On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 03:11:49PM +0200, Daniel Bauer wrote:
Am Dienstag, 29. August 2006 14:51 schrieb stephan beal:
------------ The Software is a collective work of Novell. You may make and use unlimited copies of the Software for Your distribution and use within Your Organization. You may make and distribute unlimited copies of the Software outside Your organization provided that: 1) You receive no consideration; and, 2) you do not bundle or combine the Software with another offering (e.g., software, hardware, or service). -------------
I'm not a lawyer, but in this case I just think:
- regardig 1) if he gives the Suse software for free, not getting any consideration for that, but then eventually gets payd for his work with installing it, it should be ok, no? If not, nobody could ask to get paid for the installing work and then almost nobody would do it except on the own machine and maybe some friends ones, I guess.
The phrase "You may make and distribute unlimited copies of the Software [...] provided that:" It's the combination of making copies *and* getting paid that's illegal.
regarding 2) then he just must not bundle or combine the Suse software with his own, but just make two different things out of it: first install Suse and as a second job install his own software. According to this text it's not forbidden to ask beeing paid for software running on a Suse system, he just may not "bundle or combine" it.
b.t.w. if its true that one may not bundle Suse Linux with hardware, then it would be impossible to sell PC's with pre-istalled Linux or complete systems for a certain business application runing on Suse Linux. If this is the case, every software developper *must* sell Win or Mac, because he can bundle it with what ever he wants, as long as he uses a licensed system.
I can't believe that, so I *must* have misundersood something here...
Yes, you have (I think :) ) You can't make a copy and then bundle that copy with hardware/software/ services. The above text doesn't, however, outlaw bundling official copies. So, basically, if you sell a copy of SuSE (by bundling it), then it has to be an official one. i.e. SuSE want a license fee for each machine if you're going to sell it. There could, however, be other rules which prevent you from reselling official copies. I haven't got a full copy of the text here. Of course, even if the above text prohibits all bundling, then it is still possible to bundle SuSE with hardware - you just have to go to Novell and offer them $$$, and they'll give you different licensing terms (e.g. an Authorised Reseller contract). As an example, under the standard MS EULA, you're not allowed to buy a single copy of Windows and install it onto multiple machines before then selling them. However, most PC vendors have a single master disk of Windows which they use for every PC they sell; they're allowed to do this because they are constrained by different rules to the end users (including having to pay MS tax for every PC they sell). -- David Smith Work Email: Dave.Smith@st.com STMicroelectronics Home Email: David.Smith@ds-electronics.co.uk Bristol, England GPG Key: 0xF13192F2