couple of weeks deleting anything that is not redistributable, hardly time well spent. The net effect of CentOS is that it draws away customers from Red Hat. They are indirectly slowing funding to OSS projects.
Red Hat gives as much as it takes. CentOS just takes.
City manager of Tuttle decries more sophisticated attacks against his website, threatening legal ramifications against hacker terror networks who have targetted him for termination.
Make a few bad jokes on
http://www.rocksclusters.org/
ROCKS cluster at our university's department of economics.
There is a couple of clusters registered on the site, too.
Wikipedia says:
"Rocks Cluster Distribution is a Linux distribution intended for computer clusters. Rocks is based on CentOS, but uses a modified anaconda installer that simplifies mass installation onto many computers."
sw5YRhw4ln3pr7$Ock1/4ma0u8Lw2Tm5l6/7DOiC5e6t4NSb6
If you are running RHEL in prod, then nothing in the license stops you from installing it on the dev machines. We do that, and it works great because we have to maintain only 1 distro in the whole environment.
The RHN subscription is for access to the download page, and for support. If you have two licenses, then it entitles you to have support for 2 machines, but doesn't in any way prevent you from installing on a third machine. Just an FYI, in case you weren't aware of it.
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
Well ... it seems that the Fedora team (and Board Chairman) do not seem to share your opinion of CentOS (they must not have gotten the memo to hate CentOS before we shared a FOSDEM 2007 devroom). Also see:
... but instead used debian or ubuntu. Of course they wouldn't ... Red Hat benefits greatly because CentOS gets software installed that can easily move to their flag ship product when and if the time is right.
... but that is enough for now. No, Red Hat is not loosing sleep because CentOS exists ... indeed, quite the opposite.
LinuxFormat Article
I'm sure that Red Hat would be much better off if the people who want to install a free server did not install CentOS (which can easily run anything on RHEL later if support and a paid for OS is required)
Also, take a look at the Red Hat bugzilla sometime and do a search for CentOS. The code base gets seen / installed by many more people on many more pieces of hardware, many of which would not have installed on RHEL but some other free OS if CentOS were unavailable. This allows RH to get feedback and bug reports from many more people to stablize their codebase. All the time, RH does not need to provide any real support to this group of people.
You can even argue that because of the popularity of CentOS combined with some big name 3rd party repositories like RPMForge and KBS CentOS Extras that a whole new need was demonstrated, and that the EPEL project was created to help fill that need. Again, Red Hat and RHEL users benefit greatly because of this colaboration.
There are other numerous advantages as well
If the advantages that CentOS delivers Red Hat actually existed, Red Hat would be shipping their own free version instead of leaving it to a third party. They stopped providing free versions after Red Hat 9. The didn't stop and then say to themselves "Oh, what have we done! If only someone would come along and produce a freely redistributable version of our product for us!" If CentOS didn't exist people would use other distributions, many of which would be RHEL. The ones that didn't use RHEL wouldn't be a loss to Red Hat, because it would largely be cheapskates who were never going to pay for support anyway.
Red Hat have to publically be seen to support CentOS because it would be a bad PR move to do anything else. CentOS supporters love to squawk about their "right" to redistribute RHEL, because it is an effective method of drowning out any dissenting opinions.
CentOS exists because some people have a fundamental problem simply paying to obtain the benefits of the work Red Hat has put into producing their distribution.
https://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us.html?count ry=buying+a+Red+Hat+Subscription+from+Red+Hat
You need to reread section 5 if you have an RHN subscription. You MAY NOT install redhat software on a machine that does not have an RHN subscription and they MAY ask to audit you.
Did you filter out the dynamic address ranges to get a reasonable estimate of your userbase?
They could have based their server product on *BSD, then close the source and live happily thereafter.
It's only GPL-ish licenses that prevent such behaviour
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
At our bigname hosting company the majority of Linux boxes ran RHEL apart from a few Debian machines. Anything testbed / non customer focussed was running CentOS because for all intents and purposes they are identical.
Yeah, sorry about that - I was doing an update to my CentOS server at home over a flaky broadband link and every time it reconnected I got a different dynamic IP address. BTW how's the other user getting on with their system?
