What SuSE's doing (was: Hello)

[Matt Graham]

"Marcel Kunath" <kunathma@pilot.msu.edu> wrote:
> Yeah companies want money. But besides this there is full distro isos
> available for SuSE 7.1 on the web.
> 
> ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/japanese-7.1/
> 
> These are the full version isos for the Japanese distribution. They also
> feature an English install option if you are not familiar with Japanese.

...and after you've finished installing, your fonts and the man pages are all
in kanji?  :-]

Anyway, when the ISOs for SuSE 7.0 were removed from linuxiso.org, the text of
the message from SuSE said this:

"...the free version of SuSE 7.0 as provided on the evaluation CD image MAY
NOT BE PROVIDED TO ANYONE IN EXCHANGE FOR MONEY but must be made freely
available..." (emphasis mine)

Basically, they will make the full x86 distribution (minus any commercial
software) available as individual packages on their FTP site.  They will make
a leaner (but still fully functional) x86 distribution available as an ISO,
but they want to prohibit anyone from making money off it.  They provide full
ISOs for PPC and Alpha architectures.

Various people have said that their x86 distro policy conflicts with the GPL. 
I don't know what variety of crack they're smoking; their policy is legally
suspect, will not make them any friends, and will not make them any money.  I
have been a SuSE booster/user for quite some time and am seriously considering
another distro for my next big upgrade.  (Debian if I can get some sort of
better-than-dialup access at home....)    

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
"I backed up my brain to tape, but tar says the tape contains no data...."

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