[lug] RHEL and the GPL

[Jeffrey Siegal]

Joseph McDonald wrote:
> Since RHEL is GPL'd don't they have to provide it for us to
> download, install and use?

No. It is a common misconception that you have to give away GPL code. 
You don't.  You can charge for it, and you can give it to some people 
but refuse to give it to others.  You just can't prevent others from 
giving it away, and if you distribute binaries, you also must distribute 
source.

  Can we use it and not have to pay
> for updates and/or support? 

Probably yes, as long as you don't get it from Red Hat.  But as with any 
such question of your rights under a license or contract, you should 
consult your own qualified attorney if you want an answer you should 
depend on.

That said, it isn't clear why you would actually want this.  Most of the 
value of RHEL is in the support.

If you want something that is quite similar in terms of components but 
unsupported, you might look at Fedora Core 1.