[ILUG] SuSE redistribution

[Niall O Broin]

On 20 Apr 2005, at 18:52, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting Niall O Broin (niall at linux.ie):
>
>> That may well be the case, but they must have now made appropriate
>> arrangements with the vendors as the license agreement when you 
>> install
>> SuSE 9.3 from purchased media says, and I quote:
>
> Yes, well, _do_ they have such "arrangements"?

Well, it's like this - I don't know, and I don't much care. I 
purchased, from SuSE, a copy of SuSE Professional 9.3. What I received 
in exchange for my money is a bloody big manual which I will never read 
:-( and some optical media viz. DVDs and CDs. Formerly (i.e. with 
previous versions of SuSE Linux) there was some question as to whether 
or not SuSE allowed those media to be copied and distributed.

Now, the license agreement clearly states that SuSE allows this, under 
certain conditions. I do not know if the copyright owners of the 
multiple thousands of files on these media have agreed to this 
redistribution. I am perfectly willing in good faith to distribute 
copies of these media, under these conditions, based on the right 
granted to be by the originators of said media. If Rick doesn't like 
that, I'd refer him to  Cicero's "Six Mistakes Of Man" - specifically 
the one about worry.

In the astonishingly unlikely event that some copyright owner of one or 
more of these thousands of files should choose to sue me for 
distributing his work without permission, my defense will be that I was 
acting in good faith, based on the rights granted to me by SuSE and 
I'll be calling on anyone who has by then received copies of SuSE's 
media from me to contribute to my legal defense fund.




Niall