is RHEL 6 free or not?

RedHat is not free.
If you want a distro based on RedHat but free, you can try with CentOS

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes. (And no.)

The Red Hat distribution includes some non-free software, so you need to pay for those. The payment also includes RH support (most of it goes to support). Thus RH isn't free...

HOWEVER, RH does release (for free) the beta kits - (look for "rhel-everything-7.0...") and you can get it.

It is based Fedora 19, with some changes.

Thus, as stated, "yes and no".

CentOS (and Scientific Linux too) take a while to come out - they go through the system and remove the proprietary parts, logos not allowed to be used, some images that are not free... and then re-release a system.

These systems are completely equivalent to the RH systems, minus the proprietary parts.

2 members found this post helpful.

thanx guys..for quick replay...

Just to point out one other option, RHEL does (still?) have a Free 30 Day Trial, but after that, no more updates or support.
You really are better off with a clone like Centos.

If you can afford the $50 then get red hat. If you prefer something with no strings attached, get centos or scientific linux. If you have a few bucks, donate to the project.

With all projects the extra bit of cash goes to more r&d in the case of rhel or additional worstations etc in the case of centos etc. I believe in the case of scientific linux, there would be goverment funding, thus paid for by tax dollars.

if i use RHEL6 without paying...is there any problem i can get?

Yes; no support or updates

Note the desktop version is self support. So that leaves updates. You want updates or else nasty things will eventually happen.

I can only recommend CentOS for the Desktop. There are guys who say it's a server distribution, but I like it very much. It has Gnome 2.28 as desktop and if there's another desktop or Gnome 3 one day I'll install MATE.

thanks guys

nope. the only thing you are paying for is the SLA, 100% of the code for RHEL is 100% free and you can download the source code all you wish, you just have to compile everything together and would have to continue to do so for updates, patches, etc...

CentOS is 100% bit for bit equivalent to RHEL less the trade mark logos and names.

RHEL is 100% free, but you have to do 100% of the work

Well gnome 3 is around te corner. Rhel 7 is shipping with that as the default gui.

There is no difference between a server distribution and a desktop distribution.

Just what you choose to install.