AT&ROFLMAO
That, or can't justify an OS that costs more than Windows does to put on a desktop machine. I mean, yes there are alternatives. Red Had does support the Fedora project after all, and they don't make money on that, other than the same way they make money on CentOS distribution.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
I don't think that's right at all. I've come across the same question in 2 different companies now and the answer has always been that you must have a RHEL subscription for every machine you have RHEL installed on. In fact have a read of the licencing agreement:t ry=buying+a+Red+Hat+Subscription+from+Red+Hat
https://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us.html?coun
Read sections 3.1 and 5.1 in particular. In 5.1 they are saying that you must notify them if the number of installed systems exceeds the number of subscriptions you have, and they will bill you for the extra systems etc.:
Client will promptly notify Red Hat if the number of Installed Systems exceeds the number of Installed Systems for which Client has paid the applicable fee. In its notice, Client will include both the number of additional Installed Systems and the date(s) on which such Installed Systems were put into use. Red Hat will invoice Client for the applicable Services for such Installed Systems on a pro-rata basis and Client will pay for such Services in accordance with this Agreement.
This is why Centos is so useful, you can have as many dev/test/uat/whatever machines as you like without having to worry about subscriptions.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
What about students, both formal and informal?
For formal students, they should be able to buy the academic version of RHEL which, for v4 was $50 for AS.
LOAD ".SIG"
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
I may be being dim, but the default run level is 3. Try it and see.
The should have just called this the "50 Cent".
It depends on what packages you selected during initial installation. If you chose to install X11, then default runlevel will be 5. If not - it will be 3. That simple.
How can they enforce this if Linux is GPLed?
I thought the point of the GPL was that you could sell the software, but you can't keep your customers from making and distributing additional copies.
Redhat can ask you to be nice and not install it, but I doubt they have any real legal recourse if you do.
-Z
Thanks for the link, I see that my claims may not have been true. Still, how does this become compliant with the GPL? Redhat distributes the OS (the source form) on the terms of the GPL. This allows me full redistribution rights, as long as I comply with the trademarks and copyright laws. In other words, I can use it to clone other systems internally and can install the software as I see fit on any other server in the organisation. The problem would be when I try to sell this OS - if I use Redhat's name without their knowledge (since I am selling a copy of RHEL) that would be a violation of their copyright, and their trademarks.
It is a bit dodgy, but I can install the redhat software using up2date, on any system that is registered on RHN. up2date has an option to keep the rpms after they are installed. I can use those rpms (note: now the terms of rhn subscription stop and the gpl enters) on any systems in a way that I deem fit, provided I do not violate the GPL. What is prohibited is me using RHN or the up2date utility on another system. As long as I have my own re-distribution mechanism setup, I can ship those rpms to any other system. This is my take on the license, I may be wrong afterall.
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
If you have a lot of developers, you can give each one their own environment (or virtual environment, take your pick) without having to buy 1 copy of RHEL/developer.
Doesn't take very long for that to be a substantial saving.
Actually the last thing you want on an enterprise server is X11 running. Any admin worth their weight in neoprene mouse pads knows not to run an X server on critical hardware.
Compiz is there for the *desktop* install. Yes, Centos lets you choose and has package sets that reflect your choice of using it as a desktop or server.
Dear CentOS developers,
Please stop hacking my browser. When I visit my favorite site, Slashdot, your software's name keeps appearing on my browser. If you don't stop this at once, I will be forced to call the FBI and report your hacking.
Thank you.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
You are absolutely right. We run RHEL on our mission-critical Asterisk server but Centos on less critical servers. Centos is a little behind Redhat with the updates but they trickle down a few days later after they've had the logos/branding removed.
There's alot to be said for making Centos 100% binary-compatible with RHEL. Like I tell everyone, Centos is Redhat Enterprise with the stickers removed.
Does that make it NickelOS?
If you're talking about UAH's CNS, that's because don't trust anyone in any department. They have some of the oddest, most byzantine network policies imaginable; but I might be biased. I remember the ResNet / Main campus network split around 2001. They basically shut off network access in both dorms (SE and CCRH) for more than a week. During midterms.
Sure, you can install it on 10 machines if you want, but good luck getting RHN and updates to work on 9 of those if you only have a license for one. We just went through this and ended up using Centos 4.4 on our dev boxes and RHEL (that we paid for) on a single mission-critical server. When Redhat gives you no choice, this is what you must do if you want to run an identical environment for test builds.
