From: "Geo." 

I believe I already agreed there should be an exception for free (no
copyright) software.

Are the drivers also copyright free?

Geo.

"Tim Boyer"  wrote in message
news:to69p2dvhkabus9ubopjgrltvurf0m490v{at}4ax.com...
> On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 23:15:17 -0500, "Geo."
 wrote:
>
>>"Tim Boyer"  wrote in message
>>news:jhd8p2pvrvskj2manjb937ll5u5ltlnqbh{at}4ax.com...
>>
>>> Yeah, but Fedora is _supposed_ to be bleeding edge.  It's the hobbyists'
>>> OS;
>>> the one you play around with.  It's not supplied by any corporation.
>>
>>Ok, free software (ie no copyright) is sort of a special case.
>>
>>> It's what feeds Red Hat Enterprise.  RHE _is_ supported by Red Hat, and
>>> they
>>> promise version support for seven years.  IMHO, seven years for OS
>>> support
>>> isn't bad.
>>
>>They want the copyright to last for 100 years, then they can damn well
>>provide support and security patches for 10 years, hell they should have
>>to
>>provide it for the full 100.
>>
>>Geo.
>
> What copyright?  You think this is Windows or something?  It's open
> source. Red
> Hat has to offer all of the changes they've made for free.  Don't want to
> pay
> them for support?  Get CentOS instead:
>
> "CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources
> freely
> provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux
> vendor.
> CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policy and
> aims
> to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove
> upstream vendor branding and artwork.) "
>
> It's Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with the logo changed.  The only thing Red
> Hat
> has copyrighted is the name and the logo.
>
> George, it's _all_ free software!  You don't want to pay for support?
> Then
> don't pay for support.  I do - completely voluntarily - because I like Red
> Hat
> support, and I want to keep them in business.
>
> That's what the whole Oracle brouhaha is all about.  Ellison can grab the
> same
> software that Red Hat has, and offer support for a lower price.  Red Hat,
> thanks to the GPL, has no choice - it _has_ to publish source.
>
> --
> tim boyer
> tim{at}denmantire.com

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