[Fwd: Fedora Foundation]

[Rahul Sundaram]

On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 15:14 -0400, Chasecreek Systemhouse wrote:
> On 4/6/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> > Not necessarily all the best of breed components but what fits into RHEL
> > product space. RHEL is open source too. So its Free in that aspect
> 
> RHEL is not open source in that I can download and use it without
> paying a support fee for it. 

I dont see the connection between being open source and supplying free
binaries. 


>  Piggy-back support clauses are standard
> with regard to "the software is free however you may only use it so
> long as your support contract is paid up."  

Thats not what the SLA tells you. What it tells you is that you can use
it in whatever way you want. If you modify the software and then report
problems, we just need to confirm that its not your modifications that
has caused problems before attempting to fix the issue.


> Not a bad thing; even
> RedHat has to feed itself (in a corporate sort of way.)

No surprise there. 


> That is where open source product lines differ: commercially
> "available" open source and "truly" open source.
> 
> If I am mistaken, regarding either above, please enlighten me.

You are grossly mistaken. Open source licenses dont have any
requirements to provide free binaries. Red Hat goes above and beyond
what any open source license requires by providing the entire source
code of all of Red Hat Enterprise Linux as SRPMS.

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise

Rahul