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OpenSUSE 11.1 License Changes Examined

Posted by kdawson on from the clear-and-simple dept.

nerdyH writes "Novell's recent openSUSE 11.1 release includes a new end-user license agreement modeled after Fedora's EULA, says Community Manager Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier in this detailed interview. Zonker says distributions should apply the 'open source principle' and standardize trademark agreements and EULA, similar to how the OSI sought to reduce open source license proliferation a few years back. But with Fedora and openSUSE being so different, can one size really fit all? And, will open source licenses ever finally get translated into languages besides English? (Zonker says that translation into 7 languages was done for openSUSE 11.1.)"

3 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I gave up with Suse by houghi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, that is because there are no x.0 products. All products are just a follow up on the previous one. The x.0 does not exist in the way it exists in numbering with software packages.

    11.0 could have easily been named 10.4 and be identical, except for the naming. 11.1 could have been named 10.5 or 7.15 or 3.1415 (or whatever)
    There is NO relevance to a release x.0, except that is vaguely is the version that usually is the version before a SLE release, although this is not a fixed truth.

    So you must have never used even S.u.S.E. or SuSE or SUSE, because this has been the case since forever.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  2. Re:Languages other than English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    In fact, the languages are:
    English (US)
    French
    German
    Italian
    Japanese
    Portugese (Brazilian)
    Simplified Chinese
    Spanish
    Traditional Chinese.

  3. Re:Languages other than English? by Hal+The+Computer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Another problem is, if the license is in several languages, and there is a discrepancy, one language must take primacy. See the case with the Irish constitution.

    Which is of course wrong. Just because it's the way you do it doesn't mean it's the only way.

    The constitution of Canada, and all Canadian federal laws, are equally authentic in either French or English. There are some really fun rules of statutory interpretation which end up meaning that you have to read both texts and figure out their common meaning.

    --

    int main(void){int x=01232;while(malloc(x));return x;}