On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 06:44 -0500, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 09:46 +0100, Martyn Drake wrote:
> But by paying that money, you fund the largest commercial GPL company
> and collection of GPL projects. Don't bash Red Hat, they are a very,
> very good company -- 100% GPL-anal to the ultra-power. The only other
> company that comes close is now SuSE, thanx to Novell's purchase --
> although Novell still a doesn't make their core goods GPL (whereas all
> of Red Hat's developments are always 100% GPL).
If someone needs the support that Red Hat provides, then by all means
they should purchase that product from Red Hat. The rates they charge
for service are in keeping with industry norms. I have no problem
whatsoever with Red Hat or their prices or their service.
I absolutely agree that Red Hat is great at providing their SRPMS in a
timely manner, and in a way that is MUCH more FOSS oriented than anyone
else who does an enterprise distro. (Try to get SUSE or Mandrake SRPMS
for a rebuild project). Red Hat is to be commended for their support of
the FOSS community.
> As far as the trademark issues, don't blame Red Hat, but US Trademark
> Law and companies like Cobalt, Sun and several others who abused Red
> Hat's good will. _No_ major commercial Linux vendor will ever allow
> their trademark to be freely used on distributed modifications again,
> precisely because of what Red Hat had to go through.
>
No one wants to use Red Hat's trademarks (at least not in the CentOS
project) unfairly. But it is certainly "FAIR USE" to say where you
downloaded SOURCE from. It is also "FAIR USE" to link to a publicly
available website. It is "FAIR USE" to compare products and features.
Surely putting a phrase in your meta tags, if you have a comparison
article is also "FAIR USE".
Ubuntu and Knoppix can say they use Debian sources ... SLAX can say it
uses Slackware sources. Those guys have trademarks too.
------------------------------------
If Toyota and Honda both got an engine for a car from the same place ...
Honda could certainly say:
Uses the same engine as the Toyota XXXX ... even if Toyota provided them
with the engine.
When they don't use the same product ... they can say, The Honda YYYY
has 35HP more than the Toyota XXXX and costs $1,125.00 less ... and they
can point to the Toyota website from their website, and they can explain
that it is based on tests conducted at xxxx and on the manufacturer's
suggested retail prices, etc.
-----------------------------------
> > Although when I'm in a better financial position, I will start
> > donating to the CentOS project proper whenever I can.
>
That is good ... the resources used to build CentOS cost money, as does
the bandwidth to distribute it. As I pointed out in another e-mail
recently ... on www.alexa.com (one of the only places to compare actual
web traffic to neutral sites on the internet) CentOS ranks higher than
several major Linux distros {slackware, knoppix, mepis, xandros, many
others} on traffic. We lag far behind them (i'm sure), on donations
(both money and/or resources).
> And that's a good thing. But don't feel the need to bash Red Hat just
> because you appreciate the CentOS project.
I agree with that statement ... CentOS could not exist without Red Hat
and their user friendly FOSS policies. RHEL is a very good product.
Red Hat is a very good company. Anyone who needs the support they offer
should buy their products.
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