Re: I have installed Red Hat Enterprise illegally!
From: Unruh (unruh-spam_at_physics.ubc.ca)
Date: 06/23/05
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Date: 22 Jun 2005 22:13:49 GMT
General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> writes:
>On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:56:22 +0100, grwilky wrote:
>> Hello All.
>>
>> I am a complete novice with Linux and yesterday I downloaded a copy of
>> Red Hat from the net.
>>
>> I have windows XP installed.
>>
>> I installed Red Hat and then realised that I did not know what to do
>> next! so I visited my local bookshop to purchase a book on Linux. It
>> was then that I realised that the copy of Red Hat Linux Enterprise
>> that I had installed had been posted illegally to the net.
>>
>> I have paid for all my software to date and I would always do so.
>> Hence I want to get rid of Red Hat Linux as quickly as possible.
>>
>> I purchased a book called Suse Linux 9.3 for Dummies, which includes a
>> legal copy of Suse Linux.
>>
>> I would now like to take off my illegal copy of Red Hat and replace it
>> with Suse 9.3. Can anyone please advise me how to do this. please?
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Gordon
>Don't panic
>1) What you did wasn't that bad. Redhat doesn't own any of the code in
>RHEL, it's all under the GPL which means that you can freely distribute
>it. What Redhat does own is their logos and the name Redhat. If you what
>to use a free version of RHEL there are a number of places you can
>download it from,
>http://www.centos.org/
>http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/
>These are free clones of RHEL, they have been cleansed of Redhat's
>trademarks and are completely legal.
Trademark law has to do with the marketplace, not private ownership. Ie, if
I call my hat my Redhat there is nothing that RedHat can do about it.
Ie, the presence of redhat trademarks is irrelevant as far as copying is
concerned, just perhaps selling (although I would argue that under the GPL
you cannot use trademarks to restrict the sales either. )
>2) RHEL is aimed at corporations, most end users are happier with
>something else like Fedora Core or Mandriva. Fedora Core comes from Redhat
>and is completely free. Fedora Core 4 just came out, that's what I would
>recommend you install. Mandriva is also very nice, the offer a free
>version and a paid for version done via a service called Mandriva Club.
>The paid for version integrates some non-GPLed components like accelerated
>graphics drivers and some multimedia things.
>3) To get rid of the version of RHEL that you installed all you have to do
>is install your new distro in the same partition that you installed RHEL.
>If you do a clean install with a format of the partition then all traces
>of RHEL will be removed.
>4) However you don't really have to feel guilty. Redhat's business model
>is very different from Microsoft's. What they are selling is a service
>contract not software. They don't care if people install RHEL, as I said
>there are free legal clones around. If you haven't paid them then they
>won't give you any support but they won't come knocking at your door like
>Microsoft to check if you have a legal license.
Actually, Redhat's license is ambiguous, and they have refused to remove
that ambiguity even when directly asked. They want people like the OP to
believe that they are doing something illegal by installing it.
They want to spread FUD with respect to their license.
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