On 27/06/2014 20:43, Lamar Owen wrote:
> On 06/27/2014 03:28 PM, Mark Rousell wrote:
>> 1) Can anyone confirm or deny that Red Hat places contractual
>> limitations on what a subscriber (who has access to the RHEL7 SRPMs) can
>> do with the source code so obtained?
> 
> Please read http://lwn.net/Articles/432012/ and
> http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/03/05/open-core-slur.html (especially the
> 12th paragraph).

Yup, I've read those and whilst they address the issue they only answer
it by inference and reference, not quite as explicitly as I'd ideally like.

I think this the paragraph in the latter article you meant (it certainly
covers the key point you responded to):

	I do have strong, negative opinions about the RHEL business
	model; I have long called it the "if you like copyleft, your
	money is no good here" business model. It's a GPL-compliant
	business model merely because the GPL is silent on whether or
	not you must keep someone as your customer. Red Hat tells RHEL
	customers that if they chose to engage in their rights under
	GPL, then their support contract will be canceled.

Indeed, I am aware of this. I was in fact going to write "Can anyone
confirm or deny that Red Hat places contractual limitations (where the
contract is freely entered into)" in my earlier message but it was too
much of a mental mouthful.

Whilst Red Hat can certainly create whatever contractual terms it wants
and customers can freely agree to them, this does not in general
automatically or necessarily mean that Red Hat itself is not in breach
of a licence (GPL in this case) by creating certain limiting contractual
terms with its customers. It does surprise that limiting a customer's
rights with respect to GPL (even if it just while the customer freely
chooses to remain a customer of Red Hat) is not a GPL-violating action
for Red Hat itself. Clearly, however, Red Hat's lawyers (and the FSF it
seems) think such a limitation is not a violation of GPL.

For what it's worth, such limiting contractual terms (even if freely
entered into) do seem on the face of it to be a violation of clause 6 of
GPL2 and possibly clause 12 of GPL3 (amongst others possibly). Anyway,
as above, it seems that FSF disagrees with me so I need to read GPL2 and
3 much more thoroughly!

> For legal advice, you should consult with your lawyer.  We non-lawyer
> types aren't qualified to give legal advice; the lawyers on this list
> won't likely give you legal advice in public, either.

Well, that's the usual advice but of course this does seem to be a
relevant issue.

Anyway, I accept that the question over Red Hat's legal right to
effectively restrict GPL can't go much further on this list.