[UCI-Linux] Red Hat Enterprise Linux for gratis

[Stephen D. Franklin]

> I know that UC is working with RH to get a sitewide license.  But until
> that happens, or if you want to run it at home, there's an alternative to
> paying RH's retail prices.
> 
> White Box Linux[1] is a new project that builds RHEL source (available
> under GPL) after removing RH's logos and trademarks to keep it legal.
> >From their website...
> > To provide an unencumbered RPM based Linux distribution that retains
> > enough compatibility with Red Hat Linux to allow easy upgrades and to
> > retain compatibility with their Errata srpms. Being based off of RHEL3
> > means that a machine should be able to avoid the upgrade treadmill until
> > Oct 2008 since RHEL promises Errata availability for five years from
> > date of initial release and RHEL3 shipped in Oct 2003.
> 
> Note that this should not be used on any production machines since it's
> still a pretty new project.  Only one maintainer, no bug tracking, no
> mailing list so far.
> 
> Of course there's the other option of switching distros.
> 
> - Steve Tsai
> 
> [1] http://www.beau.org/~jmorris/linux/whitebox/
> _______________________________________________
> List-Info: https://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/uci-linux

The licensing arrangement that UC has with Red Hat covers only
university systems (not home/individual use).  It is much like
what CNET reported last Saturday
  http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5107941.html
That report doesn't give all the details because the details
are not available/worked-out yet.  ;-)
UC was on the phone with Red Hat first thing last Monday and
we expect to be among the first (if not _the_ first) to know
the details once Red Hat works them out, if for no other reason
than the fact that we've been working with Red Hat on this
since last April (sigh) and because the deal CNET reported
on (as far as university systems) is essentially the same
(or at least very strongly based) on what UC and Red Hat
have worked out over the past 6+ months.

-- sdf

Stephen D. Franklin
Network & Academic Computing Services
Phone: 949/824-5154   E-mail: franklin@uci.edu