i wrote:

Hi,

I am curious to know if it is illegal or legal if a friend makes me a
copy
of his SuSE 9.1 Pro CD's so I can install it.

Yours Sincerely

Michael Magua.


their reply:

You won't be able to register the product or get updates or patches or
free installation support.

Thank You!

Novell, Inc., the leading provider of Information Solutions
Customer Response Center
1-888-321-4272
crc@novell.com

Kinda like telling you the rowboat's yours but the paddles are extra.....and then shoving you into the river......

well Vector I'm sure if you have a mediocre amount of knowledge on linux and have faith in forums and google i dont suppose you could go wrong

The only thing that would hold a person back is the suse-specific rpms for security updates and bugfixes. I don't see a reason why one couldn't replace insecure apps from rpmfind, or whatever...

"I am curious to know if it is illegal or legal if a friend makes me a
copy
of his SuSE 9.1 Pro CD's so I can install it."

It is legal.


___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

well i dunno what SuSE / Novell mean by that, because YOU will update and download the patches (i've done this), and you can even go the SuSE website and download all updates and patches there.

so by all means, if yoiu want SuSE and know someone with it or you can download it then do it, just dont email SuSE or Novell and expect support.

As I figured. I may never install Suse, but I'm glad the invest so heavily in the KDE project!

Hmm- this is interesting, and it looks to me like Suse's/Novell's position is inconsistent. On the Suse website, they specifically state that they do not make ISO images available for download - fair enough, and they spell out their reason for taking that position. However, it seems that Novell has turned around and said (in effect) "Sure, go ahead and copy and then distribute the Suse ISO's. The only drawback is that you won't get patches/updates". From my point of view they've just contradicted the info on the Suse website.

Does anyone else see this as inconsistent? Does Suse allow their ISO's to be copied or not? Or is Suse/Novell actually only saying "It's OK to distribute our ISO's as long as it's done on physical media rather than a download"?? Along these lines, suppose the original buyer of the CD's had a large number of friends - would Suse/Novell object if the buyer made, say 150 copies of the CD's and handed out one set to each friend? Maybe I'm missing something but it seems that these 2 postitions are in direct conflict with one another. -- J.W.

With YaST going GPL there is nothing legally wrong with copying and distributing SuSE Linux, unless you plan to sell it. If you sell it, as SuSE Linux, you violate their copyright. It was the same with Red Hat back in the day. They demanded that their name be absent from the packaging if it was to be sold.

You can most certainly get updates via YOU without registering. This is not the case for the SuSE Standard Server Line though. The only thing you can't get with a boot-legged copy is the installation support and the cool manuals. It's worth buying if you can afford it.

Thanks for your response, and Yes, I understand why Suse (or any other company) would not want for some random guy off the street to be selling copies of their product or using their trademarked logos, etc. But, if Suse allows the general public to download their product for free via FTP, and the company that owns Suse similarly indicates people are free to make/distribute copies of the Suse installation CD's for their friends (albeit with the warning that no tech support would be available), then I fail to understand why Suse would object to having a mirror site make the 9.1 CD or DVD ISO images available for download. There were a couple of other threads in this forum about a week ago asking about downloading the Suse 9.1 ISO's, and the consistent message there was that it was a huge No-No. The crux of the paradox can be illustrated this way:

Sammy Software buys the Suse 9.1 boxed set. Larry Linux acquires a set of CD's that were direct copies of the set that Sammy purchased, and Larry then goes on to install Suse 9.1 on his machine using those CD's. (Larry doesn't need or care about tech support, etc, so that's a non-issue)

Now, my question is: Is correct to say that Novell/Suse would be perfectly OK with this situation if Larry's CD's were personally burned and given to him by Sammy, but that Novell/Suse would have a huge problem if Larry burned his own CD's using images he downloaded from Sammy? Apparently that would be the case, at least according to the README's on the Suse website and FTP sites.

Maybe it's just me but this position just seems silly, considering that the only meaningful difference between the above scenarios is who does the CD burning. It would be analogous (I think) to Suse taking the position that downloading 9.1 would be OK if you were using a dial-up connection, but not OK if you were using DSL. As I said, what's the diff??, and why would they care? The end result is the same - Larry ends up with Suse 9.1 installed on his machine, using copies of the installation CD's that Sammy purchased. The method or mechanical steps used to create Larry's copies would seem to be irrelevant.

Anyway, sorry for rambling, but logically Suse's, um, err, intellectual position on this situation makes no sense, at least not to me. I will admit that I was very impressed by the Suse 9.1 Live-Eval CD I tried, and I would be looking forward to installing Suse 9.1 on my PC to give it an honest try-out but frankly this policy of not making the ISO's available for download is annoying and pointless. If Suse had a consistent policy of not making their distro available online I could accept it, but their selective and/or arbitrary choice of what can be mirrored and what cannot has dampened my initial enthusiasm. I guess I can wait another couple of weeks till June 4 (supposedly) when they make 9.1 available for installation via FTP, but I'm moderately annoyed with their muddy logic. -- J.W.