Re: Options for Enterprise RH (Was: Have Enterprise via SRPM forfree?)

[fluke gibson mw luc edu]

On Thu, 1 May 2003, Ed Wilts wrote:

> On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 09:42:22AM -0700, Jonathan Bartlett wrote:
> > So yes, you _can_ copy _parts_ (actually the majority) of Enterprise, but
> > you would have to make sure the proprietary parts were left out.  I do not
> > know if this would violate your service agreement with Red Hat or not, but
> > it is perfectly legit.
> 
> Do not forget that Red Hat, without *any* notice, can withhold the
> SRPMS.  They are only obligated to make the sources available to those
> that they distribute the binaries to.  They don't have to make them
> available instantly either.  Nothing would prevent them from
> password-protecting their FTP sites, refusing to mirror them, or
> delaying their release by a month.

The GPL is written to provide equivlent access to the source code.  So for
GPL works your correct that they only have to make the source directly
available to those that they make the binaries directly available too.  It 
would go against the spirit of the GPL to have a policy of purposily 
with-hold/delay access to the source code that you have distributed 
binaries too.  Also, while there is nothing to prevent them from password 
protecting their FTP sites or refusing to provide offical mirrors, they 
also can not refuse the GPL rights of their customers to redistribute the 
source code.

The biggest problem for someone who is trying to get by on the cheap with
the Enterprise editions is that a large chunk of the distribution is *NOT*
Copyleft.  In the case of the parts that are covered by the BSD or public
domain licenses, RH is not obligated to provide the source code and can
put additional restrictions on distribution of the source.  So the
question becomes, are you only conserned with getting updates on the
Copyleft parts of the distribution (the parts that RH must allow 
indirect redistribution of).

> In any of those cases, you won't get the critical releases in a timely
> manner.

Even the Enterprise editions of RH are still **contributor** based.  The
majority of the time, the types of updates are available for free on the
Internet.  RH saves an administrator the time (and money) of seeking out
those updates, testing the updates, packaging the updates that improve
things.  If all the machine your administrating are not mission critical
or you only have one or two mission critical services, it might be worth
while to keep up with the security issues for those services yourself.  
Once you get to the point of handling four or more machine/services,
Enterprise grade support is likely to pay for itself in the long run.  
But if your willing to put in the time yourself, you can get the majority
of releases in a timely untested or limited tested manner by doing
self-support.

Also, I'm disappointed with the suggested link between "timely" and RH
support.  I got a critical update (addressed remote root exposer) to the
CUPS package on my RH8 systems *weeks* before RHN users did.  By creating
my own CUPS package and testing it, I got what I considered to be a
serious problem taken care of in a timely manner.  At the same time, I
became responsible for testing CUPS to make sure the update would not
break my enviroment.

> Red Hat has a right to make money and it's their legal obligation to do
> so.  Somehow or other, somebody has to pay the wages of the Red Hat
> employees that are producing the patches you want.  

Yeah... and the SCO Group has the "right" to make money off the 
Intellectual Properity that Red Hat is selling a "like" flavor of.  *sigh*

I think it is more along the lines of Red Hat having a legal obligation to 
seek methods of making money but that does not automatically grant them 
any "right."

Also, again, all versions of Red Hat are still largely contributor based
including the patches.  Wages for **finding, testing, packaging and
support for using** need to be payed.  And while additional methods of
making money may also help to retain or gain help for other Red Hat
"sourceware" projects for improvement/patches (gcc, pirhana, cygwin,
etc.), this is more of an indirect side-effect.  The main purpose for
subscribing isn't to get access to the patches, any good GNU'ist should be
willing to make those available to you, it is to get access to the
services that reduce the TCO of getting and using those patches.  But, if
your under the impression that you should now be spending $350 everytime 
you install GNU/Linux on an Xbox then you misunderstood the purpose of the 
Enterprise line.  This is still only intended for people that feel they 
are already spending over $350 per year in support and getting an 
Enterprise addition will reduce the need to hire more employees to 
recreate the job that RH does.  If you don't already pay out yearly over 
$350 per year for employees/consultants to support your servers (or pay it 
out in terms of your own time being spent) then the Enterprise line is not 
for you.