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Can I Distribute This?
erikharrison asks: "LormaLinux is one of several emerging desktop oriented Linux distros. It comes prepackaged with the Flash Plugin, Real Player, and Yahoo IM. Is this legal? The Flash EUL agreement does allow free redistribution, but only of the Mac and Windows version, I can't seem to find a EULA for Linux version of Real Player, and can't even find the Linux version of YIM to check for licence issues. Do these distros know something I don't? And if not, am I only going to cause grief if I go to the software OEM and ask for a redistributable licence for my own project?"
Let's hope they already have asked permission. We don't need something else for the boobs at SCO to use to fuel their FUD. "In addition to being composed entierely of our source code, Linux distros violate EULA's and cause baldness... in women."
Instead of asking slashdot, I suggest asking the vedors of the software
one wants to include. Much better that way. Makes sense also..
Perhaps they are just not getting wrapped up in the whole nonsense of everything. I mean, I think if somethings freely downloadable, its pretty safe to assume its ok to pass it on.
Sure you might get some clowns like SCO whinging and whining about laws etc. But the facts are:
1 people are even allowed to copy and distribute copyright material in most cases, noone cares about copying records and cds onto cassete tapes for friends. Noone worries about people recording tv shows onto vhs.
2 Copyright isnt even criminal law, its civil. The police dont actually care.
3 Fair use
4 Who cares if all the commercial artists go broke, they suck anyway, truely good artistic creations are done by those that love the art, not the $$$$.
5 Software is just a pattern of 0s and 1s. What company may be so cheeky to claim a certain pattern of 0s and 1s on MY hard drive.
6 All these laws only apply within countries anyway, this is the net, its above all that, information intends to be, and will be, free.
7 By even caring and considering all this license rubbish, you are just giving credibility to the SCOs of this world.
Just try to stay rational about everything and use common sense to decide whats right and wrong, and try not to get all wrapped up in legalses crap, lawyers really dont deserve to get taken so seriously!
"...am I only going to cause grief if I go to the software OEM and ask for a redistributable licence for my own project?"
Jebus! He thought of this already! He's asking for advice before he pursues this because these vendors are known litigous assholes!
Some bonehead will probably mod you up to 5 for feeding something back to the guy he already considered. If you're going to Karma Whore, at least pretent to come up with something original. What benefit have you provided to the person asking the question? None.
Check: http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/macromedia/
" This is the official mirror system of Macromedia Linux packages.
With permission from Macromedia we take their software and package
it in Linux friendly ways (RPM, DEB, ebuild). These packages are
made available for manual download, apt-get, urpmi, or emerge.
Macromedia's EULA forbids repackaging and/or redistribution of
their software so please do not mirror this repository.
Please point your apt-get or urpmi to one of these official
mirrors of this site, as they will be permanent."
Apparently you can either try to ask MM for another exception, or you can make your distribution download the packages from this site. It's maintained by Warren Togami of Fedora.us-fame.
Real Player
You might want to ask the folks at helixsupport.org, and read the licenses over there.
Yahoo IM
When you go to messenger.yahoo.com, click on Unix and check the RPM you see that the license is "proprietary". You can contact them at messenger-unix-support@yahoo-inc.com, maybe they can give you more info.
As for the distributions which include it, like Lycoris, I suppose they've all gotten permission from the authors/owners of this products.
Maybe this is a stupid question, but why not use one of the GPL'd IM clients that works with Yahoo? It's one less headache.
If you don't have a license that specificly says you can redistrubute, you can't! "Redistribution" is basicly publishing, and so it would be covered by basic copyright law.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Additional info on fair use
The "fair use" doctrine likely wouldn's apply regardless. Fair use exceptions don't provide for re-distribution in total, but for excerpted redestribution in support of educational and academic goals. Furthermore, fair use can not apply where it would likely diminish the commercial value of the original work.
As an example, say you were writing a book on cinematography. You could create a companion DVD containing 1 or 2 minute snippets of films demonstrating the techniques that you describe in your book. The fact that you are distributing 90 seconds of a 100 minute film is unlikely to damage the film's owner in any meaningful way.
You could not, however, redistribute the entire film, or even a substantial portion of it.
REDISTRIBUTION NOT PERMITTED in the LICENSE file.
"Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!"...
Since all of these things are 'net based, why don't you make a script that grabs these packages and seamlessly installs them?
The user will probably never know the difference, and the companies can't complain.
The biggest issue will be a license clickthrough before running the script.
1. Unless stated otherwise, you aren't allowed to copy a copyrighted work!
2. But it says copyrighted!
Yes, the right of making copies granted to the author.
And now, you wouldn't blatantly copy a book giving away free copies. Why would you do otherwise with software.
So, unless clearly stated, you can't redistribute any copyrighted work.
Downloading packages to each end user's computer would work for Yahoo! IM, but it would not work for Macromedia Flash Player and RealPlayer, both of which can work entirely without connecting to a network, playing media from the local file system.
Did they have permission to distribute The Italian Job (S)VCDs?*
* See the screencap for The Bear, their FTP program, for details.
everything is legal, if you want it.
> these vendors are known litigous assholes!
hm ok. None of these 3 companies are suing 12 years old yet AFAIK.
Anyway, these are end-user client software those companies would most likely not mind being distributed, as long as you ask them first.
I somehow don't see Macromedia saying "Well yeah we make that flash player for linux, but we don't want linux users having it pre-installed, that's a bit too easy."
Same goes for the others.
no