Need legal advice re: Redhat enterprise linux

[stevenerat at yahoo.com (Steven Erat)]

> I think the key here is the annual service fee.
> The additional $$ is not because you're "Pirating" or anything like
> that.
> They're charging for their annual support and service; they want to make
> sure that they are "servicing" the number of machines that you say they
> are
> servicing.  If you don't have a service contract with them, the amount
> you
> pay is $0 and so any multiplier to that fee would still be $0.
> 
>  -Don
> 

Awesome, thanks!  

So, if RHEL is purchased directly from RH, then part (if not all) of the
charge is for (some level of) Service and Support. Therefore, if you have
purchased the product you have also purchased Service/Support, and you are
bound to report to RH any additional systems to which you have installed
the Software.  

However, if you have received the Software through any non-billable means,
then you have not entered into the service contract with RH, and you are
not bound to report or pay for any system to which you install the
Software.  It seems that the whole 'trick' is to obtain RHEL through some
channel (such as whitboxlinux.org as miah pointed out) where the distro is
either freely available or does not bind you to the RHEL license by proxy.
 

-Steve


	
		
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