Christofer C. Bell wrote:
On 2/22/06, Andy Green <andy(a)warmcat.com> wrote:
> Identifying with RHAT and acknowledging the benefits we get from
their
> work are Good Things, but there is nothing wrong with respins IMO,
> legally or morally, in fact its the whole idea.
That is absolutely untrue. The "whole idea" of the GPL and Free
software is to allow anyone to "add value" to what's out there.
I did not see that phrase in the license, somewhat annoying if it is
actually meant to be the "whole idea".
That's not what CentOS and White Box do. They take someone
else's
work, remove references to the people that did the work, and package
it up so that you can "freely" use Red Hat's efforts in creating RHEL.
They are not adding value. They are not "making changes that are
helpful to the community" they are not acting in the spirit of Free
software. They're leeching off Red Hat's hard work and yes, despite
the removal of trademarks, Red Hat's hard fought for and won
reputation, to let people get at the work without going through Red
Hat. That's called "ripping them off."
That is *not* the spirit of Free software. That *not* "the whole idea."
We'll have to agree to disagree Chris, since I feel a new flamewar is
otherwise about to start. I stand by what I said earlier, which
explained my take pretty clearly. If you don't see my points then we'll
both live :-)
-Andy