-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Berni Elbourn wrote: ...
You are right to focus on Copyright but it is the whole item distribution restrictions that affect the credibility of OpenSuse. The restrictions are absolutely right for Suse professional boxed versions but not a download. Certainly bolting in the open community between the Novell and Download version in this way means Novell could just be after a period of free development resource. With the current license Novel could easily pull the plug on the OpenSuse project. The contributions could then be commercially sold on. This is all very sad as I (and others?) would be like to contribute time to this project without these restrictions.
You're absolutely correct by focusing on that distribution restriction issue. But don't forget that openSUSE is still work in progress, with each part of the openSUSE project (Novell/SUSE and us, the community) still having to find out - - what we want - - how we want it - - how to achieve it It has already been said a number of times, but also keep in mind that the SUSE Linux staff (that includes Adrian) is really really busy at the moment to get 10.0 final out as fast and as well as possible. So, your questions and comments are as well correct as welcome, but be patient about it. I'm sure the Novell staff will find a way to sort that out, possibly removing the redistribution restrictions on SUSE Linux OSS. I'm pretty confident about that, as they have proven to be really open and willing to push that move ahead. I might be wrong, and I sure hope I'm not, but that's my impression up to now, both from what has been happening on this mailing-list and discussing with some SUSE staff members. It's also very much work in progress for us, the community, to make proposals, requests and concepts on how to work together. There is still a lot to consider, discuss and to put into place. I really think that it's our (the community's) job to come up with though-out, realistic and tangible proposals. e.g. just throwing "openSUSE is not open because the roadmap on the wiki is not editable by everyone" or "you must opensource SLES!!!" definately don't count as such and is just random noise cluttering what we're trying to do here. Let's do this gradually, step by step, and be constructive towards ourselves and Novell/SUSE. There will be certain aspects that some might consider as limitations or restrictions, e.g. that Novell (i.e. the SUSE Linux staff) decides alone what packages make their way into the SUSE Linux distribution. We will have to live with that (besides that example not really being a restriction, just do your own distribution based on SUSE Linux OSS and add the packages you want) because we cannot expect that on one hand, Novell is spending a huge amount of money to give us SUSE Linux OSS (just think about the SUSE Linux staff) as a rock solid and well tested distribution with a lot of people being payed full-time to work on it and hunting down the bugs we report, and on the other side say that we as the community want to control /everything/. Berni, I'm not saying this for you, but to some others: please think about what "open" really is supposed to mean in a realistic sense, given the facts above, and not squeeze everything you'd want the SUSE staff do for you as being the definition of "open". But, again, Berni is correct in pointing out that restriction and it must be sorted out or at least clarified by Novell.
I hope we can see a public response from Adrian soon here.
Yep, but I guess that'll take a few more days before he has the time for it ;)
cheers
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-o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
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