Производные Red Hat Enterprise Linux: обзор и особенности

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Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives are Linux distributions that are based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Linux distribution.

Red Hat Linux was a popular Linux distribution largely because, while a paid for supported version was available, a freely downloadable version was also available. Since the only difference between the paid for option and the free option was support, a great number of people chose to use the free version. In 2003, Red Hat made the decision to change its Red Hat Linux product into Red Hat Enterprise Linux for customers who were willing to pay for it. A community driven Red Hat based Linux distribution called Fedora was available free of charge. Fedora has its own beta cycle and has some issues fixed by contributors, who occasionally included Red Hat staff. However, its quick and nonconservative release cycle means it might not be suitable for some users. Nowadays, Fedora is a test bed for Red Hat, allowing them to beta test their new features before they get included in CentOS Stream, and eventually Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat no longer makes binary versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux available free of charge.

Red Hat does not make a compiled version of its Enterprise Linux product available for free download. However, as the license terms on which it is based explicitly stipulate, Red Hat had previously made the entire source code available via their network of servers.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives generally include the union set, which is included in the different versions of RHEL. The version numbers are typically identical to the ones featured in RHEL; as such, the free versions maintain binary compatibility with the paid for version, which means software intended for RHEL typically runs just as well on a free version. Relatively few changes need to be made to the distributions. However, RHEL used to use Red Hat's own Up2date technology for providing updates. For convenience, several of the free alternatives ship with yum replacing up2date, something that makes providing mirrors for upgrades significantly easier. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and above releases use yum as their native system for providing updates, with up2date being just its front end.

Free redistributions are expressly encouraged by the GNU General Public License upon which Red Hat's distributions are derived. However, to avoid misrepresentation of Red Hat's trademark, material in the original distribution covered by the trademark must be stripped off or removed from the redistribution. Where distributions (e. g., CentOS) have not been deemed sufficiently thorough in removing references to Red Hat, they have received warnings from Red Hat's legal counsel. CentOS received such a notice seeking to have it remove all mention of Red Hat's asserted trademarks from their website and their distribution.