[ale] Red Hat and the GPL

Michael D. Hirsch mhirsch at nubridges.com
Fri Dec 12 14:22:40 EST 2003


On Thursday 11 December 2003 02:28 pm, Chris Ricker wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > As I read the EULA, RedHat is not in violation of the GPL. The
> > distribute the source with the binaries, the don't restrict the use of
> > the binaries. What the restrict is the use of their network access. They
> > do restrict the use of the RedHat name and logo. As such, there is a
> > single package that contains all of the RedHat branding. If that package
> > is removed, The EULA does not restrict the redistribution of the entire
> > RHEL. But it is not legal to call it RHEL.
>
> And some people, perfectly legally, do take the source to Red Hat
> Enterprise Linux minus trademarked RH images, rebuild it, and redistribute
> it under another name....

Why take the source?  Aren't the binaries redistributable, too?  At least, 
that's how I read the GPL.  Of course, that requires at least one license.

Michael



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