At 06:31 PM 3/26/00 -0500, 1stFlight ! wrote:
> Hmm, I was thinking more along the lines of, if I set up my Linux box as a
>samba server, how many users can use it? Is there a license for this or am I
>only limited to what my hardware can support?
To answer that question, you have to look at the license for the specific
thing you are running, not the license for "Linux" (which in this context,
either means the kernel or means nothing whatsoever). Linux itself (by which
I mean the kernel) imposes no licensing restrictions on the number of users
who can connect to services running on a Linux host.
I didn't check, but I believe the Samba system is GPL, which in practice
means you get unlimited rights to use it as you wish. (That's not exactly
what the license *says*, but it's the effect of what it says.) For other
apps, you need to check their licenses.
In practice, you'll find that most of the familiar packages that run on
Linux have no restrictions on numbers of users. But there are increasing
numbers of commercial packages being ported to Linux, and their licenses may
be more restrictive. Also, when you purchase licensed copies of Linux
distributions, they may contain some components that are licensed more
restrictively. For examples, I'd look to full (not downloadable) versions of
the more "commercial" distributions, such as Corel and Caldera ... they seem
to have led in the incorporation of proprietary components.
In any case, the best way to get the answer to this question is NOT to ask
on a list, unless you are really doing a survey of user attitudes and
beliefs. Most users haven't looked at the licenses at all carefully -- I'm
in the middle right now of yet another discussion, on a different list, in
which people who must never have *read* the GPL confidently assert,
incorrectly, that a particular site is violating it -- and as a consequence
are not a good source for understanding the fine points of licenses, which I
assume is what you need for your paper.
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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