During a review of the current legal documents, our legal team found a couple
of things they suggest us to change. I'm listening the changes below and plan
to update the documents in the next days.
http://en.opensuse.org/Legal will get a new section called "openSUSE Build
Service" which will get added after the section called "Contributions to
openSUSE".
The new section currently reads as follows and I'm discussing now to change
the "Service" to the "Build Service":
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
openSUSE Build Service (the “Service”)
You understand and agree that the Service is provided on an AS IS and AS
AVAILABLE basis. Novell may discontinue the Service at any time. Novell
disclaims all responsibility and liability for the availability or reliability
of the Service. Novell also reserves the right to modify, suspend or
discontinue the Service with or without notice at any time and without any
liability to you. You should back up any of your data stored in the Service.
Support services, if any, are available by means of separate agreement with
Novell. You represent and warrant that (a) all of the information provided by
you to Novell to participate in the Services is correct and current; and (b)
you have all necessary right, power and authority to enter into these Terms of
Service.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Service
password and account, and are responsible for all activities that occur
thereunder. Novell reserves the right to refuse service to anyone at any time
without notice for any reason. After a period of inactivity, Novell reserves
the right to disable or terminate your account.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The changes to the distribution document come from a review about creating
modified versions of openSUSE and the ownership of these modified versions.
To this end, there are three related changes:
1) We are making it clear that people who create modified copies of
openSUSE (such as LiveDVDs or appliances with additional software) own
their creation. The openSUSE Project only claims ownership of the
original bits.
2) We are clarifying that The openSUSE Project is not claiming ownership
of all the packages within the distribution. The upstream projects own
their code (e.g. the FSF owns GCC).
3) We are ensuring people understand their right to modify openSUSE, as
long as they follow the Trademark Guidelines. While the first paragraph
makes it clear that the collective copyright is licensed under an open
source license, and the Trademark Guidelines address modified works, we
wanted to make it clear further down as well.
The changes are all in Paragraph 3, and I've marked the three changes (one
removal, two additions below):
openSUSE 11.2 and each of its components, including the source code,
documentation, appearance, structure, and organization, are copyrighted by The
openSUSE Project and others and are protected under copyright and other laws.
Title to openSUSE 11.2 and any component, or to any copy (deleted:
"modification, or merged portion") , will remain with the aforementioned
(new) "or its licensors", subject to the applicable license. The
"openSUSE"
trademark is a trademark of Novell, Inc. in the US and other countries and is
used by permission. This agreement permits you to distribute unmodified (new)
"or modified" copies of openSUSE 11.2 using the “openSUSE” trademark on the
condition that you follow The openSUSE Project’s trademark guidelines located
at
http://www.opensuse.org/Legal. You must abide by these trademark guidelines
when distributing openSUSE 11.2, regardless of whether openSUSE 11.2 has been
modified.
Andreas
--
Andreas Jaeger, Program Manager openSUSE, aj(a){novell.com,opensuse.org}
Twitter: jaegerandi | Identica: jaegerandi
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