The Rails Wheels licencing system and Open Source

[Michael Tiemann]

Source are fully and freely available, and include such rights as are needed
to create completely free binaries (CentOS) or competing supported binaries
(Oracle).  The initial subscription must be purchased only if you want
certified binaries from Red Hat, and those binaries are distributed with
source, but they are not provided in lieu of source.

M

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 5:58 AM, Mark James <mrj at advancedcontrols.com.au>wrote:

> Michael Tiemann wrote:
>
>> Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat's CEO, is quoted as saying:
>>
>> *I recognize Red Hat's a prominent alternative to incumbent players, but
>> Red Hat's been around for awhile now, and it's not easy to get off Red Hat.
>> It might be easier to get off RHEL than say, AIX from IBM, but...*
>> Whitehurst: It's very simple. You can stop paying us.
>>
>> Would that qualify in your mind as a form of optionality of support
>> contracts?  Full reference:
>> http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/Interview-Red-Hat-s-new-CEO/0,339028227,339290968,00.htm
>>
>
> Michael, Red Hat subscriptions renewals are indeed optional,
> but an initial subscription must be purchased.
>
> In this way Red Hat is similar to some proprietary software
> like Microsoft Windows and Unigraphics, which only demand an
> up-front payment. But is different to proprietary software that
> uses either vendor-hosted or time-sensitive licence servers.
>
> If Red Hat charges the same for initial subscriptions and
> subscription renewals, this allows users to drift in and out
> of support contracts. This is unlike some vendors who require
> continuity in order to avoid the need to repurchase.
>
> Mark
>
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