Another thing that pissed me off was juggling licenses. I used to have our dev box and production box both registered. The dev box was on a temporary demo license that just never expired. However I only had a single subscription to RHN. I would have to visit the RHN site and disable production and enable the dev box if I wanted to enable it, then go back and undo it when production was ready. It got really stupid and I should have just bought another license..but $1k doesn't grow on trees around here.
Why is there any functional difference between CentOS and RHEL? There are different HowTos for installation and operation of various SW on each of RHEL and CentOS. And how about a script that will convert either CentOS or Fedora to look exactly like RedHat for installing/running apps?
--
make install -not war
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Red Hat also make money from the contributions of others? I know Red Hat pays people to work on Linux, but don't they also benefit greatly from a lot of "free" labor from others? Not to knock Red Hat, but just trying to point out that this is the nature of the game with GPL work.
GPL doesn't prevent the standard "you can't copy my software" practice as many believe.
What the GPL says, is that if you give someone a binary copy of the software, the source must either come with it, or be readily available. Now, the giving of that binary copy is still subject to normal copyright laws. If I for instance create a boxed software product, GPL it, and then put it on the shelves of Best Buy (with source on the CD), you still wouldn't necessarily be able to copy it and give it to friends, because you have no distribution rights on the binary, and therefore whether or not you must include the source with it becomes moot.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
All of the Trixbox servers use CentOS4, theres got to be more than a few thousand of those out there.
Cheers,
Dean
It depends on what you are doing with your enterprise server. One thing you can do with an enterprise server is run a FreeNX terminal server for many clients. Granted you don't need to run the server at runlevel 5 or run a LOCAL X-server, but having the xserver installed and usable by clients is not "always" a bad thing.
If a server is behind application-layer switches, firewalls, VLANs, and multiple NAT layers, and the DMZ is well configured, how much more risk does X introduce? Just wondering - - I though X had been cleaned up fairly well for server usage.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Actually there were zero-day exploits for X.org just last week. RHEL updated their packages and CentOS followed suit a few days later.
Better safe than sorry, just like running IIS as an external web server, you can do it but the risk isn't worth the reward and you can do nearly anything via an ssh session anyway.
Uh, how sure are you about that ? Does that mean you aren't patching your dev servers ?
From what I remember from RH licensing (although contract negotiations were two years ago, so things may have changed by now), the definition of support support included errata. Our legal team took this to mean that you can't install Red Hat errata (new packages to patch vulns and bugs) on servers not covered under the license / contract.
Additionally, you have to pay per seat for Satellite provisioning entitlements, so a dev server with a different deployment system makes life a pain in the ass.
In short, our legal team and Red Hat both advised that we had to buy licences for our dev servers. They did discount these generously, but the mere fact that there was any cost in testing and developing on Linux while there wasn't for Windows (due to the organisation site license) was always a big black mark against Linux.
And thus the beauty of free (as in freedom) software. Red Hat takes the work of others, adds a few features, a lot of stability and testing, and sells their result with a support plan for a nifty profit. They give those changes back to the community, which then takes their work and releases a free (as in beer) version for people who don't need the support.
Everyone wins. This is no longer a zero-sum game. I don't understand why that's still so difficult for so many people to understand.
CentOS benefits Redhat as pirating Microsoft Windows benefits Microsoft. They are the same concept, except CentOS is legal while pirating Microsoft Windows is not. If someone is using a nearly 100% compatible version of a particular OS for free, they probably will buy that OS when it comes to business needs.
Where I work, we used RHEL for "commercial" applications, and CentOS for "production" (==not directly revenue generating) applications.
I'm not sure why, but they recently declared that they will stop using CentOS entirely. Any ideas?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Actually, if you choose to configure X the default runlevel is 5. There are other things that require the X Server and Libs, but if you do not configure X it comes up in runlevel 3.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Yeah, but then to use up2date for updates, you have to log in to the Redhat Network and change which machine the entitlements are for before up2date will work. This is a PITA to say the least, and is impossible for more than a handful of machines.
They are a business. To help you understand why you have to do this imagine this.
