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RHX and License Clarity

Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]


Thu, 5 Jul 2007 11:03:57 -0700

Trying to figure out how little they can do?

----- Forwarded message from Matt Mattox <mmattox@redhat.com> -----

Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:20:56 -0400
From: Matt Mattox <mmattox@redhat.com>
To: rick@linuxmafia.com
Subject: RHX and License Clarity
Hi Rick,

Just a quick note responding to your comment in the "More About RHX" section of RHX. We're working on a solution that will make the license approach used by each RHX software vendor very clear to users, including whether or not they are OSI-approved. I'd love to get your feedback on our approach if you have the time and interest. Let me know....

Thanks, Matt Product Manager, RHX

----- End forwarded message -----

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 11:02:52 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com>
To: Matt Mattox <mmattox@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: RHX and License Clarity
Quoting Matt Mattox (mmattox@redhat.com):

> Just a quick note responding to your comment in the "More About RHX" 
> section of RHX. We're working on a solution that will make the license 
> approach used by each RHX software vendor very clear to users, including 
> whether or not they are OSI-approved. I'd love to get your feedback on 
> our approach if you have the time and interest. Let me know....

Hi, Matt. Thank you for your note.

The main problem is actually the statements on the RHX main Web pages that serve as entry points to RHX (and, in the recent past, by all RHX press releases). For example:

http://www.redhat.com/rhx/

  Starts out with "Trusted open source software" -- without saying that 
  some offerings are open source and some proprietary -- and goes on for
  the entire page talking how RHX has helped you select open source 
  applications, etc.
http://rhx.redhat.com/rhx/support/article/DOC-1285 ("More about RHX" page)
  Starts out with "Red Hat Exchange helps you compare, buy, and manage
  open source business applications. All in one place and backed by the
  open source leader. We've collaborated with our open source software
  partners to validate that RHX applications run on Red Hat Enterprise
  Linux and are delivered through the Red Hat Network."
Letting people _dig down_ to licensing specifics would be nice but wouldn't fix the problem of false and misleading general statements everyone encounters on the way in. The latter should be replaced without delay.

And future RHX press releases should mention that it includes both proprietary and open source applications.

The longer the delay in fixing this problem, the more Red Hat's reputation for integrity is suffering. Please make no mistake: Your firm is being damaged by this.

----- End forwarded message -----


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Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]


Thu, 5 Jul 2007 12:59:23 -0700

It's credible that someone in Marketing went off the reservation in the first place, in creating the deceptive Web pages and press release text, but it strains credulity to suppose that nobody within the firm had noticed the misrepresentation of fact, over several months.

I find the feet-dragging disappointing. They should be rushing to fix this.

----- Forwarded message from Matt Mattox <mmattox@redhat.com> -----

Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:23:02 -0400
From: Matt Mattox <mmattox@redhat.com>
To: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com>
Subject: Re: RHX and License Clarity
Rick,

Thanks for the quick response.

You raise some great points. You're right about the marketing copy in those sections. We'll take a shot at updating them. We're also working with the OSI to provide easy-to-understand descriptions of what users can, and can not, do according to each license agreement on RHX. Stay tuned...and let me know if you have other thoughts.

Thanks! Matt

[[[ Quoted material snipped -- Kat ]]]

----- End forwarded message -----


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Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]


Thu, 5 Jul 2007 13:37:13 -0700

I wrote:

> It's credible that someone in Marketing went off the reservation in the
> first place, in creating the deceptive Web pages and press release text,
> but it strains credulity to suppose that nobody within the firm had
> noticed the misrepresentation of fact, over several months.
> 
> I find the feet-dragging disappointing.  They should be rushing to fix
> this.

I'm also somewhat reminded of a quotation passed along, recently, by my friend Karsten Self, who heard it from a career Army officer: "It's difficult to hold a conversation with someone whose livelihood requires that he not understand you."

-- 
Cheers,                 English is essentially an imprecise dialect of Java,
Rick Moen               without the object orientation.
rick@linuxmafia.com     --Julian Morrison, http://ccil.org/~cowan/essential.html

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