[ILUG] Looking for Suse disc images?

[Niall Walsh]

On Wednesday 10 August 2005 17:12, Darragh wrote:
> You wrote
>
> > Which I'd guess means you still can't just hand around the iso images or
> > burnt discs, but at least you can give people the url.   I'm assuming
> > this in the absence of downloading and reading the licenses for each of
> > these pieces of software, which I honestly couldn't be bothered to do :-D
> >   It's possible the licenses on the above could allow redistribution
> > though possibly under limited circumstances.
>
> I'm working for Novell at the moment and from what I've been told by the
> head of Installation support users can freely distribute the installation
> media but the support is tied to the initial purchase and not the
> distributed copies.

First what editions and versions are you talking about?  Is there an official 
statement on this?    But more important ...

The bottom line (afaiu) is that to distribute non-Suse written pieces of 
software (i.e. most of it) you need the permission of the copyright holder.  
Most of Suse is licensed by the copyright holders under Free licenses so we 
don't have to worry about them for this.   A few programs (e.g. Acrobat 
Reader, Flash) are not and the only people who can give anyone permission to 
redistribute them are the copyright holders (e.g. Adobe/Macromedia).  
Anything Suse has to say on the matter is irrelevant (though it may help if 
you have something formal should you find yourself before a court).

So the question remains as to what terms the non-free pieces of software are 
under and hence what are the restrictions on the entire work?

If you want the tougher question, is there anything to stop the Sunday 
Independant, for example, adding the 5 cd Suse 9.3 set to this weekends paper 
without paying a cent to anyone bar media production costs (i.e. Suse, Adobe, 
Real and Sun would all have no claim)?  Can they remake the 5 CDs into a 
single DVD and do the same with that or is the license of the non-free 
software tied to the original distribution image?  Are the licences available 
to read somewhere without downloading 3GB+?

Rick helps to clarify the confusion a bit below:

http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2004-September/000513.html
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/suse-product-strategy.html

Niall