[lug] Redhat Enterprise Linux

[Peter Hutnick]

Michael J. Hammel said:

> I think it's because the binaries are not GPL, just the source is.

This is false.  See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

Particularly:

MODIFICATION

0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a
notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under
the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to
any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either
the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a
work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with
modifications and/or translated into another language.

[. . .]

3.  You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under
Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1
and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

[. . .]

Clearly, for the purposes of the GPL, binaries are considered to be a form
of the program covered by the GPL.

In fact, your next statement is predicated on the fact that binaries "are
GPL."

In case you are not aware, saying a program "is GPL" or GPLed is not
really meaningful.  Those phrases ore often used as shorthand for the
concept that a program is distributed under the terms of the GPL.

> What they have to do is make source available for those binaries and then
> only to those who actually ask (they don't even have to put it online if
> they don't want).

This is true.  Red Hat is fundamentally a good member of the community and
fulfills peoples expectations that they can DL the source, even though
they are not strictly required to do so.

> The CDs can be licensed like this, most especially if
> they have proprietary applications included on the CD.

This is basically true, and illustrates why RMS strives for a "Free
/System/."

I'm not sure how fully explored the validity of this sort of license is. 
It is probably moot, however, since the only practical repercussion of
installing multiple machines with one license is that only one (presumably
the first one with a problem ;-) gets the RH support.

-Peter