Conversion to Linux

[Christofer C. Bell]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Monty J. Harder <mjharder at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 11:25 PM, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I appreciate your position, but you have to realize that if you're using
>> CentOS, you're not using it for the GPLed parts.  You're using it because
>> Red Hat built and regression tested an extremely stable distribution.
>> You're using it because Red Hat spent the time and money to make third party
>> apps like Oracle run well on it.  You're using it because they took the time
>> to integrate things like SELinux.
>>
>
>
> Fundamentally, I do not see any theory of morality that makes CentOS
> immoral while still keeping Red Hat itself moral.


CentOS isn't providing any value-add.  They simply strip branding and call
it their own.  That's not adhering to the spirit of the GPL, the idea that
you take someone else's software, add value, and release that value into the
wild.  The only "value" they add is providing a way to circumvent Red Hat's
distribution model for their binaries.

To use a car analogy (albiet a weak one), if I take a Toyota and rip off all
the Toyota branding and glue on Honda branding, that's immoral.  If I take a
Toyota and soup up the engine, put in a different interior, and upgrade the
stereo, then glue on my Honda branding, that's moral.

The GPL is intended to ensure that if you enhance software (bug fixes,
security fixes, feature enhancements, etc) you must provide the source for
those when you give your program to the community.  It's not intended to
allow you to re-brand software and call it your own.

Personally, I'm up in the air about CentOS.  But I certainly see Jeffrey's
points.

-- 
Chris
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