On Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:32:52 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:
On 2011-09-27 21:28:48 (+0200), Michael Kromer <mkromer@medozas.de> wrote:
I guess you are talking about the upgrade subscription, right? However, as GPL clearly states that you cannot charge anything for the Software itself, you actually pay for the "service around packaging, power, ethernet - simply infrastructure and update service".
I don't believe this is correct. To the best of my knowledge, the GPL doesn't prohibit charging for the software, but it states that the source must be freely available. The GPL doesn't have a lot (if anything) to say about cost, because "free" doesn't mean "as in beer" in the GPL.
Seems I am correct on this. See:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney
(As well as the other questions present)
Indeed this is something I wasn't aware of - Thanks for pointing this out!
Actually, the only obligation SUSE has with SLES there, to comply with the GPL and other open source licenses, is to make the source of updates available when you have a subscription. As you can't get ahold of the updates without a subscription.
I don't think that's entirely true either, though - someone has to have a subscription, sure, but AFAIK the GPL doesn't permit SUSE from restricting the distribution of those updates or the source by a recipient of those packages. So, if I don't have a subscription to SLES but I know someone who does, they are free to distribute any GPL'ed software from their subscription to me if they want to. If the code is GPL'ed, then the binary and source can be redistributed by anyone who obtains it from SUSE. (I'm not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV, but that seems to be pretty plainly spelled out in the GPL - both v2 and v3) Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org