Many distro like redhat, suse and mandrake charge a fee for their product. Is it legal to use their os for free?

It's illegal to do so same like you using Windows XP pirated version

i emailed red hat last time they say u can use downloaded version for office etc ...hehehe try emailing them

let put it like this, my friend buy a RHEL package and then i borrow the cd to install on my computer. I did not get the user support for redhat, is this again the license agreement?

Did u registered ur product before?

I believe we should be going thing legally here.

Assumed that you are using a RHEL and subscription expires ( annual renewal fee stop), you can continue using it for free but don't expect security fix and bug fixed from RH. Not an ideal way of sys admin to maintaining a server this manner. RH knows that if you don't continue subscription service the server will be open for bad hackers.

According to RHEL if subscription licenses still valid, you can transfer account to another party with written permission but on RH subscription record it still valid for single accounts.

This post has been edited by debiankl: Feb 28 2005, 03:12 PM

The update is not really usefull in my company becouse if we always update the server it may couse those web application we are developing to have problem and those programmer will be really mad at me.

Security patch can be for OSS applications, programming languages, libraries.... and kernel. I guess some programmers do not understand the impact of security risk involved when not applying security patchs. Examples. PHPBBS web forum was deface due to unpatch PHP. Linux system can hangs when kernel was not patch (local exploite)

Like or not I would not gamble for it, becos of past experienced of did not apply security patch causes the system was unoperation for few hours. And system admin get the blamed not programmers while programmers avoid admit thier cause.

Rare cases of security updated caused software application not operations on Linux platform unless it could a librarys patches but hear plently on MS platform.

so why don't you switch to a community fedora a try, it still a REDHAT involved project.

Why redhat when you can use CentOS

i don't think they will say yes

centos lack of repository compared to RHEL, another thing, repository centos somehow slow to update and incomplete. I know you can download package on third party location but so much hassle. for those who lazy like me, RHEL all the way.

from what i understand from my meeting with MR Pang Vern Chia(redhat APAC) its not illegal to using redhat for free
but just like Debiankl says, you didnt get support n update from redhat. btw, if you had several server using RHEL, all the server must registered to get an update n support.

Yes, it's generally legal. Free Software means Free as in Freedom, not Free as in price. There is a difference. Free as in "bebas", not free as in "free of charge".

Free software licenses encourage you to share with your neighbours and friends - that's the meaning of freedom! Red Hat is one of the strongest supporters of Free software.

It's not wrong to share Free software legally (in fact, its encouraged!), and it's not wrong ethically.

But I suggest you pay them anyway because they do a fantastic job giving you updates and patches.

you're basically paying RedHat for the services should your system get into trouble.

if you're pretty much capable of handling your own server, then I'd suggest debian with automatic security updates

why centos while freebsd is for you for free.. ahaks..

hey.. it's free, free is freedom dude..

centos is linux while freebsd is bsd
*bsd is not linux

Between... is there any difference if comparing Centos to RHEL without commercial support subscription?

Centos basically pack the same software as Red Hat, minus all the Red Hat specific stuff like logo and etc. Since they follow Red Hat, Centos will provide the updates a couple of months after Red Hat's release. So if you want Red Hat minus the support, might as well get Centos.

i don't think centos repos are incomplete and slow to update, its usually only a few days behind. Pang himself admits that when a new RHEL is released, CentOS will only be a few days behind. (i know pang personally btw)

most of the time, you'd want to use RHEL update for stability. most 3rd party repos usually contains packages that are not thoroughly tested.



yup. RH is selling the service, not the OS. u can even use RHEL with a CentOS repo and it's still legal.

it's more on available manpower in my view. if you have the manpower to manage your free linux servers, then there's no need to use the commercial ones. i'd still recommend RHEL if it's a critical apps server, like hospital apps and the likes.



CentOS actually uses the same source code as RH. only the logos and some trademark items are missing.

This post has been edited by zeroglyph: Oct 13 2009, 04:21 PM

most distro got their commercial version and free version, download the right one from their ftp or mirrors, most your download from bt or other sharing resource should be commercial version.

i personally not recommend go for commercial version unless very critical app like oracle, commercial support and patches is must.

among many distro, i would like to recommend Mandriva, for many reasons, one of the most important is you will not have those hardware driver problem that happen in other distro. other than that, contrib rpm packages qeuit complete and easily deploy.