The rule of thumb is that anything under GPL is legally copyable and
re-distributable. In general the Linux kernel in every distro is copyable,
however, certain distros carries apps which may have a limiting
licence....for example might allow you to use it non-commercially, but you
have to purchase a licence for commercial use (qt, the toolkit used by KDE
used to be under such a licencing scheme). Similarly any non-free s/w may
not be freely copyable or redistributable, or may be redistributable but
limited to personal, non-commercial use.
Debian for example, has Non-free, non-US versions of their distros ....the
non-free components are often proprietory apps ported to Linux, without the
src being made available or you have limited by the usage policy. The
non-US components mean that they usually do not carry programs using secure
cryptographic algorithms. Under the brain-dead US legislations export of
strong encryption s/w out of US is at par with export of munition, which is
why programs that use or implement 128-bit (or larger) public-key encyption
are banned. For us linux folks, it means that we can get access to the more
secure apps by d/ling them from non-US servers. However, with the US
coercing nations to sign the Wassenaar Agreement, IIRC, there was a open
request to the entire global community from Phil Zimmermann -- the author
of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). His request to the people from non-Wassenaar
signatory countries was that they start to take over the reponsibility of
mirroring and further developing pgp code.
--Indra
----------
From: IGNATIUS NAYAN D'ROZARIO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ilug-cal] More on Linux & Legalese !!!
Date: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 12:35 AM
<snip>
Although Linux itself is open source and freely distributable, what about
the distros ? If someone copies the CDs of any given commercially available
Distro is he/she/it committing an act of software piracy. Now this may SEEM
rather paradoxical but what does the legal agreement which accompanies the
distros actually say ?
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