Linux - free or not
 

Hi all

I just wanted to say that after a meeting with Novel,

talking about how much they spent on putting resources in SuSE Linux.

They wont sell to 'dodgy' countries, as they are a US company.

Is Linux open-source then or are we going to see Linux ( any distro )

become a new 'windows'......

Well, at least I am not going to use SuSe Linux .........

regards

Slam

As a US company. Novell are bound by certain restrictions. There are a number of countries that they cannot sell to by law. Regardless of Open Source views on software freedom, as a company the have to accept certain restrictions. Or they will quickly cease operating.

Before the buyout.
 

Suse was a German company. However, the 800 tech support number here at the U.S. I believe ends up forwarding to merry Old England.

But, the mod's right. Don't read too much into it, Novell, and the other big boys, will want to do business with as much people as possible, no matter where they are. the key words here being as possible.

Cheerio,

Linux = just the Kernel is free
Programs under GPL are free
Those can be free distributed.

The costs of a distribution is just the work to get together and the material costs of the CD's.

But if you use just add a single program who is not free, the whole Distribution is no more free !

And there was and will allways be people, who want's to get rich with others peoples work.
(And still enough ... people who like to pay)

The big problem is, that the technicans unasked have to use, what the manager bought...