[ale] Re: Suse 9.1 Pro posted to tux.org, please be considerate!!

[Geoffrey]

Chris Ricker wrote:
> On Wed, 5 May 2004, Crawford Rainwater wrote:
> 
> 
>> This is an interesting turn of practice.  In the past, SuSE stopped
>> putting ISO images to generate the revenue from CD/DVD sales of the
>> distro.  Now I see that in fact, yes, there is SuSE 9.1 discs 1 to
>> 5 listed there.  Does anyone know the reasons behind the change in
>> policy (aside Novell purchasing SuSE of course)?  I admit I can
>> speculate quite a bit, just wondering if there are any facts to
>> this sudden shift/change is all.
> 
> 
> The main change is that SuSE's now finally actually open source, so
> people can legally redistribute ISOs. Whether SuSE^WNovell finds they
> spend more than they make by doing that (like Red Hat did) remains to
> be seen ;-)

Have you any references that indicate SuSE intends this?  I'm curious
because I find there are apparently two diverse 'opinions' coming from
Novell/SuSE.

I'm not sure who believes what.  I posted a link from a SuSE website 
that compares the cost of SuSE to Windows XP.  Under licensing it 
clearly stated that you could install one copy of SuSE 9.1 on unlimited 
computers.

When I called SuSE/Novell and inquired as to the licensing (without 
mentioning the website) I was told you were permitted to install it on 
one computer.  I called twice to see if I got the same answer, which I 
did.  In both cases, I referenced the web page after they told me that 
you could install it on one computer.  It was only then that they said 
that the GPL permitted the installation on multiple computers.  I was 
then also reminded that I would only receive support for one version.  I 
was also told that once you register, only one machine would be able to 
update online.  This is not currently true, as I've installed 9.0 on at 
least two machines and updated both successfully.  I believe this was a 
bit of smoke blowing south to north..

I'm thinking that it's SuSE's view that you can install on multiple
computers and Novell's view you can't.  Just a  guess there.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey                     Registered Linux User #108567
Building secure systems in spite of Microsoft