You own a Open Source company and create software and release it with your logos and branding all over it. Now, I take it because it's GPL, alter it the way I want and release it, but fail to remove your logo and branding. Someone else downloads it and installs it see your logo thinking it's your product and it complete screws up their system because of the changes I made, not you. Now, all the sudden this Company attacks you publicly and in the courts. You're business has been damage by no fault of your own.
You have to remove everything, because they are protecting their company. The fact that CentOS exist you should be thanking Redhat. They made it possible to run a Enterprise tested OS for free. Because of that, I can run Enterprise applications and pay for the support I need. (Oracle on RHEL) and run the identical OS (minimizing documentation and training) with the ability to download updates for zero cost on other non-critical servers.
why would the they need to remove their own trademarks and give you a version that you could build with no work. That is silly. The onus to reuse certian items should not reside with the provider. And besides, the packages in question (redhat-artwork and redhat-logos) are not not ever GPL. All the GPL'ed items do not require changes.
and the OS that you build and distribute had many more than that ... right :-P
We have started using CentOS as well in a primarily Red Hat environment. Before, we'd use Fedora, but we kept running into issues where the packages would be outdated too quickly, and then when Fedora-Legacy went away, that was a big problem! I mean, half our stuff was still on Fedora Core 2 because it was the last of the 2.4.x kernel, and ran parallel to the Red Hat EL 3. CentOS had matured by then, and we had looked at a lot of alternatives (PieBox, WhiteHat, etc). CentOS was great for those boxes where we were testing stuff, but didn't want to pay an RH license because we didn't need the support. Do we still use Red Hat? You bet. Nothing beats the service, support, and the RHN updates. I wish CentOS had an RHN-like feature, but I guess I'll have to build one or see if someone already did. But RH is used for valuable production systems and CentOS is used for everything else.
Absurd. Obviously Red Hat is going to demand the removal of their trademarks. The fact of the matter is that RH is very helpful towards the open source community. I see plenty of RH devs and employees participating in Fedora. And there is a lot of bleed-over as far as package development and work on bugs between CentOS and Fedora. It's all connected and RH has been nothing but supportive.
They're a clear force for 'good' in the world of Linux in my mind.
Which software is that?
Hardly anyone who uses CentOS uses X. In my opinion it's the best Linux distro for a load-it-and-leave-it server platform. But of course the big new features are in Gnome and KDE. Go figure.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Who modded this informative? It's flat-out wrong.
The GPL indeed says you need to provide source to anybody you provide the binary to, but that's not all it says. It also says that any recipient of the code can modify and redistribute at will. Therefore, anybody who has a copy of GPLed software can freely give it to friends.
Heck, the right to redistribute changed and unchanged versions of the software are two of Stallman's Four Freedoms. There's no way the GPL would not reflect that.
So, if you have GPLed software, you have the right to get the source code, you have the right to run it, the right to modify it, and the right to redistribute it. The limitations that the GPL has is that you cannot deny any downstream recipient those rights.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You got a source for that claim?
According to the Free Software Foundation's GPL FAQ:
Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?
No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program non-free. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.
The GPL is a free software license, and therefore it permits people to use and even redistribute the software without being required to pay anyone a fee for doing so.
source: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheG
If I distribute GPL'd software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?
No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
source: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheG
There are several other FAQs on there that I think are applicable, but I think most everyone here is capable of reading for themselves.
echo $SIG
Did you filter out the dynamic address ranges to get a reasonable estimate of your userbase?
No, which makes the number higher than it would be.
However, we also can not take into account the people who are using 192.168.x.x, 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255, or 10.x.x.x networks that allow for a single IP address to host many CentOS machines.
So, since our target user is in the enterprise, we would just assume that the net result is a wash and call it even. Not sure what else you would do.
So I could sell you a box of software, and if you wanted to warez it for all your friends, you can do so provided you include the source (or allow them to get it from an ftp site, or by mail, etc). What you are not allowed to do is warez it for all your friends and refuse to warez the source code with it.
Let me quote you the section labeled "1":
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee. You might argue that this does not apply to the binary but that is address in "3": 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:$60/yr/host. It went up a bit. I admin 60 boxes at a university running RHEL, along with some running Solaris or *BSD... and $DEITY help me, recently I've added Windows 2003, Windows 2000, and fscking Netware (and one SuSE/OES box running eDirectory). At home, I have an OpenBSD box as a firewall, and a Fedora box inside as a mail/print/file/etc. server.
