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Update to RDist License Discussion

Posted by Roblimo on from the that-was-a-really-nice-gesture dept.

Dennis Heltzel writes "MagniComp just changed their license (again) to freely allow distribution with Linux Read the news here. I wonder if RedHat will do an errata to their errata. " (This change was posted today, 17 July, 1999.)

12 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. PR licensing by Ektanoor · · Score: 3

    In my opinion such kind of licensing is much worse than before. It would be better to have either a free open source licensing or a pure commercial one.

    In fact how can I use rdist in a heterogeneous environment? For example I have a network of several advanced workstations on Linux and some Solaris servers. So do I need to buy rdist just because I have such environment? What difference makes that I'm using one system and not another? This would look much like I would pay 50 cents on gas if I'm driving a Ford or 2,5 dollars if I use a Mitsubishi... It's nonsense.

    Such "advertising" "save-face" licenses should be avoided. Letting them on will lead us into a lot of bottlenecks. No one uses _ONE_ OS (no matter that one guy tries to lead us to it :) )

    1. Re:PR licensing by rstewart · · Score: 2

      If you read it closely it allows you to use the software on any machine you own or lease. So in a heterogeneous network you can compile and install it on other machines and then freely use it. Just because it's not allowed to be included with Solaris does not mean that you can't compile and install it yourself.

      Although the exception is stupid especially when you consider that they admit that older versions are being distributed with other Unixes because of the BSD licensing.

      It would be nice to have a much better license however at least it can still be installed by individuals or companies on their systems even if it can't be included.

  2. Free version of rdist by zoulasc · · Score: 3

    Well, get ftp://ftp.astron.com:/pub/freerdist/freerdist-0.9. 0.tar.gz
    This version is based on Michael Coopers' rdist-6.1.3 with a *lot* of bug fixes (see ftp://ftp.astron.com:/pub/freerdist/ChangeLog), and still has the old nice BSD license, and will stay free.

    christos

  3. A break by way_out · · Score: 2

    It *looks* to me that all of this has been done in a sort of hurry, and is *not* the final license. Mind you, the guy posted a reply earlier on and made a very hasty fix. So I'd suggest giving him some time to figure out how and what.

    Give him a break

  4. Sitll a problem: What about BSD? by crow · · Score: 3

    So you can distribute it for free as a part of a Linux distribution, but not FreeBSD. Ugh.

  5. I hope RedHat sticks to its guns by itp · · Score: 3

    I don't think that this license change is enough. This is not yet free software. What if I want to use it with FreeBSD, or GNU/Hurd, or whatever the next system I'm interested in is?

    This is not truly free software. Find an alternative package, or use the last version released under a BSD license. And I hope RedHat doesn't change their mind.

    --
    Ian Peters

  6. Debian guidelines? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    I believe that the Debian free software definition clearly disqualifies licenses that say software is free when distributed with some or other system. And rightly so, IMO.

  7. Why 6.1 and not 6.0? by crow · · Score: 2

    So if 6.0 has a free license, and 6.1 doesn't, why would we want to use 6.1? Anyone who actually uses rdist 6.x care to comment on any feature/bug changes that real users might care about?

  8. These guys need a little education, I think by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4
    Their new license is very clearly not conformant with the Open Source Definition. Certainly this won't get into Debian, I doubt Red Hat would be interested either.

    I'll try to get them interested in an OSD-compliant license. However, there are perfectly up-to-date versions of rdist that are real free software, and there are several good replacements for rdist, too.

    Thanks

    Bruce Perens

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  9. What about reading their site? by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 2

    I quote: RDist has been and continues to be freely distributable with free versions of UNIX such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, as well as with all Linux distributions whether the distributions are free or not.

    Looks pretty good to me.

    --

    --
    Infuriate left and right
  10. Remember X11 licensing? by crow · · Score: 2

    Remember when The Open Group (which I worked for at the time) decided that it needed more money to fund X11, so it changed the licensing terms for R6.4?

    Well, The Open Group isn't doing X development anymore.

    And RDist isn't nearly as essential or complicated as X (and there are competing products), so why do they think they can make money with that model?

    1. Re:Remember X11 licensing? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 2
      Well, The Open Group isn't doing X development anymore.

      And absolutely nobody misses them. Of course they didn't develop X, they just took it over when the X consortium disbanded. Much of X development was paid for with public funds.

      There's not much point in doing more X development, the product is nearing the end of its life-cycle. Look at the good work being done by the Berlin Consortium and other groups. That's the future.

      Thanks

      Bruce

      --
      Bruce Perens.