CentOS - Apr 2011 - I have RHel6. How does that turn into Centos 6?

The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually
legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.

I am not starting a flame ware, I hope.  I'm just curious about what
is minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I
suppose we could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if that
makes you feel more comfortable. (and not too OT)

Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and
search to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul".  What
else would I
have to do?

Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them?
Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be
something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January
and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel
6 folks know some secrets stuff.

So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6,  I have to
isolate the non-GPL software and then replace it with something
workable.

After that, what am I legally required to do?  As far as all of the
other RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed
exactly as they are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel,
it appears to me most of the discussion is about "re-branding", going
through the packages and changing "RedHat" to "Centos" and
swapping
out icons.

Is that legally necessary?  In my memory, there was a Linux distro
called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except
they re-compiled with gcc options for i686.  I recall that in many of
the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat"
with some other name.


PJ
-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas

call redhat legal and/or please take this up with your own "paul"
legal
counsel

this is not the place

 - rh

On 04/29/2011 11:17 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:
> The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually
> legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.
> 
> I am not starting a flame ware, I hope.  I'm just curious about what
> is minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I
> suppose we could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if
that
> makes you feel more comfortable. (and not too OT)
> 
> Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and
> search to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul". 
What else would I
> have to do?
> 
> Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in
them?
> Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be
> something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January
> and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel
> 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
> 
> So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6,  I have to
> isolate the non-GPL software and then replace it with something
> workable.
> 
> After that, what am I legally required to do?  As far as all of the
> other RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed
> exactly as they are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel,
> it appears to me most of the discussion is about "re-branding",
going
> through the packages and changing "RedHat" to "Centos"
and swapping
> out icons.
> 
> Is that legally necessary?  In my memory, there was a Linux distro
> called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except
> they re-compiled with gcc options for i686.  I recall that in many of
> the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace
"RedHat"
> with some other name.
This is not the PAUL Linux mailing list.  It is the CentOS mailing list.

The CentOS project will not redistribute files signed by Red Hat, and we
will not sign files that we do not create.  Simple as that.

You also must make a "good faith effort" to not distribute any
branding
that makes your version of Linux tell people that it is Red Hat Linux or
Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

That "good faith effort" is required for all packages (GPL or not).

And yes, it is legally necessary make that good faith effort not to
infringe upon someone else's trademarks.

This is specifically called out here:
http://www.redhat.com/about/companyprofile/trademark/

This PDF file tells you in great detail what you need to do:

http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/corp/RH-3573_284204_TM_Gd.pdf





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On 4/29/2011 11:17 AM, Paul Johnson wrote:
>
> Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in
them?
> Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be
> something, because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January
> and it locked up in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel
> 6 folks know some secrets stuff.
I don't think that's a reasonable conclusion.  There's a reason one
is
called a 'test' version, after all.  Things often work better after 
fixing the things found in tests...
> Is that legally necessary?  In my memory, there was a Linux distro
> called Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except
> they re-compiled with gcc options for i686.  I recall that in many of
> the RPM packages in Mandrake, they did not bother to replace
"RedHat"
> with some other name.
If you are remembering from long ago, it was probably before Red Hat 
decided to restrict redistribution (remember, the thing that helped them 
build the community that generated the most of the content they ship and 
found/fixed lots of bugs...).

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com

Given the difficulty of getting Centos 6 released - maybe this is not the
correct group to ask. Just saying. ;)

-----Original Message-----
From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On
Behalf
Of Paul Johnson
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 12:17 PM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: [CentOS] I have RHel6. How does that turn into Centos 6?

The bickering here about Centos 6 has made me wonder what is actually
legally necessary to re-distribute the RPM files that come with RHel6.

I am not starting a flame ware, I hope.  I'm just curious about what is
minimally necessary go from RHel6 to another distribution. I suppose we
could discuss "Paul Linux 6" instead of Centos, if that makes you feel
more
comfortable. (and not too OT)

Suppose I dump out all of the SRPM packages and do a global find and search
to change the characters "RedHat" to "Paul".  What else
would I have to do?

Which of the RPM files in RH6 have "proprietary" software in them?
Those cannot be re-distributed as is? I figure there must be something,
because I installed the test version of SL6 back in January and it locked up
in disk recognition, whereas RH6 did not. So the Rhel
6 folks know some secrets stuff.

So, obviously, to create Centos 6, oops, Paul Linux 6,  I have to isolate
the non-GPL software and then replace it with something workable.

After that, what am I legally required to do?  As far as all of the other
RPM packages are concerned, couldn't they be redistributed exactly as they
are, without any modification at all? In Centos-devel, it appears to me most
of the discussion is about "re-branding", going through the packages
and
changing "RedHat" to "Centos" and swapping out icons.

Is that legally necessary?  In my memory, there was a Linux distro called
Mandrake and it was exactly the same as RH for i386, except they re-compiled
with gcc options for i686.  I recall that in many of the RPM packages in
Mandrake, they did not bother to replace "RedHat"
with some other name.


PJ
--
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas
_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS at centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

[This reply isn't directed at John; his message just makes a good place to
reply....]

On Friday, April 29, 2011 02:50:27 PM John Hinton wrote:
> Am I required to remember everything I did from that long back? LOL 
> There might be some stuff in the archives though... back in the early 
> ver. 3 days.
For the archives (not directed to John, but to the thread in general), go look
at the archives of Red Hat's taroon-list and taroon-beta-list lists.  Also
educational is looking at nahant-list and nahant-beta-list, and rhelv5-beta-list
and rhelv5-list, and finally rhelv6-beta-list and rhelv6-list, all available at
the http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo Mailman interface.

And, of course, to get some real background into the whole Fedora/RHL split,
read through shrike-list, at the same url

And then go to http://www.uibk.ac.at/zid/systeme/linux/rhel-rebuild-l.html and
read a while in those archives.....

>
> That "good faith effort" is required for all packages (GPL or
not).
>
> And yes, it is legally necessary make that good faith effort not to
> infringe upon someone else's trademarks.
>
> This is specifically called out here:
> http://www.redhat.com/about/companyprofile/trademark/
>
I've just read that document and it seems to say that you could take
all of the RPMs exactly as they are built by RedHat and include them
on a disk, and you can label the disk "Centos 6", and you are
completely within the guidelines.


PJ

-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas

On Friday, April 29, 2011 03:49:47 PM Paul Johnson
wrote:
> I've just read that document and it seems to say that you could take
> all of the RPMs exactly as they are built by RedHat and include them
> on a disk, and you can label the disk "Centos 6", and you are
> completely within the guidelines.
Read http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=66

Paul Johnson wrote on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:17:23 -0500:
> After that, what am I legally required to do?
This is not the place to ask.
> I've just read that document and it seems to say that you could take
> all of the RPMs exactly as they are built by RedHat and include them
> on a disk, and you can label the disk "Centos 6", and you are
> completely within the guidelines.
It doesn't matter if you can or not. I wished you hadn't started this 
thread. Just more dead weight for the list. Please kill it by not replying 
yourself.

This list once was a valuable peer-to-peer support list but has been 
turning into a meta-centos/rhel discussion list lately. There was already 
a lot of off-topic "linux-only" stuff on it in the past that
didn't
qualify for "centosy" things, but that at least was technical and some
people might still benefit from it when working with CentOS. But this and 
the other discussion we had here lately is of interest to only a tiny 
minority.
Admins, please stop this trend!
Please consider opening a "centos-discuss" list that will welcome this
sort of topic so we can get a "clean" list back. Thanks. I'm tired
of
evading dozens and dozens of posts to find the few valuable ones.

Kai