Am Sonntag, 2. April 2006 10:41 schrieb Per Jessen:
Greg Wallace wrote:
Then again, I don't recall whether the downloads were actually a "legitimate" way of obtaining the product or not,
If downloading SUSE Linux was not legitimate, why would Novell be offering that possibility? AFAI have understood, Novell/SUSE/Redhat and other distro-vendors cannot charge anyone for the actual software (because it doesn't belong to them), and instead they are somehow obliged to make it freely available for download. I'm not sure exactly how this works though - I don't recall Novell making SLES available for download? SLES is effectively just another distro with a different support scheme/model.
They have to make the source code available - and that only to those that have "purchased" the product. So it depends on the business model of the company in question as to whether the compiled and packaged product is available for free (look at Amstrad, they launched the a Linux based Email terminal, and to get the source code you had to include the purchase receipt and some money (25UKP ISTR) and they would send the code to you). They can assemble the pieces together in a unique form with branding, manuals etc. and charge for it, whether that be a download or a bunch of CD's/DVD's in a box from a shop. They can put a version up for download if they want to, or they can just sell the retail version... Novell provide the OSS and Eval versions for free download. Previous versions of SUSE had a lot of non-OSS packages, which was why the retail and download versions were very different, the download versions could only include the packages that were freely distributable... They are now working towards making the product more "pure" with just OSS software on teh main distribution disks/images and non-OSS software is relegated to CD 6 or the retail DVD. SLES costs a lot more, but you are paying for prolonged support and security updates, as well as the work they've put into the server management tools.
though it would seem that Novell would not be in the business of giving away something they were simultaneously selling(?).
They're not. They're giving away the software/distro, but what they're selling is their value-add (manual, support, packaging etc.).
/Per Jessen, Zürich
Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck