2008/6/3 John Andersen
Isn't it more likely Ubuntu have negotiated a redistribution license or are simply using ndiswrapper with windows drivers downloaded directly from the source?
This bugaboo of law suits is a lame excuse. If the lawyers that veto all the drivers that suse leaves out or cripples spent half that amount oif time on the phone negotiating redistribution opensuse would be a complete distro out of the box/torrent.
These could be packaged separately so as safely segregate these drivers from the GPL.
If the drivers require kernel modules then they must be licensed under a GPL compatible licence[0]. Otherwise redistribution of those drivers is a violation of the copyright of the kernel developers. Inclusion of nvidia drivers etc is not a matter of getting permission from nvidia, but of getting permission from the kernel developers. Linux is distributed under the GPL, they had decided not to permit proprietary drivers. Even if you wanted to get permission to distribute such a driver it would not be possible to get permission from all kernel developers to do so. If you want a free operating system that allows proprietary drivers then you probably want a BSD. [0] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL -- Benjamin Weber -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org