What SuSE offers on the FTP sites is not the same as the Distro CDs. There are many commercial demo's and such that are not avail anywhere except on the official CD's/DVD's. There are some creeps that sell copies of the SuSE disks on EBay illegally, but since SuSE knows about them and they also know that they CAN get EBay to stop them; who else has the right to say it is RIGHT or WRONG? PeterB On Monday 28 April 2003 06:33 pm, Turd Ferguson wrote:

It's legal, so long as you don't profit from it.

</Jared>

On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 17:21, Eric wrote:

...

Is it legal to copy the SuSE 8.2 Professional CD's and distribute them to your friends? SuSE DOES offer the packages on ftp anyways...but is that a whole seperate issue.

-- "Turd Ferguson. Yeah, he's a funny guy." ~Burt Reynolds (As portrayed by Norm McDonald of SNL)

Yes yes i know its been done to death, but I thank you all for your answers. I couldn't find the answer in a quick search of the (very partiall!) archive i have readily available on my system. On Monday 28 April 2003 08:46 pm, Thomas Jones wrote:

On Monday 28 April 2003 19:48, Peter B Van Campen wrote:

...

What SuSE offers on the FTP sites is not the same as the Distro CDs. There are many commercial demo's and such that are not avail anywhere except on the official CD's/DVD's. There are some creeps that sell copies of the SuSE disks on EBay illegally, but since SuSE knows about them and they also know that they CAN get EBay to stop them; who else has the right to say it is RIGHT or WRONG?

PeterB

On Monday 28 April 2003 06:33 pm, Turd Ferguson wrote:

...

It's legal, so long as you don't profit from it.

</Jared>

On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 17:21, Eric wrote:

...

Is it legal to copy the SuSE 8.2 Professional CD's and distribute them to your friends? SuSE DOES offer the packages on ftp anyways...but is that a whole seperate issue.

-- "Turd Ferguson. Yeah, he's a funny guy." ~Burt Reynolds (As portrayed by Norm McDonald of SNL)

Check the following Yast license: <snip> In the following SuSE Linux AG is the licensor and every user or processor of YaST 2 or works derived in full or in part thereof, together with every person who reproduces, distributes or archives YaST 2 or SuSE Linux, is the licensee of SuSE Linux AG. </snip>

and then read this: <snip> Only this licence gives the Licensee the right to use reproduce, to distribute or to amend YaST 2 or works derived from it. These actions are forbidden by the copyright act, if this licence is not recognised. If this licence is recognised and complied with in full, it is also valid even without the written consent of the Licensee. </snip>

In essence, if you use it, copy it, or archive it, then you are considered a licensee of their product.

Being a licensee, you are authorized to use, reproduce, distribute, or amend their product. However, you must recognize their copyright and license; and abide by it's statements accordingly to the license.

There are "commercial" packages distributed with SuSE; but they(meaning SUSE Linux AG) have (i assume) received written authorization to distribute those sources. Which if i remember right, is why SuSE does not provide ISO's of their product on ftp.suse.com. It would then contain all packages ---- including the sources that are being authorized by third parties to allow SuSE to distribute with their "boxed" product.

The commercial source reproduction may very well be a license issue, if sold on ebay. But, as i read this license; it clearly states that a user may utilize SuSE's product within the constraints provided.

#---------------------- #Eric Bambach #Eric@CISU.net #----------------------

On Mon, 28 Apr 2003 23:07:01 -0400 John LeMay wrote:

...

There are some creeps that sell copies of the SuSE disks on EBay illegally, but since SuSE knows about them and they also know that they CAN get EBay to stop them; who else has the right to say it is RIGHT or WRONG?

As I've mentioned before, if it wasn't for one of those ebay auctions I probably would have moved to Slackware instead of investing in SuSE. Now, I'm sold. I haven't ordered 8.2 yet, but it's just a matter of time.

So maybe it isn't right for someone to sell these on ebay, but at the end of the day it does increase the user base of what I consider the best distro around. Perhaps SuSE realizes this as well.

If I remember correctly, that was Microsoft's strategy when windows 3.1 came out. Everyone was bootlegging it to their friends and other machines. Microsoft didn't officially condone it, but they let it slide because they knew it would get people "hooked on windows". It's free advertising for SuSE and may well help it gain a bigger foothold. Also those copied cd's have a couple of drawbacks: 1. Might be "trojanized". 2. The cd copies don't always work on older cdroms(although this can be gotten around by nfs installs,etc.) -- use Perl; #powerful programmable prestidigitation