[Asterisk-Users] Re: Advice on OS Choice

[David McNett]

On 14-Oct-2004, Kevin Walsh wrote:
> Red Hat have embedded their trademark all over their Enterprise
> editions so that they can restrict sales in that way.  Red Hat still
> have an obligation to release the various GPLed components as usual but
> don't have to package the components nor create a downloadable CD ISO
> image.

While this is correct, it is only half the story.  The EULA on RHEL goes
much further than relying on mere trademark protections.  RedHat
successfully uses their Trademark rights to prevent others from 
distributing "RHEL" but that has no sway over an existing user of RHEL.

The EULA is where the real teeth are -- prohibiting even people who 
have purchased RHEL from using it in ways that RedHat prohibits.  For
example, it is not possible to purchase one copy of RHEL and install it
on two machines.  Nor are you allowed to run RHEL on a machine without
having purchased support.  I am unclear on how this is not a further
restriction on the code (and therefore prohibited by the GPL) but the
FSF appears unwilling to pursue the point. 

While grey-market "clone" facsimiles of RHEL do exist (like whitebox 
linux) often using them comes at the cost of losing vendor support from 
other companies like Dell or Oracle.

-- 
David McNett <nugget at slacker.com>
http://slacker.com/~nugget/