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OpenSUSE 11.1 License Changes Examined
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.)"
Even space aliens on the movies speak English unless they lack the proper throat devices to speak the language. Every time I see someone write or hear someone speak in a language other than English, I believe they are saying things about me that I don't understand and I hate that! So to hell with all other languages but not English because it is the best one.
(yes, of course I'm kidding)
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.)
Well, unless those seven languages are English, English, English, English, English, English and English, then I'd think it's safe to assume so.
They say that it has been translated into 7 languages in TFA, however, they provide an HTML link for the Deutsch version. Why are they not available on the installer? What good does a license do if it's not available to be viewed at install time? And if it's not available on the installer, then the time that someone took to translate that license into another language was for nothing.
"The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec^2" -Marcus Dolengo
That's probably part of their evil interoperability scam, you see. Nevermind the GPL.
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.
Luckily you gave the answer yourself. No. Read the licenses and it will become clear.
Novell put YaST under GPL. It openend up the development of the distro. It made available their Build Service. It gave tools to remove trademarks and the ability to make your own distribution. (somethink like CentOS is pretty easy to do with openSUSE)
It stopped the time difference of availablity of boxed set and downloadable version. It gives a lot of time and people to coding directly.
Yet when Novell does something, it must be evil.
I am still waiting on the collaps of Linux after the Novell/Microsoft deal. All that I see is that Novell giot a load of money from Microsoft and Novell keeps going on fighting for OSS all the way to court.
The sole reason the license has been changed is because thay want to put their money where their mouth is. I know they are interested in even better ways to do this, so if you have an idea, do not hesitate to tell them. If youi have a good case with a good explanation, they will listen. (That does not mean they will do what you sugest)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
EULA means End-user License Agreement.
Why the fuck should I as a end-user have to agree to an EULA?
Free software is copyrighted, and copyright is for distribution not for use.
EULA covers use.
Why the fuck should I have to agree to something just to use it? It should hamper my freedoms?
Man fuck that. OpenSUSE? So much for open.
EULA is something you expect from proprietary software, not from free open source software.
Fuck that shit.
You might want to take a look at this then: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22434/1154/
There the person talks about having a look at 11. There was no openSUSE 11. Only 11.0. The fact that people are sometimes so narrow minded and think there is only one way to number should lighten up. There is more then one way to give names and numbers to things then the *.0 is an advanced Beta.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
That's not really true. 10.4 would have all the same old versions of things (e.g. ssh) with even more patches applied by SuSE, along with the old kernel, patched up the wahzoo.
11.0 has a new kernel, additional things that weren't in 10.x, and newer versions of most everything else, and the patching starts anew.
It's arguable whether the old versions, plus all the SuSE applied patches, are equivalent to the newer version or not.
pi rounds to 3.1416
TeX's versioning is done by adding one more digit of pi so that the version number becomes more accurate with each upgrade.
Your nerd card revoking card is hereby revoked.
Why do they make such a long EULA... and why do end users have to "agree" to a license?
Why not just change the EULA to a concise "Notice of Rights" telling end users to do whatever they like, and distributors to follow the GPL?
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
That is not how it works in the opensuse world. You must be confusing the F/OSS distributions with their enterprise counterparts.
Yeah, MS gave them money. Why did they do that? Is MS benevolent? Do you honestly think MS wants Linux to succeed at heart, when they have a competing operating system? If you were a MS investor, would *you* be happy to have them giving money to the competition?
Hey, it's called open source, man. Translate THIS.
I'm afraid the days of editors actually seeking out news is long gone. Upper management made stuff like the firehose for a reason and it wasn't to make your life easier.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I left M$ because of lock in. If you don't want to get locked in, think of Debian or at least Ubuntu.
To work on open software and retain rights to the contibution is not at all in the spirit of GPL-Opensource software.
"However why take this risk when both the pilots and air controller have full command of the same language which is not english ? This would be true here particularly in the case of a regional flight. Why take an additional risk ?"
So that the pilots from India, Russia, Czech Republic, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, etc. know what the hell is going on at the airport. Wasn't that clear enough from the example given?
Don't let the door hit your behind on the way out, potty mouth.
Oh, grow up. I try not to use such language, but my eyes aren't bleeding from reading it. If that put you in a moral panic, I suggest you avoid the rest of the Internet; you may be in for some surprises.
It's only words and if you can get so bent out of shape over words you obviously have not read, you need help.
Pot, meet kettle.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Oh, Man! You're using PI version 3.1416? I couldn't get version 3.1416 to build on my box, so I'm stuck using version 2.
If it's not Consolidated Lint, it's just fuzz!
