I would say that it was good for Berni to raise the issue: he firmly
believes there's a legal issue for him. We've all responded and provided
fairly prudent input and advice. It's tough to just say "contact someone
at Novell" b/c who do you contact? I honestly don't see Novell giving
Berni legal advice - it would be nice though to see a legal FAQ similar
to other open distro's but can I imagine an attorney at Novell
responding to any/all legal questions... not likely, nor would I expect
them to.
Regardless, the issue he raises applies to any distribution... I fail to
see how this is an OpenSuse-specific problem or a "gotcha" from Novell -
which is what he was implying. What other distro will he turn to that
doesn't own its own trademarks?
Pascal Bleser wrote:
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Berni Elbourn wrote:
Renegade Penguin wrote:
Sell your services separately, give OpenSUSE away freely. This is
indeed a valid method of complying with the license.
Also, if the same licensing clause applies in the paid version of
SUSE, the same methodology applies. In that case, SELL the software
separately from the services. Unbundling the two manages to satisfy
all conditions quite nicely.
It's good to note that Berni has been a customer of SUSE for years.
Good too see people supporting Open Source companies.
I can see what your saying and I am sure this can happen. However, the
intention of the license is to stop this so we should.
Berni, that is *your* *interpretation* of the license.
As someone said on the list, contact an official from Novell to confirm or
infirm this in your
particuliar case, and don't make interpretations of such text while not being a
lawyer.
More specifically, a few people have replied quite informative content on this,
but it seems you're
not reading it, and keep on throwing *your* interpretation of the license at
everyone.
It's perfectly fine you raise the question, the outcome would interest me as
well, but you did the
one thing you shouldn't do. It's ever recurring tactics to pressure people who
feel good about the
community (openSUSE, in this case), actually like and want to spread the word,
invest their time
into it, ... by telling them stuff like "it sucks", "if it cannot do blabla then I
use yaddayadda",
etc...
This _is_ offensive.
Obviously any constructive criticism is more than welcome, anything that can
make both the openSUSE
community and the SUSE Linux (OSS or not) distribution better, and basically
your request falls into
that. But not the way you wrote your mail. Definately not.
- From your mail, I really get the feeling you were pretty much pissed off when
you wrote it. That's
understandable given the interpretation of the license _you_ are making for
yourself.
But if you want to be pissed off at someone, contact some Novell sales
representative, don't throw
that into the openSUSE community's face.
If you want the customer to pay for SUSE Linux, then tell them to buy SUSE
Linux boxes themselves.
If you want to sell SUSE Linux boxes to them and make money from it, then
become a Novell retail
partner.
If you just want them to have/use SUSE Linux and offer your services based on
that, tell them to
download the SUSE Linux OSS ISOs or burn them and give'm away yourself.
The services you provide have nothing to do with giving away SUSE Linux OSS
media.
The one point that would need clarification is the hardware+SUSE Linux combo,
i.e. you're selling
hardware (PCs, whatever) to your customers, with an added value, and preinstall
SUSE Linux on it.
I really don't expect any issues when preinstalling SUSE Linux OSS. For SUSE
Linux (non-OSS), it
might be a different story.
Where do you see a conflict with what is stated in the license ?
I mean the *full text*, including the paragraphs Marcus Meissner pointed you to:
http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse/2005-Oct/1016.html
And yes, IANAL, and I'm not working for Novell either.
So contact a sales representative from Novell to get an "official" statement.
cheers
- --
-o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
/\\ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
_\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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