On Wed, 16 Jan 2002 17:13:18 -0800
"Robert Finneran" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> RedHat, but I think it is a licensing rule of the GNU project or
> something which might implies that this rule would also apply to Suse.
> 
> Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.
> 

You're mistaken.

;)

The tip of the iceberg is that the GPL requires that if a company were to
take existing code that was licensed under the GPL by it's author, and
modify it and then use it in their product, they must make the source code
to those changes available for free.  There are some nuances to this, but
this is the gist of it.

SuSE, on the other hand, developed their yast series of tools in-house,
and licensed them in a proprietary manner.  As such, this tool is *not*
bound by the GPL.  Therefore, they are not *required* to make the source
available, but they do anyway, IIRC.  The license states that it is a
violation of said license to distribute or make available via
'data-carriers' (read: CD's or iso images) these programs w/o the express
approval of SuSE.  Since a substantial part of their business model does
include the sale of boxed sets, you can guess about how far you'll get on
that one.  SuSE does though encourage the distribution via ftp of the
distribution tree, so that say, large educational facilities, etc. could
mirror the ftp distribution and then install via FTP or NFS.  Most likely,
that's what that type of organization would do anyway: buy one copy, then
do FTP/NFS installs, etc. so SuSE doesn't really lose anything that way,
other than the (relatively few) odd small users that are willing to go to
the trouble of mirroring the FTP distribution themselves and installing
that way.  A bit of trouble, and not for the inexperienced really.  Most
SuSE'ers buy about one boxed set every year or so, from what I gather,
some buy the 'upgrade' set in btwn, and some (I'm guilty here) buy the
full boxed set on an all-too-regular basis.  But last I checked, there is
no provision in the GPL, or any project that I'm aware of, that *requires*
a company that makes a Linux/BSD distribution to make free iso images
available.  The software (gnu) may be free, but the iso image
format/layout can be copyrighted (i.e. OpenBSD).  In fact, if you _really_
wanted to go to the trouble, you could theoretically d/l the FTP version
of SuSE, figure out how the programs need to go on the iso image, and make
your own.  I think you'd still run afoul of the 'data carriers' clause in
the licensing for yast1/2.

If it sounds like I think a lot of SuSE, well, I do.  I have an H&K shirt
that pretty much sums up it up: 'Precision German Engineering'

Just wish SuSE/RedHat rpms were a wee bit more interchangeable.

HTH,

Monte

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