I bet Oracle *was* invited to *several* calls... I've fond hopes that CentOS and Red Hat will publish more of their build structure, as SL has been good enough to do. I'd love to be able to build some of the commercially provided packages, such as JBoss. The SRPM's aren't enough, there are missing configuration dependencies.

overall, This could be really good, if it helps ease git access io source, not just SRPM's. I think that would make SL change integration much, much easier.

Nico Kadel-Garcia
Email: [log in to unmask]
Sent from iPhone

> On Jan 10, 2014, at 5:29, Ian Murray <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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>> ________________________________
>> From: Paul Robert Marino <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: zxq9 <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] 
>> Sent: Friday, 10 January 2014, 2:15
>> Subject: Re: Centos / Redhat announcement
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>> Absolutely right. Red Hat is only obliged to provide source code to those who they have shared the software with, nor are they required to package the software and thief patches in an easy to compile format like source RPM packages.
>> Now there is absolutely nothing that prevents some one who pays for Red Hat 'support' from re-sharing it but Redhat has always gone above and beyond the requirements of the GPL. But their is also nothing in the gpl that requires them to make it easy which they do.
>> There are plenty of companies I've worked for that license software the write as GPL but don't share it with any one else but their subsidiaries and based on their employment contracts the employees who use the software as part of their job are not technically covered under the shared with clause of the GPL so its highly unlikely you will se any of them on a public web server ever.
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>> The GPL is far more subtle in legal terms than most programmers it users really understand. 
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> I am well aware of the above, but I am typing this from a fully subscribed RHEL workstation. :)
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> I always assumed that the SL devs had at least one real RHEL subscription, to ensure access to the source. I was always amazed how helpful Red Hat have been in that regard and was always a bit nervous about rebuild distributions for that reason. Let's be thankful that SL linux guys were invited to a conf call with RH/CentOS. I bet Oracle never got such an offer.
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>>  That said...
>> As I've said before can we please stop this speculation train its giving me a migraine and I want to get off lol.
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>> -- Sent from my HP Pre3
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>> ________________________________
>> On Jan 9, 2014 20:46, zxq9 <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
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>> On Friday 10 January 2014 01:14:02 Ian Murray wrote: 
>>>> On 10/01/14 00:16, jdow wrote: 
>>>> Don't forget that GPL means you must have the sources available when 
>>>> asked for.
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>> And this obligation only applies to Red Hat's customers, not to us. 
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>>> I have been struggling with this myself tbh. If RH adds a line in a GPL 
>>> program that says "Welcome to Red Hat", releases the binary as RHEL and 
>>> then modifies it for CentOS to read "Welcome to CentOS" and only 
>>> releases the source that says "Welcome to CentOS", then they are in 
>>> technical violation of the GPL, I would say. (IANAL).
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>> No, if you received the CentOS binaries you are only entitled to receive the 
>> sources to those binaries (not the Red Hat ones). 
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>> GPL does not mandate that sources get released publicly, only to parties to 
>> whom a program has been directly distributed. Folks who are not Red Hat 
>> customers have not received programs from Red Hat, we've received the same 
>> programs from other places (CentOS, SL, or to be more legally accurate, mirror 
>> locations) and it is those other projects/providers who are obliged to make 
>> programs available in source form. 
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>> The fact that the GPL and related licenses also guarantee that any customer 
>> can distribute the source (but not a copy of the binary) to anyone they want 
>> means its almost impossible to can or gag a successful piece of GPL software. 
>> As a business it is better to control that release process than to be 
>> blindsided by it, so Red Hat has fully embraced the open source community idea 
>> and always provided public access to source -- but they are not obligated to 
>> do so. 
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