[Sheflug] Re: is SuSE Yast violating the GPL?

[Richard Ibbotson <richard [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris

> I'm assuming SuSE these days comes with ALSA, as flicking back through my 
> manual for SuSE 6.2 trying to find a full license, I came across part of 
> the thing I was looking for. 6.2 (and others) shipped with the full 4Front 
> OSS drivers, which is a commercial product, and as such, the CDs could not be 
> copied, or at least the one with /that/ bit of software on. 


Yes.  It's Alsa which was originally an SuSE sponsored project.

> I know 6.2 is rather old, but if SuSE ships with any commercial stuff these 
> days, I suspect there will be similar restrictions in place that may even 
> require going through the manual to find the caveats. As it is, I've not used
> SuSE since 6.2, so can't comment on newer versions.


The main restriction was Star Office but they've replaced that with 
OpenOffice.  There's a few other things but the main problem is YaST2 
which is SuSE copyright.  This is the bit of software which prevents 
you from putting SuSE software on a server somewhere for download by 
ftp for other people to install.

As for the other stuff.  As long as you don't use the latest desktop 
version then you should be able to put it wherever you like.  The Pro 
version comes with all the desktop stuff anyway and so not much point 
in buying the desktop box with its restrictive licence.

Thanks



Richard
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