I'm no legal expert so I should quit talking but I'll put in one more $.02.
Red Hat will be concerned if you are using their trademark "Red Hat"
anywhere on your product, but not if you modify it and redistribute under your
own name ala Mandrake. If that is what you are planning to do then you might
want to contact them to be sure you'll be in the clear.
They have a web page on this issue: http://www.redhat.com/about/trademark_guidelines.html
Jeff
On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Chris Fowler wrote:
> I'm asking this because I would like to distribute Linux with our products.
> To get all our products working I must make some minor changes to the
> 2.2.12-20 kernel. I also have to add some software. I can do this myself
> but this does involve change the redhat-6.1.iso and I do not want to offend
> RedHat when I do this. I would also like to change all references of RedHat
> to Computone if possible. There install program is written in python.
>
> TurboLinux offered to let me distribute their TurboLinux Lite version with
> minor modifications except for the name. They wanted to charge me $.50 for
> each copy I distributed. They were going to give me a master iso and I was
> going to do the rest. My concern is that the Lite version is 99% free
> software. The first level of distribution costs us $7,500 up front.
>
> My other concern is that TurboLinux does not have as good as reputation than
> RedHat. I'm looking at all options and want to be sure before I get a
> letter form RH lawyers.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Walters [mailto:">jsw1@bellsouth.net]
> Sent: Friday, January 21, 2000 6:16 PM
> To: ">Eric.Ayers@mindspring.com; Eric Z. Ayers; Chris Fowler
> Cc: '">ale@ale.org'
> Subject: Re: [ale] Distribution of RedHat 6.1
>
>
> Not only is there no problem with that, but you CAN charge for it, with or
> without modifications. Read the GPL. You have the right to do anything you
> like with the software, but if you are going to distribute it you must also
> make the source code available.
>
> This is the central theme of the free software movement. After 20 years of
> propaganda saying that copying software is wrong, people have a hard time
> believing it or worry that some corporation like Red Hat might take legal
> action. But Red Hat didn't write 99% of the code they are selling either.
>
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2000, Eric Z. Ayers wrote:
> > I don't think there would be any problem with it - this is all that
> > Linux Mandrake is. Red Hat doesn't get a dime for it.
> >
> > Chris Fowler writes:
> > > I want to distribute RH6.1 with our Products. Can I do that if I do
> not
> > > charge for it. I'm referring to the ISO image that is freely available
> at
> > > ftp.linuxberg.com.
> > > Can I make changes to it to conserve space?
> > >
> > > thanks,
> > > Chris
> > >
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