On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 8:08 PM, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> 1) RH doesn't license RHEL; it provides subscriptions to RHEL. The
>> individual have licenses...
>>
>> 2) What might be the rationale for RH to release SRPMs (as SRPMs
>> previously and as a git tree now) that are different from the SRPMs
>> from which it builds RHEL?!
>>
>> 3) The RPMs that are distributed by SL and CentOS are sometimes
>> different from the RPMs that are distributed by RH because, for
>> example, RH might use brpackage-x.y-1.el7 to satisfy
>> package-i.j-k.el7's BuildRequires but might only release
>> brpackage-x.y-2.el7. So SL and CentOS have to use the latter to build
>> package-i.j-k.el7's.
>
> Ok for clarification the subscription is a subscription for support
> not the software per the terms of the GPL license.

Thanks. I was unclear, especially since I skipped "packages" between
"individual" and "have" in point 1...


> In no way is Red Hat required to provide BINARY RPM's SRPM's ‎or even
> the spec files to generate RPM, however in the past they did. Now they
> still provide the patches and spec files but they don package them for
> you because that is part of the "support" you get with the subscription
> and the GPL and the GNU manifesto clearly states that they are not only
> allowed to do this but in fact this was a recommended business model
> for free speech software since long before the Linux kernel was created.
>
> Red hat is doing nothing wrong and reality has a long standing history
> of going above and beyond what they are required to do for the community‎.
>
> By the way the Pre RHEL version of Red Hat still exists they just renamed
> it Fedora and stopped charging for box sets because once people started
> getting DSL lines and CD/DVD burners it didn't make sence to still
> attempt to put it in a pretty box in a retail store and charge $90 for a
> bunch of CD's you could have downloaded over your 28.8k modem if you were
> willing to tie up a phone line for a few days.

I never meant to imply that RH was doing anything wrong - and I agree with you.