On Tue, 2002-06-18 at 15:04, Martin C. Messer wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Firstly, a disclaimer. I am in IS/IT, not Sales, Legal, Marketing, et.
> al. My background is technical, my mindset is technical. Anything that
> comes out of my mouth that isn't technical is one of two things: 1) my
> personal opinion, such as my feelings about the Open Source way of life
> or 2) something told to me by Sales, Legal, Marketing, et. al.
Thank you for responding, Martin. We are eager to clear things up a bit.
> With that said, I will do my best to explain my understanding of the
> situation. To begin with, read this:
>
> http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/guidelines.html
>
> I did, and then I went and spoke with Mark Webbink, our General Counsel.
> I posed the following question to him: can someone download our
> distribution directly (ftp.redhat.com) or indirectly (mirrors), put it
> on a some medium (CD, hard disk, whatever) and resell it? Answer: Yes,
> with one exception. It can in no way be mistaken for Red Hat Linux in
> name, meaning that the end consumer should know that what they what they
> are buying is not Red Hat Linux. And I went one step further and asked
> if we required any code changes to the distribution, or could it be
> passed on untouched. And the answer was No, we require no code changes,
> it can be passed on unmodified.
As long as customers know that what they are getting is NOT truely
"RedHat Linux", we are free to pre-install it in boxes and sell those
boxes to customers? (not charging for the "Free RedHat like Linux
Distribution", of course).
> Now, let's talk semantics. Red Hat Linux is not just the code and
> packages and logos that can be found in an ISO. Red Hat Linux is a
> conceptual product that includes a Linux OS, support, documentation, and
> Red Hat Network access. That means that the ISO you download is not Red
> Hat Linux, but 1/4 of Red Hat Linux. Therefore, when you resell the
> contents of that ISO, it can't be called Red Hat Linux. In one way it is
> like selling the chassis to a car and calling it a new Honda. A new
> Honda comes with several other parts and the backing of Honda's warranty
> and service contract. Same idea, different realm.
Right. But if all the customer wants is the chassis of Red Hat Linux
without the support or other goodies (without warantee or anything
else), it is legal for anyone to ship pre-installed copies with servers?
> [BTW, I made a rather general statement yesterday that needs
> clarification. I said that there are no non-GPL elements in the OS part
> of Red Hat Linux. I should have said there are no proprietary pieces,
> since the GPL is but one of the many Open Source-type licenses.
> Apologies. (Thanks Russ)]
True. There are BSD, MPL, and various others aside from the GPL. But the
big difference between the bare-bones version and the REAL "RedHat
Linux" version is primarily with the add-on commercial packages.
Most customers are ok with that.
> I hope that helps with the question concerning whether or not one can
> download the ISOs for the OS and resell them. Everything can remain
> intact but the name, since the name Red Hat Linux is not just the OS
> part of the package.
What do we call it then? Do we call it "Strawberry Turban" and fork our
own GPLed version in order to sell it with PCs as an ISV?
> As for the VAR issue, I can't speak for Red Hat's strategy concerning
> who can and can't be a VAR. From what I can tell, to our Sales folks, a
> VAR is a very large distributor. The exact rules are a mystery to anyone
> not working directly with the program, so I will not attempt to define
> them. I think the problem that David experienced was caused by a poor
> choice of routing within the company. I am the type of person David
> should have been sent to, not Chad or Chris. Hopefully, now that I have
> gotten all the right people at Red Hat together and we've seen where
> things went wrong, going forward we will handle requests like this much
> better. We are relatively new at working with third parties in the
> education space, and when David reached out to us to get some info,
> "third party" was mapped directly to "VAR" while the "education" bit
> should have altered this routing to a more friendly destination, like
> "Education Partner".
Great. Communication in a large company is generally always a pain.
Thanks for acting as the conduit for this.
> Again, I really hope this helps more than it caused further confusion or
> frustration. I have done my best at interpreting the hard and fast rules
> that define our business, but even an old timer like me can be
> misinformed. I do promise to follow up on any questions you folks might
> have.
The primary questions I have are:
1. If we cannot call it "RedHat Linux", what do we call it?
2. As long as a customer understands they have an unsupported version of
"Not RedHat Linux", is it ok to sell them machines pre-installed?
> > One day we're going to have to meet...I enjoy reading your posts. Very well
> > though out..even if they make me sigh :)
Heh.
> > Rather than trying to call Chris, because he is exceptionally busy, email
> > Martin Messer who is on this list. I think he has a good handle on what is
> > going on. In addition, don't hold your breath for Chad to return your call.
> > It took three email attempts and phone calls over two months to get any
> > response from him. Chris and Martin are quite helpful though.
Perhaps with Martin's help we can clarify this without further flamewars
:)
- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net> <ian@blenke.com>
http://ian.blenke.com
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