On Sun, 17 Aug 2003, Lance Davis wrote:
On Sat, 16 Aug 2003, Stephen Smoogen wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Aug 2003, Lance Davis wrote:
>
> >We have always felt that cheap cds are a good way to introduce new
> >users to different distributions, and some will then go on to purchase
>
> Red Hat has very good lawyers who know a lot about the GPL and have
> spent most of their time defending it when used in products that do not
> give any support. The main issue is that TradeMark law is very very
I think that you are wrong there, Redhat have used trademark law to
prevent the distribution of 100% GPL code, and have restricted the rights
under the GPL of someone who has purchased a GPL product to redistribute
it.
The FSF has had no problem with this and does not see this as a
restriction of 100% GPL code since the code is very available for
download and the other methods listed in the GPL. Please find another
windmill... one that the FSF agrees with.
> XYZ place. The people would still go to
www.redhat.com and expect
it to
> be supported because it had Red Hat's name on it.
So Redhat should have recognised that as an opportunity to sell mini
support contracts without the baggage of having to produce the retail
boxes etc, and it also meant that at least 60% of the increase in their
user base was being driven by outside companies at no cost to them !!
We tried that. Very few people wanted to pay a second fee because they
had already BOUGHT the product. User base that does not pay for support
but wants 100% support is not a very useful userbase.
We quite clearly say that the software comes with no support.
So did CheapBytes and MacMillan... customers expect it and become very
irate when they dont get it because the company that has a name on it
wont support it. After the 20 or 30th phone call in a WEEK of 'I bought
this product to get away from Microsoft, and you are treating me like
them..' and then 'I dont care if I bought it from XYZ, it has your name
on it, and you should support it.' it is pretty obvious that putting a
label on sayinb 'NO Support' doesnt mean much to people.
Lance
--
Stephen John Smoogen smoogen(a)lanl.gov
Los Alamos National Labrador CCN-5 Sched 5/40 PH: 5-8058
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