On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, Alex Hewitt USG wrote:
> Because Linux software is usually copyrighted under GPL, I have the
> impression that you can copy a distribution at will.
A distribution is almost always an aggregation of separate works on a single
medium. Each work has its own copyright, and reproduction is legally assessed
on an individual basis. Anything written by the distribution compiler is
treated the same way.
> Is that impression accurate? I'm looking at an official Red Hat 7.1 CD and
> it has the following notice:
>
> "Copyright (c) 2001 Red Hat, Inc.
> All Rights reserved. Made in the USA."
Perhaps Red Hat is notifying you of the copyright they hold on their own
work. In that case, it really should say "and others" (or something like
that) on it as well. In any event, the licenses of the individual works, as
described above, still applies.
Another possibility is that the notice applies to the artwork on the CD (or
box) itself. This is not as silly as it sounds. Your average fast-food
hamburger wrapper, for example, will have a copyright notice printed on it.
That copyright applies to the wrapper artwork, not the hamburger inside it.
The best analogy for this I can think of is what would happen if you took a
bunch of different magazines and put them into a single three-ring binder, and
then added your own analysis and abstract at the front, with its own, separate
copyright and notice.
> If I wanted, could I burn a copy of this CD?
Assuming all the works on the CD include a license allowing reproduction and
distribution, yes. You could even sell it at a profit, if you like. You
cannot, however, call it "Official Red Hat Linux", or you are stepping on Red
Hat's trademark policy.
Be aware that not all Linux distributions follow as open a policy. For
example, take SuSE's YaST install/configuration tool. As I understand it, as
of SuSE Linux 7.0, SuSE does not allow you to redistribute YaST. The only way
to copy the CD is without YaST, which breaks the distribution rather severely.
> I know that ISO images of most of the distributions are available on-line
> but I'm not sure what the copyright restrictions are for the distribution
> CDs.
In most cases, the CD you buy in the store is identical (or close enough) to
the CD you get online. The exception would be when a vendor like Red Hat adds
some "commercial", "proprietary", or otherwise restricted software to their
boxed sets. In those cases, you likely cannot copy those parts of the set.
The rest is still legal to copy, however. Again, the copyrights and licenses
of the individual works still apply.
Finally, I am not a lawyer. See disclaimer below.
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
| The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not |
| necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or |
| organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. |
**********************************************************
To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the
*body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter:
unsubscribe gnhlug
**********************************************************
