OpenSUSE's EULAs vs. Free Software Ideals

Anonymous Coward Maximus writes with some interesting (and disheartening) bits found in recent EULAs from SUSE: "Apparently the Beta came/comes with an interesting EULA discussed in this Planète Béranger article that just makes me think where is this whole Novell/Microsoft ridiculousness going to end? One quote from the EULA to whet your appetite: 'The Software may contain an automatic disabling mechanism that prevents its use after a certain period of time, so You should back up Your system and take other measures to prevent any loss of files or data.' Hmmm... Here is the full Beta 3 EULA for you to dissect. Note that the final release has a different EULA that doesn't look that scary, but still mentions things like 'You acquire only a license to use the Software' and such." Personally, I find the "Benchmark Testing" section (under GENERAL TERMS in the final release's EULA) to be pretty irksome.

Comments

At least...

[cp.tar]

... we have been warned.

I know I will never recommend S.u.S.E. again.

BTW I think it's to whet one's appetite.

The EULAs are for different products.

[Anonymous Coward]

The beta is from openSUSE (the non-oss version) ( http://lwn.net/Articles/283566/ )
The actual follow-on one is from the non-oss version of openSUSE ( http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/opensuse/distribution/11.0/repo/non-oss/EULA.txt )
The one referenced is for the oss version for openSUSE ( http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/opensuse/distribution/11.0/repo/oss/EULA.txt )

I will leave it as an exercise for the read to determine if it is actually an evil conspiracy or not.

Nonsense, or just laziness...

[sidnelson13]

It just looks like they are using the same parts of the EULA for all of their products, search/replace name of the product. Just look at the part of LIMITED WARRANTY. It makes no sense to an OpenSUSE user!

I love OpenSUSE as a distribution, I am a constant user and I cheer for them , but I don't see myself as being the "You" they refer on the EULA. Actually, I don't see any OpenSUSE user being it.

About the "Benchmark Testing", now I see why we never see OpenSUSE under benchmark testings on , say, Phoronix for example.

Yall are rabid!

[croftj]

Lets see, Novell has Novell/SuSE graphics and branding on the distribution. So you want to be able to take it, repackage it to fit your needs/desires/rabid tastes then still leave all the branding on it so it looks like it's the real Novell product. get a life!

As for the benchmarking. That is a GOOD THING. It implies that if MS benchmarks Novell/SuSE and published the results, Novell then has the right to Benchmark MS's OS in spite of what the Way more draconion EULA states.

  They don't stop you from distributing the code, nor benchmarking. They just ask that you respect their branding and if you can benchmark theirs, they can benchmark yours.

Boycott Novell

[Yfrwlf]

No problem, I'm not supporting Novell anymore anyway. Yes, they are an open source company, so they have helped out the community greatly in many other regards, however, if they wanted to continue helping, then they shouldn't have signed that patent deal.

If Novell was serious about helping Linux and FOSS, they should have rejected getting on the patent train. Not only does it help legitimize software patents which shouldn't exist, but it's also a slap in the face to anyone not running their distro as you are only "protected" from Microsoft's patent racket if you use SLED/SLES and possibly Suse.

I'm for businesses which stand up against the concept of software patents and stand up against big companies which try to trample on something good. The GPL can only do so much against software patents, so it's up to us to voice our discontent with them, and it's up to companies to do the same.

Not to mention, I dislike how ridiculous all the things are which are granted software patents. Ooh, you changed your menu layout slightly? Congratu-fucking-lations, here's your patent.

Pure slashfud

[Anonymous Coward]

This submission is complete bullshit and I'm disappointed that it even is on the front page. This is a clear case of someone who doesn't understand the EULA misinterpreting its contents for dramatic effect. The section on benchmarking isn't at all insidious. Let's quote it verbatim:

Benchmark Testing.
This benchmark testing restriction applies to You if You
are a software vendor or if You are performing testing on the Software at
the direction of or on behalf of a software vendor. You may not, without
Novell's prior written consent not to be unreasonably withheld, publish or
disclose to any third party the results of any benchmark test of the
Software. If You are a vendor of products that are functionally similar to
or compete with the Software ("Similar Products"), or are acting on behalf
of such a vendor, and You publish or disclose benchmark information on the
Software in violation of this restriction, then notwithstanding anything to
the contrary in the Similar Product's end user license agreement, and in
addition to any other remedies Novell may have, Novell shall have the right
to perform enchmark testing on Similar Products and to disclose and publish
that benchmark information and You hereby represent that You have authority
to grant such right to Novell.

