RedHat and software patents

[Alexandre Dulaunoy]

On Tue, 28 May 2002, Joerg Schilling wrote:

>
> >From alex at conostix.com Mon May 27 10:28:20 2002
>
> >> The sourcecode definitely has now been published so it is covered
> >> by the GPL. For this reason, the author grants royalty free use
> >> by anybody. He cannot earn money from this idea.
> >>
> >> BTW: Red Hat in general is not very GPL friendly...
> >>
>
> >	Are you sure of that ? I think RedHat is one of the only
> >GNU/Linux vendor that take into account the GNU General Public License.
> >Every part of code done by RedHat seems to be under the GNU General
> >Publice License. (from the installer to the tmpwatch command ;-)
>
> Let us call it this way:
>
> They are definitely _not_ _going_ the Open Source / Free Software way:
>
> -	They are Open Source -> Yes

	Maybe. But I don't use the term "Open Source".

>
> -	The software they create  benefits from OSS/FS development
> 	paradigms -> NO

	I don't agree with you with this point. If you take the developers
for the Linux Kernel, a part of the developer has been paid
by RedHat Inc. (Take for example Dave Miller or Alan Cox, look around
people.redhat.com) All made modification made into the kernel tree are
back for the community. (benefits from OSS/FS developement paradigms)

	Check out http://sources.redhat.com/ and see the support from
RedHat for some big GNU project. Maybe you are using some of these
tools for your excellent cdrecord or sdd ? It isn't a benefit for the Free
Software community ?


>
>
> The main improvements with OSS/FS is (intended to be) the fact that
> other OSS/FS development efforts can/will be used to enhance
> a specific program.
>
> If RH insists in not integrating other OSS/FS parts, they are definitely
> not a OSS/FS company but only just another company that makes
> Source available.

	I think the Cygwin case is a special case. They make a bundle
of tools and they can add what they want into their official packaging...
But I think you could add your tools into it without via the official
packaging. Maybe we can contact RedHat for clarification ? (for the Cygwin
issue and also the patent issue)

	Just ideas

	adulau

>
>
> Jörg
>
>  EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
>        js at cs.tu-berlin.de		(uni)  If you don't have iso-8859-1
>        schilling at fokus.gmd.de		(work) chars I am J"org Schilling
>  URL:  http://www.fokus.gmd.de/usr/schilling   ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix
>