Within the next 90 days, Red Hat will release Enterprise Linux 3, “an open-source architecture for the enterprise,” and an enhanced Red Hat Network with new management features aimed at the Enterprise market’s needs.
Within the next 90 days, Red Hat will release Enterprise Linux 3, “an open-source architecture for the enterprise,” and an enhanced Red Hat Network with new management features aimed at the Enterprise market’s needs.
Red Hat Inc. does not offer its Enterprise Linux for free download. However, does the fact that Enterprise Linux is open source (and, I presume, under GPL) mean that anyone who acquired a copy of the Enterprise Linux can offer it others as a free download?
Interesting question. Would it just mean that you wouldn’t have support? Is there any significant difference in the different redhat releases other than support?
Cheap-ass OSS zealots… quality software takes time and effort to develop. I think RedHat’s price is justifiable. Furthermore Linux is no longer freely redistributable, now that a large portion of the kernel has been shown to directly derive from the SVR4 and BSD historic codebases owned by SCO.
Until you prove otherwise. Now go ahead and try that comment again.
I asked a RedHat rep about this at a recent HP conference. They’ve decided that distributing just the srpm’s of their enterprise product is enough to satisfy the GPL (IMHO/IANAL, I think it is, too).
So, anyone who wants to can get all the srpms and figure out how to build their own version of RHEL, and distribute it under the GPL, if they want.
At first I thought that this was splitting hairs and treaded too close to “the line” of fairness, but on deeper reflection, I’ve ended up thinking that this is actually a pretty good compromise.
Anyone who _really_ wants to can still build it, but, since that version won’t include any of the support or services that the target market wants, pretty much everyone that RH cares about will just pay the $$$.
I myself would probably like to find someone who’ll build a RHEL-compatible distro, but without the bells and whistles, for $20-50, just so I can test things and etc.
I’ll probably try to figure out how to build the srpms into a functioning system, just because, but I’d still pay for someone else to build updated versions every once in a while, too. The srpm route is probably going to be a pain.
Joe
Actually, you CAN distribute it, the WHOLE Enterprise system code is under the GPL.
What you can’t do:
1. Distribute the Redhat logo (so you’d have to strip that from the distro)
2. Don’t call it “Redhat” (trademark).
Redhat has been decent about this though, they’re not gonna just on you if you leave the logos in.
The redhat enterprise distro is really NO better than their regular distro, it just contains great tech support, which is worth the price (if you need it).
“the WHOLE Enterprise system code is under the GPL.”
Are you sure there is no code which is licensed under BSD, LGPL, or other licenses? Otherwise RHEL is the first distribution with GPL only code. Write Mr. Stallman a mail! I know he is looking for such a thing.
Sorry, its released under GPL and LGPL.
Jeez, read between the lines A LITTLE.
There may also be a bit of BSD in there, but its miniscule.
>> There may also be a bit of BSD in there, but its miniscule.
Hm, XFree86 is miniscule??
XFree86 is licensed under the X11/MIT license, only a couple parts are under the BSDL.
” Anyone who _really_ wants to can still build it, but, since that version won’t include any of the support or services that the target market wants, pretty much everyone that RH cares about will just pay the $$$.”
u got that right
Does anyone know if it will will be distrubuted with ES 3.0
No. Kernel 2.6 hasn’t been released yet, and there are numerous bugs that need to be ironed out. ENTERPRISE distros cannot by definition ship unstable kernels.
Actually the SRPMs for RHEL are freely downloadable. IMHO, that’s more than enough to satisfy GPL requirements.
Actually, the RedHat techsupport was more on the crappy side (if you ask me, it was totally crap), but that’s not the reason a company I know of opted against it. Sadly, sound technical reasons and (quality of support, upgradeability, ease of management) are usually overlooked by those that make these decisions. Hype seems more important most of the time.
obviously. NOT RHEL 3.
RHAS 2 was later named RHEL 2. Same thing.
No. Kernel 2.6 hasn’t been released yet, and there are numerous bugs that need to be ironed out. ENTERPRISE distros cannot by definition ship unstable kernels.
So, do you think that there will be a 3.1 or 3.2 version of Enterprise that will include Kernel 2.6 or will we have to wait until Enterprise 4.0 for that?
The are obviously timing this to coencide with the release of AMD’s opteron and 64-bit athlons to push 64-Bit computing. For those that do not require or otherwise would not benifit from 64-bit computing(the majority of the market) this is not a significant happening. Final verdict? wait for the 2.6 kernel.
opterons are out for some time!!!