Anyone who can actually be bothered to read this sees that all Novell is doing is ensuring that they have the right to make their own benchmarks if some software vendor decides to benchmark Novells products against their own. This isn't diabolical at all.

Also, as for the 'You acquire only a license to use the Software' quote, let's look at that in context:

OWNERSHIP RIGHTS
No title to or ownership of the Software is transferred to You. Novell and/or its licensors owns and retains all title and ownership of all
intellectual property rights in the Software, including any adaptations or
copies. You acquire only a license to use the Software.

If you read that statement in context, instead of quoting it out of context for dramatic effect, you see that it makes perfect sense. Novell is saying that you don't own openSUSE or any of the other branded software they're giving you. They are using legal language to protect their ownership of their brand. This is not unusual and is just common sense. I can already hear some of you saying that this language must mean that Novell is violating the GPL and by not allowing redistribution. Anyone thinking of engaging in such a rant needs to read this before they make a fool of themselves:

The Software is a modular operating system comprised of numerous components that may be accompanied by separate license terms. The Software is a collective work of Novell; although Novell does not own the copyright to every component of the Software, Novell owns the collective work copyright for the Software. Most of the components are open source packages, and most of the components are neither developed nor owned by Novell. Your license rights with respect to individual components accompanied by separate license terms are defined by those terms; nothing in this agreement shall restrict, limit, or otherwise affect any rights or obligations You may have, or conditions to which You may be subject, under such license terms; however, if You distribute copies of any component independent of the Software, You must remove all Novell trademarks, trade dress, and logos from each copy.

You may make and use unlimited copies of the Software within your
Organization. With respect to any version containing the letters "OSS" in
the product name, whereby the product name is
defined in first line of this Agreement, You
may make and distribute unlimited copies of the Software outside Your
organization. You may make and distribute unlimited modified copies outside
Your organization provided You remove all Novell trademarks, trade dress,
and logos from each modified copy of the Software. The term "Orga

Re:Pure slashfud

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly did. That's why I was so readily able to pronounce it to be fud. The author of the article clearly doesn't understand the SUSE EULA and is simply quoting parts of it out of context and offering his completely inappropriate 'analysis' of those cherry picked phrases. The article is bullshit and if you could be bothered to read my post along with the SUSE EULA you'd see that too.

Re:Pure slashfud

[SirCowMan]

The fedora project does the same thing: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses/LicenseAgreement9 Those dirty scoundrels, they're all the same! Seriously though, thanks for running the EULA for us. :)

This is acknowledged in the full EULA

[DrYak]

I don't know if an EULA is even enforceable but we'll see how this EULA holds up against the GPL since almost all packages on their system are licensed under the GPL. In fact, if you read the whole EULA instead of the /. summary, you may notice that :
- novell acknowledges that this is as collection of software, most of which come with various OSS license
- the EULA re-states copyleft software themselves may be freely copied
- novell on claims the work of putting them together

The beta EULA, given the context, may also be a poorly written "Warning : unstable and may crash randomly". The context of this sentence doesn't sound as "We have put a DRM and the distribution will self-destruct on purpose". /. should try to obtain an interview with some guys at Novell, so we can get to ask them what this is really all about.

FTFL

[pavon]

To expand on what cp.tar already said, from the second paragraph of the license:

The Software is a modular operating system comprised of numerous components that may be accompanied by separate license terms. The Software is a collective work of Novell; although Novell does not own the copyright to every component of the Software, Novell owns the collective work copyright for the Software. Most of the components are open source packages, and most of the components are neither developed nor owned by Novell. Your license rights with respect to individual components accompanied by separate license terms are defined by those terms; nothing in this agreement shall restrict, limit, or otherwise affect any rights or obligations You may have, or conditions to which You may be subject, under such license terms; however, if You distribute copies of any component independent of the Software, You must remove all Novell trademarks, trade dress, and logos from each copy. Because the (L)GPL prohibits distributors from placing any additional restrictions on the software, none of the rest of the license applies to (L)GPLed portions of the distribution.

I'm not sure if these restrictions would apply to BSD software. For sure Novell is not required by the BSD license to release the software under a BSD license, but they do - a copy of the license is included with all the BSD software. I'm pretty sure the BSD license would override the terms of distribution spelled out in the EULA, but I don't know about the benchmarking section.

It gets especially confusing to me if you were say benchmarking the LAMP stack on SUSE 11 vs other distributions, since that starts to fall under the software as a collection rather than as individual packages.

Re:We'll see how it holds up vs. GPL

[thedarknite]

The EULA specifically states that licensing for individual components overrides this. Additionally, it seems to be more of a "Don't build on top of this and use our trademarks" more than anything else