CentOS - Jun 2004 - Diff files to be made publicly available.

I plan to highlight the differences
between RHEL and CentOS 3.1.

Making this information clearly available
without the need for duplicated effort across the world.

This will help others take CentOS  in
different directions benefiting us all.

It will help individuals create new projects
more easily and efficiently.

Are the diff files readily available,
can I download them from anywhere?

If the diff files were made available with each update,
the community would understand more,
less questions and confusion would occur.
More scrutiny would result in a better product for us all.

RHEL takes open source software and closes it.
CentOS takes this closed software and reopens it.
By making the changes open to public inspection,
CentOS would become 100% open source.

I have no wish to waste months of effort duplicating your work,
even if I write scripts to automate the task.

I can host the files on a server if you have no wish to do so at caosity.

Alternatively I could do this work for you.

Kevin Wood

Open source, open mind.

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, kevin wrote:
> 
> If the diff files were made available with each update,
> the community would understand more,
> less questions and confusion would occur.
> More scrutiny would result in a better product for us all.
This really is a strange post.

The patch files are all contained separately within the source rpms.

The exceptions are redhat-artwork and anaconda-images where the graphic 
files are contained with the source rpm, and anaconda itself where there 
are wholesale changes.

I dont know what 'questions and confusion' you are referring to.
> 
> RHEL takes open source software and closes it.
> CentOS takes this closed software and reopens it.
> By making the changes open to public inspection,
> CentOS would become 100% open source.
But they already are and it already is.


Lance

-- 
uklinux.net - The ISP of choice for the discerning Linux user.

>Content-Type=message/rfc822
>Content-Description=embedded message
>Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:04:52 +0100 (BST)
From: Lance Davis <lance at uklinux.net>
>To: kevin <kwood at free.fr>
>Cc: centos at caosity.org
>Subject: Re: [Centos] Diff files to be made publicly available.
>On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, kevin wrote:
>> If the diff files were made available with each update,
>> the community would understand more,
>> less questions and confusion would occur.
>> More scrutiny would result in a better product for us all.
>This really is a strange post.
When one can not see from another persons perspective,
things often looks strange.

>The patch files are all contained separately within the source rpms.
>The exceptions are redhat-artwork and anaconda-images where the graphic
>files are contained with the source rpm, and anaconda itself where there
>are wholesale changes.
>I dont know what 'questions and confusion' you are referring to.
>> RHEL takes open source software and closes it.
>> CentOS takes this closed software and reopens it.
>> By making the changes open to public inspection,
>> CentOS would become 100% open source.
>But they already are and it already is.
I interpret this comment to mean CentOS 3.1 is 100% open source.

Red Hat are very clear in RHEL 3ES about what they claim to be
"Copyright" with "All rights reserved".

However, can someone please explain the following line
from redhat-logos.spec in CentOS 3.1 SRPMS:

License: GPL - CentOS logos Copyright 2003 and Trademark Definitive Software 
Ltd

I presume the following equation is true:

Lance === Definitive Software Ltd

I hope very much to be wrong.
I hope CentOS is 100% GPL, open source software,
free for all men (and women) to copy and distribute at a small cost
(even if their enemies can do the same four times cheaper).

So please feel free to regard this posting as strange,
tell me I've found a typo, or tell the world that parts of
CentOS 3.1  have Copyright restrictions and
is NOT therefore 100% GPL, open source software.
Not just yet anyway......



Kevin Wood
In a world where GPL sometimes stands for (Greedy People Lying)



>Lance
>--
>uselinux.co.uk - The ISP of choice for the discerning Linux user.

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>Content-Type=message/rfc822
>Content-Description=embedded message
>Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 02:05:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bart Schaefer <schaefer+centos at
zanshin.com>
>To: kevin <kwood at free.fr>
>Cc: centos at caosity.org
>Subject: Re: [Centos] Diff files to be made publicly available.
>On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, kevin wrote:
>> However, can someone please explain the following line
>> from redhat-logos.spec in CentOS 3.1 SRPMS:
>>
>> License: GPL - CentOS logos Copyright 2003 and Trademark Definitive 
>> Software Ltd
>>
>> I hope CentOS is 100% GPL, open source software,
>> free for all men (and women) to copy and distribute at a small cost
>Copyright is not license.
Okay.
>Materials can be *licensed* under the GPL, and therefore freely copied,
>even when copyrighted.  In fact, the entire basis of the GPL, as I 
>understand it (IANAL etc. etc.) is copyright law -- someone has to hold a
>copyright on the material in order to have legal grounds for applying the
>GPL.  If no one holds a copyright, then the material is in the public
>domain and the GPL is neither necessary nor applicable.
>It is true that in many cases the copyright of GPL'd material is
assigned
>to the FSF or some similar entity, but that is not a necessary condition
>of licensing it under the GPL.
>*IF* there were a statement somewhere that explicitly *excludes* these
>images or other selected parts of CentOS from the terms of the GPL, then
>you might have grounds for complaint, but the statement that they are
>copyrighted does not AFAIK constitute such an exclusion.
I have no reason to complain about the work done on CentOS 3.1.
Its a necessary direction due to Red Hats chosen path.
>The effect of the copyright is that you cannot separate the CentOS logos
>from the rest of the sources and use them, independently, for some other
>purpose, without permission from Definitive Software Ltd.  The effect of
>the GPL is that you can copy and distribute CentOS as a whole, even though
>it includes the copyrighted images.  Do you see the distinction?
Okay imagine I have removed the images from CentOS 3.1
and replaced them with other images I created,
or with no copyright restriction.

Are there any other copyrighted parts to CentOS 3.1?
Is some of the code copyrighted also?
>(Again, I am not a lawyer, and the GPL has all sorts of other effects that
>might be construed to make it possible to re-use the logos.)
Thanks for the clear response.

Kevin Wood.
Looking for truth and clarity nothing more.....
but if you throw in a bonus, thats fine with me.

Other than the following copyrighted parts to CentOS 3.1,
Does Definite Software Ltd have any copyright restrictions
on any code written by persons on the CentOS 3.1 project?

#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
#   anaconda-images.spec.mydiff
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
#> Summary: Images used in the CentOS installer
#> Release: 2.centos.1
#> License: GPL - CentOS logos Copyright 2003 and Trademark Definite Software
#Ltd
#> The anaconda-images package contains images used in anaconda, the CentOS 
#installer.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
#   redhat-artwork.spec.mydiff
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
#> Summary: Artwork for CentOS default look-and-feel
#> Release: 1E.centos.3
#> URL: http://www.centos.org
#> License: GPL - CentOS logos Copyright 2003 and Trademark Definite Software
#Ltd
#> redhat-artwork contains the themes and icons that make up the CentOS 
#default
#> - changed to CentOS artwork
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
#   redhat-logos.spec.mydiff
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
#> Summary: CentOS-related icons and pictures.
#> Release: 1.centos.3
#> License: GPL - CentOS logos Copyright 2003 and Trademark Definite Software
#Ltd
#> The redhat-logos package contains logos for CentOS.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Kevin Wood
Clarifying the question until the question becomes clear.