You really have to take it apart, remove all of their trademarks, or just go through and find the changes from the last update before you can redistribute GPL code. That seems to go against the spirit of the GPL to me.
I admit to not having looked at the CentOS build tools, but surely they've scripted this with 70's unix tools?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So you have heard of NickelOS - with the core components 'Nicked' from a prominent repackager of a package produced by a prominent North American... oh you get the idea.
PS: Keep up the great work.
AT&ROFLMAO
If you really are interrested in the numbers there are a few things you can do to narrow it down. I'm not sure though if they are really worth the effort.
:-)
The easy part:
- Use some RBL to differentiate dialups from static IP addresses
- Use p0f to differentiate many machines are behind NAT gateways via their respective uptimes within a certain time frame
The not so easy part:
- Count how often a yum/apt update of the same version-level was done from the same dialup IP address within 24 hours
The hard part:
- Combine all features you collected into one dataset and from there extract your (still guessed but hey(*)) userbase number.
Should work - at least in theory.
(*) The nice part of this method is, you do not need to collect data which you do not already have and you do not need voluntary contribution of data from your users.
Red Hat is already protected from that via the GPL (and all other open source licenses) that explicitly state that the software comes with no warranty whatsoever of any kind. It's not in all caps just to fit in with EULAs...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Can CentOS be upgraded with a yum update using the newest version repository? I've tried doing upgrades using Fedora Core 5 to no avail, and FC6 didn't even offer an upgrade option when the installer saw my CentOS 4.4 partitions.
'Twould be nice to have a newer version of Evolution without having to go thru GNOME dependency hell... ('Twould be even nicer to have a Qt/KDE app that spoke Exchange at least as well as Evolution, hint hint...)
You get full redistribution rights on those parts that are covered by the GPL. There are parts of RHEL that are not covered by the GPL, which is effectively those parts that CentOS strips out. That include the Red Hat artwork and Red Hat Network tools.
Which is where CentOS comes in. It is binary compatible with RHEL, in fact it is RHEL, but with the non-redistributable parts removed. Thus, you can very well have free dev machines that run essentially the same system as your production machines.
I think that "Server" CD is something your company created. RedHat split RHEL5 into "Server" and "Client" repositories, but CentOS 5 combined them into a single repository, as CentOS 4 did before. So "Server" or "Client" is just a choice of which packages you install.
Where I work, we've created kickstarts for several configurations - development workstations for a couple different teams, basic server, server with RAID. They're minor differences, and in fact I'm switching our configs to be all generated from one file through gpp. As of last night, you can get a CentOS 5 machine by booting our CD, typing workstation-x86_64 name=foo, and waiting half an hour. At some places, you don't even need to put in a CD - you can use pxelinux to boot off the network.
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
I wish CentOS had an RHN-like feature, but I guess I'll have to build one or see if someone already did.
Do you mean like yum?
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
I've been using UNIX for over 13 years. Really using to the point where I write scripts like ls -l | awk '{print $5 " " $NF}' | sort -n | tail off of the top of my head. I use CentOS 3. Why? Because it keeps me off of the upgrade treadmill, and because Ubuntu is a slow pig on my 7-year-old computer (PIII 450 mhz, 450 megs of RAM).
CentOS is a very good "It just works" OS. Of course, I have customized CentOS with tweaks like the latest version of the Firefox browser, a version of FreeType with Delta hinting support, the Microsoft Verdana font (nothing beats Verdana for readability on a display where the fonts use only two colors), etc.
One of these days I will finish the distribution I'm working on and just use my own Linux distribution.
"I do a grep for shit, bollocks, and tits before checking in code. I'm professional..." -RECURSIVE_META_JOKE, reddit.com
I completely agree! While RedHat does comply with the letter of the GPL they don't bring the actual sourcecode to my house. Furthermore they don't take the time to explain what every line of code does and they are completely unwilling to send an employee to my house to type in the commands necessary to download it. Thank goodness I still have my mommy to hold my peepee and shake of the last few drops when I go potty!
