MESSAGE
| DATE | 2005-04-09 |
| FROM | Ron Guerin
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [hangout] SuSE and Emperor Linux
|
Ruben I Safir - NYLXS President wrote:
> I just had a weird conversation with Emperor Linux about a new laptop. In
> order to put SuSE on the laptop, I need to pay an addition $100.00 for a
> license, supposedly because after 9.1, its not a Free OS.
>
> Anyone else here anything on this front? None of the distros, aside from a
> stripped down debian perhaps, is completely free, but this is wierd.
Not about SuSE, but Debian is free as in freedom by default. You don't
strip Debian down to make it free, the most you can do is "taint" it
with non-free software outside the core/base. Keep in mind this is the
distro which has rejected the GNU/FDL as a non-free license and is
moving/has moved all GNU/FDL documentation to the non-free section,
which is something new Debian users generally don't even know exists
because Debian really doesn't want you using non-free stuff.
Sunny told me not that long ago that Mandrake/Mandiva ( <-- someone
smack them for that new name) is free by default also. It has seemed
to me that for the most part, the trend has been toward freedom, rather
than holding ground or moving away from it, with the exception of the
distros chasing the corporate users, those being Red Hat, and of course
SuSE. Still, Novell's stewardship of both SuSE and Ximian has resulted
in more freedom from those companies, rather than less, so maybe there's
something more to this story. (likely suspects include proprietary media
stuff and drivers) $100 is a lot of money, considering you get a
complete system from any of the community distros at zero cost. I'd
expect to get quite a lot for that $100, which obviously doesn't include
the use of YaST anymore since Novell relicensed it GPL.
- Ron
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
|
|
