[lug] RHEL and the GPL

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 01:32:14AM -0500, Joseph McDonald wrote:
>Since RHEL is GPL'd don't they have to provide it for us to
>download, install and use? Can we use it and not have to pay
>for updates and/or support? 

The GPL says that if you distribute GPLed code, the source has to be
available and you cannot place limits on the further distribution of the
GPLed code.  This is my understanding, and (of course) IANAL.

It does not say that if you ship a CD that has a GPLed program on it,
that everything on the CD has to be GPLed.  Red Hat Enterprise, SuSE,
and other distributions may include non-GPLed, non
freely-redistributable code.

If Red Hat were to modify a GPLed program and send out a CD with a
binary RPM, they'd also have to provide the source to that and could not
prevent you from giving copies of that source or binary away.

However, if they ship you a CD with GPLed and non-GPLed code on it, they
do not have to provide source or allow you to redistribute the non-GPLed
code.

So, you could buy a copy of RHEL and strip out all the non-GPLed parts
and you'd be free to redistribute it.  Though you may have to recompile
all the code as well.

I think you're getting caught up on the idea that the *COLLECTION* is
GPLed, which it is not.  The collection is made up of GPL and other
parts, and the collection is limited because of that.

Sean
-- 
 There is a time for daring and a time for caution, and a wise man knows
 which is called for.  -- _Dead_Poet's_Society_
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995.  Qmail, Python, SysAdmin