Is CentOS allowed in a professional environment?

[drcouzelis]

Hi, everyone!

So, I have a coworker who made a claim I'd never heard before... that it is illegal to use CentOS in a professional environment??? It was the strangest thing. I couldn't get him to actually tell me what he was referring to, just that it is in the license or EULA somewhere...

So my question is, is there anything in the CentOS license or EULA (or anywhere else) that would prevent a company from installing CentOS on as many computers as they like, for business purposes to make money in the United States?

...and to further clarify, I'm talking about using CentOS on "development" computers in a company, not creating and selling a product that includes CentOS in it.

Thank you!

[avij]

The EULA does not sound particularly restrictive to me: http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7.6.1810/os/x86_64/EULA

There is also a legal page and as long as you are not in the business of design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or rocket systems, space launch vehicles, or sounding rockets, or unmanned air vehicle systems you are free to install CentOS in a professional environment.

[odysseus]

Yes, for example Facebook uses CentOS. And Mr. Mark Zuckerberg is still innocent, even if CentOS is not a crime.

[Mike_Rochefort]

In addition to what avij mentioned, if your are a part of an institute (at least in the US) that requires government compliance and regular audit tests, then CentOS will likely not be allowed in your workplace. Red Hat provides those certifications, and regularly perform compliance checks but the CentOS group does not, only rebuild the RHEL source.

Cheers,
Mike

[RubyPanther]

avij,

That's only for export. If you're in the US, you can use it for rocket systems or space launch or whatever. But you can't transfer it to somebody else without export control paperwork if they're going to use it for rocket systems.

If you're in a US friendly country and you're doing space launch stuff you're probably already doing US export paperwork, so you may be able to include the paperwork for CentOS with your other stuff.