Conversion to Linux

[Jeffrey Watts]

I understand your position, but I believe that in our community there are
constructive choices and destructive ones.

Buying from Novell is a destructive choice, because they sold out to
Microsoft.  Rewarding them with business isn't a good idea.  Using CentOS
instead of buying RHEL also is a destructive choice, as the dollars taken
away from Red Hat prevents the community from getting some of the hard
things done that typically are best able to be done by companies.

You can disagree, and that's okay.  I've made it clear that my position is
one that many don't have, but while you may find my position impractical, I
feel that it's easily defensible morally.

Jeffrey.

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

>
> Which they are morally entitled to do because that was the deal that all
> the contributors made when they donated code to the components RH uses to
> build that distribution.  In the case of SELinux, they get to integrate work
> done by the NSA, funded by our tax dollars.
>
> When someone pays for RHEL, they get something that CentOS users don't
> get:  If there ever is a problem, they have support from the very
> organization that did that integration and testing, and therefore has the
> institutional knowledge that no other will.  What CentOS makes available for
> free is advertising for Red Hat's true product:  Its people.
>
> (I can't claim this observation is original.  If you have not yet read
> ESR's "The Magic Cauldron", I encourage you to do so.
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/magic-cauldron/magic-cauldron.html<http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/writings/magic-cauldron/magic-cauldron.html>
> )
>
> Fundamentally, I do not see any theory of morality that makes CentOS
> immoral while still keeping Red Hat itself moral.  In the context of
> persuading PHBs to use Linux, any discussion of such a theory only plants
> the seeds of doubt as to the morality of the entire Linux ecosystem.  We
> already have a huge problem with people who have been conditioned by the BSA
> to the idea that using someone's software without paying them (money) for it
> is inherently "wrong".  The GPL says you pay those people back by paying
> your own users forward.  That is the basis of our community.
>
> So, rather than treading on ground that can become a FUDdy quagmire, I
> would prefer telling those PHBs that an enterprise can legally AND ethically
> run CentOS on non-production systems, where no support from the Red Hat will
> be desired, while paying for RHEL on those mission-critical servers. That is
> an advantage that RHEL has over proprietary OS licensing models.
>
> And while it's equally true that CentOS can be run on production systems,
> again without support from RH, I wouldn't suggest doing so.  If your
> business depends on those systems working, you'd better have the support in
> place to keep them working.  That, however, is not a moral argument, but a
> practical one.
>



-- 

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
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