[CS-FSLUG] OT: RED HAT EXEC CRITICIZES SOFTWARE PATENTS, MICROSOFT

[Frank Bax]

At 07:21 PM 4/20/05, Timothy R. Butler wrote:


>>Is this not a bit two-faced coming from companies who include non-free
>>software in their distros?  Just curious.
>
>         Last I checked, Red Hat does not... RHEL and Fedora are both 
> based on software with Free Software licenses, afaik. At any rate, one 
> can complain about software patents and Microsoft without being 100% Free 
> Software -- those are rather polar extremes in many ways.


I remember reading (on some other list) that several Linux distros signed 
agreements with Intel (and other vendors) to allow redistribution non-free 
firmware for wireless chipsets (like Centrino).  Apparently FC did not 
follow other Linux distros on this issue.  Hopefully, they take the same 
stand with other non-free software.
         http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5690
The firmware must be downloaded directly from Intel's site during installation.