You're making this out to be far more complicated than it is. For many years, places like CheapBytes sold CD's that contained Redhat's Linux distribution and was labeled as such. The problem was twofold. One, people would buy this product from CheapBytes and expect technical support from Redhat itself since, in their minds, they had bought Redhat Linux. Obviously, they couldn't afford to provide one-on-one tech support to such people. Second, Redhat linux is a trademark and the way trademark laws work is that you have to vigorously fight to defend it or you lose it. If they knew that CheapBytes, for example, sold CD's called Redhat Linux for years and years and did nothing about it and then suddenly some other software company sold a product called Redhat linux, if Redhat sued then the offending party could just say "Look, people have been downloading their product forever and reselling it as if it was theirs and they never sued them!" and this would undermine their brand. And that's what it's all about. People identify with brands. Does Coca-Cola's sugar water really taste that much better than Pepsi's? Does it matter? It's all about branding. They're trying to carve out a distinctive niche in the Linux world. There's nothing wrong with that. They've created exceptions to the rule (which they don't have to do, btw) that protect the people who are usually their biggest cheerleaders, so what's the fuss all about? Lest anyone doubt Redhat's commitment to being free, take a look at SuSE, Xandros, or LindowsOS. Redhat has worked hard to reach a compromise without being a proprietary distribution. -- Brian
