[NTLUG:Discuss] [Bulk] Re: Of the free versions, which is more stable?

[Burton Strauss]

While what CentOS does is legal, it's also pretty clearly feeding off of
RH's efforts w/o much original effort.

Depending on your view point, this kill's RH's 1-off sales or introduces new
users to RH's efforts such that when they need it for business they buy the
supported version (develop on CentOS, test and deploy on RHEL).

Since RedHat has - at times - been pretty aggressive about protecting their
trademarks, which is mostly "RedHat" and associated logos, it makes sense
not to use RH's trademarks (if nothing else, it saves on typing - otherwise
every page would some sort of 2 paragraph grey legal disclaimer!


IANAL but from what I understood in BizLaw, RH could probably make a good
case against CentOS for copyright infringement - not on the individual
pieces, but on the compilation of specific pieces that is RHEL.  A
compilation copyright is weaker and there have been cases (such as the
phonebook) where mere compilations have been held NOT to be copyrightable.
Part of the issue w/ compilations is the amount of effort that goes in to it
- and in the case of RHEL it's quite a bit.  More effort = more originality
= stronger copyright.

While I guess it could be interesting from the Groklaw/Entertainment view,
I'd hate to see the wasted effort that such a case would entail!  So I think
not poking the bear in it's den by using the RH trademarks is a good choice.


-----Burton

-----Original Message-----
From: Discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:Discuss-bounces at ntlug.org] On Behalf
Of Leroy Tennison
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 5:22 AM
To: NTLUG Discussion List
Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] [Bulk] Re: Of the free versions, which is more
stable?

Dave Augustus wrote:
> Have you considered Centos 4? It is Redhat Enterprise Linux 4- only free.
I use it on both workstations and servers. It is great. And with Yum, it is
even better.
>
> I have been using Centos for over 1.5 years now. I started with Centos 3-
I replaced all my RH9 installs with that. Never looked back!
>
> Dave Augustus
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Leroy Tennison <leroy_tennison at prodigy.net>
> To: NTLUG Discussion List <discuss at ntlug.org>
> Sent: Sunday, April 2, 2006 7:01:43 AM GMT-0600
> Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Of the free versions, which is more stable?
>
> I think it's time to move on from Red Hat 9, of the latest offerings 
> from Fedora and SuSE, which one appears to be more stable for a plain 
> workstation.  I know Fedora Core 5 is way too new but what about 
> Fedora Core 4 or the newest SuSE release (10.?).
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://ntlug.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>   
This reply is certainly "outside my previous box" but definitely worth
considering.  I went to Centos site and they decline to identify the source
other than to say a "prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor" and
that it conforms to the vendor's redistribution policy.  
What's going on here?  I understand that all Red Hat branding has been
removed but why the game?  Can you point me to the vendor's redistribution
policy?

I did find other references which identified Red Hat (DistroWatch) whose
table shows that RHEL is really holding back on some packages (Firefox and
OpenOffice in particular).

As an aside, I also found the pathetic Tuttle, OK fiasco.  It's sad that
ignorant people can't even fully own up to their mistakes once they have
been helped to find them by the people they attacked...

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