You have just created a circular argument that contradicts your earlier point - i.e. RH DOES benefit from CentOS, even if it is because people will purchase RHEL when they want commercial support they can count on
Especially since RedHat themselves have basically thrown out "up2date", and switched to yum based package management for RedHat 5. Yum was one of the few packages CentOS stapled on top of RedHat based releases, and it's worked quite well.
Security is a real concern: it's not clear that the CentOS build servers are as secure as the RedHat servers. And if they turn out not to be, whom are you going to sue when you get hacked?
Try Beowulf clusters and render farms and corporate wide desktop distributions where the key management for RedHat registration actually costs more than the OS itself and adds nothing effective? I've certainly seen this, in at least one major render farm.
What if I run CentOS on over 4 dozen boxes in-house, but only have a 6Mbit dynamic ADSL Internet link, and so therefore have set up my own local yum repository on a single node that syncs with a CentOS mirror once per day? A lot of people who have slow links use their own local yum repository mirror.
Direct download of the i386 DVD version is available at:- DVD/
i n-DVD/
http://cryptomania.info/crypt/CentOS-5.0-i386-bin
By tomorrow the x86_64 DVD version will be available at:
http://cryptomania.info/crypt/CentOS-5.0-x86_64-b
I'm trying out a new webhosting provider and am curious how they perform. Comments welcome.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
sure, you can install "the GPL Only" packages and not the others ... BUT ... you can't legally then use RHN if you do that.
Thanks for the link, I see that my claims may not have been true. Still, how does this become compliant with the GPL? Redhat distributes the OS (the source form) on the terms of the GPL. This allows me full redistribution rights, as long as I comply with the trademarks and copyright laws. In other words, I can use it to clone other systems internally and can install the software as I see fit on any other server in the organisation.
This is where it get's confusing. I think (at a guess, IANAL and all that) that Redhat owns copyright on the distribution itself, ie. the thing taken as a whole. This is how they can put that 'Subcription Agreement' on it that prevents you from doing all sorts of things. It's the individual packages that are covered by the GPL and Redhat satisfies the requirements of the GPL by posting the source packages on their FTP site, which is what CentOS is built from.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
OH NO ....
:-D
3 671841
Another senior Red Hat employee who did not get the We Hat CentOS memo it seems
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/
Could it be Red Hat really does like CentOS?
I see and hear about a lot of people who now use RHEL after using CentOS as a "trying it out" step. I do linux desktop systems support for a Division 1 university, which means I basically keep the linux labs and CS staff happy by keeping the software they use to learn and teach available at whatever specific version they want. It also means that I prepare the lab machine images for over 100 systems.
:)
:).
I'm currently in the process of building the new RHEL5-based lab image, and many of our servers have already migrated from RHEL4 to RHEL5. Its a very nice system, it just "feels" more polished than RHEL4.
Also, we're putting compiz+KDE on the lab image. It wasn't my decision, it came from higher up. It has always been KDE, but obviously compiz is a new requirement. The general reasoning as I understand it is that the new lab machines have plenty of extra processing power, and we'll get a few "ooooh aaaah" type reactions from the new CS undergrads who have never used or seen a gnu/linux desktop before. On the plus side on my lab dev machine where I've been building the image for the past few weeks compiz hasn't so much as flickered. Its amazingly stable, and in the fairly large room where I do most my work I occasionally catch the Windows support guys peeking over my shoulder
So where does this put CentOS? On my desktop machine. I can't afford a RHEL license, and I don't need the support (I'm capable and my hardware is pretty basic). I have a few friends and family that occasionally use my desktop machine, so it needs to be multimedia friendly and casual computer user friendly. Both the Gnome and KDE desktop environments accomplish this and accomplish it well. I also don't want to have to constantly administer the box. I just want it to work all the time and every time. So long term support, a magnificently stable platform, prompt security updates, and a generally hassle-free user experience means I won't need to install another OS on my desktop for, oh, about seven years
I'm downloading CentOS 5 now, and post-install I expect to be making a donation to the project in hopes that they'll keep up the good work for years to come.
I may have to share this planet with animals, but I'm doing my damn best to eat every last one of them.
RHN Satellite which uses Oracle as its database.
RHN Proxy is also not under an open source license, but does not use a proprietary database.
The only thing I can't understand is why Stallman lets them get away with it. It's really peculiar, and I'd love to know what his real reasons are.