Here was our experience with Linux as we started development on our latest series of product. We took an off the shelf computer for development machine. Here is what happened:
Fedora 9: Kernel panic on boot.
Ubuntu: Hung after splash screen
Kubuntu: See Ubuntu
PCBSD: Installed, no printer drivers out of the box
openSuSE: Installed, printers worked out of the box
I outright prefer FreeBSD on the server side and Mac on the desktop side, but in our case, I can't make a good argument why we should not be deploying almost entirely on *SuSE. All our contract employees have desktops with OpenSuSE loaded on them. Full-time employees get a $2500 signing bonus to select a computer of their choice. Most buy a MacBook pro and then run openSuSE via Parallels or virtual box.
Later we discovered that our database vender of choice deploys on SLES as their default install. So we've pretty much moved all development and deployment of our applications to *SuSE. No all our stuff is written in Java, Python, and PHP. That will deploy on most any platform that supports those three languages.
Another major reason is that our clients can always find support even if something would happen to our company. They could still go and purchase support from Novell. Which is a huge selling point in our business. Most of our code is under an OSI license, either GPL or a modified Mozilla Public License, or in some cases MIT. Again, we get bought out or change direction, they are free to hire programmers or another firm to come in and do whatever they please to the system at any later date.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
M$ might keep the deal floating for sole purpose to have something next time they are sued for desktop/server OS monopoly.
On other side, connections of M$ are so deep rooted in IT industry, that I guess that you can't buy a PC without ever using a single component produced by company not dealing with M$.
Yes, they are evil. Yes, we have to keep our eye on them. But you can't go around without ever coming into contact with them.
P.S. Actually on several occasions M$ was spotted to actually signing - often dummy - deals with pretty much everybody, including innocent bystanders on side roads. So when another company tried to find unaffiliated with M$ party - as e.g. witness in court - they couldn't.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
AC was me at work :P
.NET onto Linux, so that even Linux developers will be developing for Windows and will be in their control, and in turn have some sort of control over Linux software and the Linux ecosystem.
You have a good point though, that could be one additional use of their setup, but of course they're also using it to:
a) Push development on their platforms like
b) Push their "patent protection" scam. These days, you can buy any kind of insurance you want, even patent protection insurance! There's no end to the number of individuals waiting to take your money for false senses of security.
c) EVIL. But seriously I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons.
They may be also doing it to prevent companies from switching off their products entirely and migrating fully over to Linux, but I really think they're hurting themselves more than helping themselves here. I it makes it easier to switch.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
a) Push development on their platforms like .NET onto Linux, so that even Linux developers will be developing for Windows and will be in their control, and in turn have some sort of control over Linux software and the Linux ecosystem.
I doubt with Linux zoo of languages C# would make any huge splash.
But frankly, I'd say ".Net on Linux" has also positive side effects: Windows devels, bound by their jobs into Windows, now have a choice. And I have more than one friend who tried Linux solely to try their .Net app on Linux.
Point here is that Linux community should try to gain from deal to the fullest. Seeing what's happening now with Java, I doubt that in the end M$ would have any control over Linux or its ecosystem. If they push .Net too hard, they might become victim of its own popularity.
b) Push their "patent protection" scam. These days, you can buy any kind of insurance you want, even patent protection insurance! There's no end to the number of individuals waiting to take your money for false senses of security.
Here I can only hope for best. Recent rulings on patents and prior art (C# is conceptually not far from Smalltalk) mean that M$ would have hard time to enforce its patents. More than one analyst said already that M$ has no chances to enforce its patents and will not risk enforcing the patents: most if not all of the patents would be invalidated quite quickly.
Also I think that GPL provides enough protection to end-users and essentially leaves the burden of responsibility on Novell. The day Novell would choose to pass responsibility to end users - would be the last day of Novell in business. They can't be that stupid as to lose trust of its users and (most importantly) paying customers.
c) EVIL. But seriously I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons.
There is no argument that M$ will ever do something for free and likely would try to cash in if any opportunity would arise.
As .Net goes, due to its limited application field (mainly GUI applications) there is little possible harm to Linux ecosystem.
Or, as I'm always tempted to say: I do not care, I use IceWM and/or KDE ;)
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Sounds like you guys are really new to the *nix world. If you have Linux friendly hardware it is really easier than installing windoze these days.
If you are using a proprietary DB vendor you really don't understand how to best make use of opensource and are locked in anyway.
As far as support, I hear this all the time, but don't get it. I find the free support of the community fixes things faster than any paid support I've ever used. (I've used almost all of them). The differences betweent he distributions are actually very small and someone with experience with RedHat would have no problem supporting Debian or Susie.