Free Novell & Suse

[Jason Clinton]

Brian Densmore wrote:
> SuSE is in the end Linux. Therefore it is governed by the GPL.
> So yes you can download, burn to cd and even sell it to other people
> if you want.

The GPL does not require that you make anything that you distribute
under the license available for download, for free, by everyone. It only
requires that any third party be able to obtain the source code for a
distribution fee. The GPL does not govern any other relationships
between you and a complete stranger with who you have had no contact.
SUSE, et al. do what they do because its a good marketing method and it
attracts users to their minority products -- I'm sure there's good will
in there, somewhere, too.

The applicable section is:

"3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;
or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)"

> The one thing that might be a concern are add-on tools
> that Novell may have added. So if you were to want to redistribute
> there might be some programs you'd have to remove. If someone included something
> in the Linux kernel that isn't governed by the GPL they would be violating
> the GPL and you'd not be responsible for it. Because by their own
> fault they have illegally restricted the Linux kernel.

IANAL, but I do have an interest in Copy(right/wrong) and I'm fairly
certain that Copyright is a strict liability law. Meaning, you're guilty
of infringement even if you didn't know that you were distributing
something illegally licensed. The GPL does not cover collections of
programs such as Linux distributions which fit that definition. This
means that each /piece/ of software included in the distro is licensed
separately and to legally distribute the distro, you must comply with
the license agreement on each piece of software included therein.
Indeed, there may be software included that does not allow
redistribution though I find that unlikely; I imagine that such things
would only be found in the "Enterprise" editions. To be completely in
the clear, you would have to read every license for every piece of
software included.