[clue-tech] Re: CentOS

[Greg Knaddison]

On 10/27/05, mike havlicek <mhavlicek1 at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Anybody familiar with CentOS? I am checking it out
> based upon  a contract requirement. But I don't think
> it (the distro) is really kosher. It seems to be an
> absolute steal of RedHat Enterprise.

I use it, as do many people on CLUE and many people world wide - it
beat Fedora as the number 2 Distro in LInux JOurnal's vote.  If it
weren't "kosher" or "legal" how could/would RH let it become so
popular?

> Things are
> confusig with GPL
> but to totally take RedHat Enterprise and distribute
> it freely was quite a task if legal.
>

It certainly is a lot of work, but things are _not confusing with the GPL.

> I have read the copyright information with RHEL AS4.X.
> I think it does indicate that the source is freely
> available and can be modified as long as you remove
> all RedHat logos. But on the other hand the source is
> only available if you agree to a contract with an
> expiration.
>

GPL source must be freely available without restrictions if you
distribute binaries.

> Certainly the RedHat modified kernel is proprietary.

They do use their own backporting policy which makes version numbers
and contents different from upstream projects, but that doesn't mean
that they now "own" any part of it moreso than anyone else.

Take a look at http://www.redhat.com/advice/speaks_backport.html
for an explanation of the backporting policy and why 2.6.9 has patches
from 2.6.13.  Basically, it's for stability and security.


>
> Regardless I think the spec file in the source rpm had
> conflicting information regarding Intel x86
> architecture.
>
The rebuild projects are finding lots of small problems with the
SRPMs.  The best rebuilds are noting these, fixing them, reporting
upstream, and moving on.


> I stll do wonder where CentOS got their code and if it
> is legal.
>

It is freely available from ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat (among other places)

It is legal.

Regards,
Greg
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