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OpenSUSE 11.1 License Changes Examined
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Dec 24, 2008 08:07 AM
from the clear-and-simple dept.
from the clear-and-simple dept.
nerdyH writes "Novell's recent openSUSE 11.1 release includes a new end-user license agreement modeled after Fedora's EULA, says Community Manager Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier in this detailed interview. Zonker says distributions should apply the 'open source principle' and standardize trademark agreements and EULA, similar to how the OSI sought to reduce open source license proliferation a few years back. But with Fedora and openSUSE being so different, can one size really fit all? And, will open source licenses ever finally get translated into languages besides English? (Zonker says that translation into 7 languages was done for openSUSE 11.1.)"
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English is the universal language! (Score:3, Funny)
Even space aliens on the movies speak English unless they lack the proper throat devices to speak the language. Every time I see someone write or hear someone speak in a language other than English, I believe they are saying things about me that I don't understand and I hate that! So to hell with all other languages but not English because it is the best one.
(yes, of course I'm kidding)
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Re:English is the universal language! (Score:5, Insightful)
It may piss off the French ATC to have to speak english to an Air France Pilot but at least all the other planes in the air can understand the instructions being given. A standard language is essential in this case for Passenger safety.
Parent
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Bollocks!
That's the kind of arrogance that we've been fighting in Quebec for so long. Air controllers have fought a battle in 1975-76 for the right of french air controllers and pilots to speak french between themselves.
The canadian government forbade this on the bogus argument of safety. (Yeah right... two francophones forced to speak english between them... makes me feel safer)
The air controllers fought and won... They proved that the safety argument was unfounded.
Actually it end up improving safety by se
Re:English is the universal language! (Score:5, Insightful)
You sir are completely and utterly wrong. The government was right, and your bunch of little "It eez our right to speek zee language we love" assholes were wrong as well.
Yes sir, I am a pilot, I communicate with ATC a lot. I have caught ATC mistakes because I can understand the instructions given to other pilots. As only one of many other examples: I am on final, outer marker, 130 kts, dirty. When I hear the Tower say, "N-xxxxx position and hold, runway 28R". Hold the phone, that is the runway I am landing on! Now if that is not bad enough the next thing I hear, "N-xxxxx cleared for takeoff". To say the least I start screaming at ATC ( in english ) and we sort it out.
Now if the tower controller had been speaking French to a French speaking pilot I doubt I would be sitting here writing this. The reason people who direct machines that are carrying human beings in the air speak a common language is so we don't get killed. But I guess you folks in Quebec don't give a shit about that, now do you.
Now in the context of EULA's I think they should be translated into all possible languages. Why? Because it is not a safety issue!
Parent
This was already answered (Score:2, Insightful)
"However why take this risk when both the pilots and air controller have full command of the same language which is not english ? This would be true here particularly in the case of a regional flight. Why take an additional risk ?"
So that the pilots from India, Russia, Czech Republic, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, etc. know what the hell is going on at the airport. Wasn't that clear enough from the example given?
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Well, anyway, I could be French as well.
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In my experience french speaking french Canadians have a knee jerk reaction to any situation where they would be expected to speak english. The attitude is that it is their god given right to speak their native tongue.
While I do agree that Canada should have two native tongues and government services should be offered in both languages often the attitude go
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ATC communication having to be in english is not like forcing french canadian to go to english speaking schools, forcing them to speak english in court, or forcing them file their taxes in english.
Whoa chief, this is french-speaking Candians we're talking about. Don't get all logical and practical on us here.
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Ah, Quebec - a wonderful place with people who feel so insecure about their culture that they mandate by law that all public signs (even on private property / business) with English text also have French text, and that French text is larger in size than English.
And then you think you can complain about someone else's arrogance?
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Indeed, it's the lingua franca of our times. The licenses don't need translation, it's in leagalese anyway so it's probably half latin. They can be universally understood or at least interpreted by courts and lawyers, hell plain english needs interpretation in a courts jurisdiction. It's the man files they should be worried about.
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Indeed, it's the lingua franca of our times.
Kinda ironic, isn't it?
...it's in leagalese anyway so it's probably half latin.
Actually, that might not be a bad idea...
Resurrecting Latin would be pretty neat.
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I think your comments are offensive. It is a real shame what Novell made out of Suse. No wonder most of them left. Maybe you can imagine that some people find the dominance of the English language quite offensive. It feels like colonialisation.
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Having spent quite a bit of time in a foreign non-english-speaking nation, I do know clearly what it is like "on the other side" and I have grown quite comfortable on either side... indeed, finding a sense of mental freedom on the other side. You should relax a bit more. English is a mix of so many different languages and influences of languages that it is really hard to even call it "English" as if it were named from its country of origin. It should really be called "human." English is truly a very org
Languages other than English? (Score:4, Insightful)
And, will open source licenses ever finally get translated into languages besides English?"
(Zonker says that translation into 7 languages was done for openSUSE 11.1.)
Well, unless those seven languages are English, English, English, English, English, English and English, then I'd think it's safe to assume so.
Re:Languages other than English? (Score:5, Funny)
And, will open source licenses ever finally get translated into languages besides English?"
(Zonker says that translation into 7 languages was done for openSUSE 11.1.)
Well, unless those seven languages are English, English, English, English, English, English and English, then I'd think it's safe to assume so.
Maybe:
Parent
Re:Languages other than English? (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, the languages are:
English (US)
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Portugese (Brazilian)
Simplified Chinese
Spanish
Traditional Chinese.
Parent
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Don't bother with Dutch, unless you want to offend us :)
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Re:Languages other than English? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Languages other than English? (Score:5, Informative)
Another problem is, if the license is in several languages, and there is a discrepancy, one language must take primacy. See the case with the Irish constitution [wikipedia.org].
Parent
Re:Languages other than English? (Score:5, Informative)
Which is of course wrong. Just because it's the way you do it doesn't mean it's the only way.
The constitution of Canada, and all Canadian federal laws, are equally authentic in either French or English. There are some really fun rules of statutory interpretation which end up meaning that you have to read both texts and figure out their common meaning.
Parent
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Ireland is a sad English colony. As if it wasn't enough that the Irish were starved to death by the colonialists.
Only English available? (Score:5, Interesting)
They say that it has been translated into 7 languages in TFA, however, they provide an HTML link for the Deutsch version. Why are they not available on the installer? What good does a license do if it's not available to be viewed at install time? And if it's not available on the installer, then the time that someone took to translate that license into another language was for nothing.
Re:Only English available? (Score:5, Informative)
As for EULAs, they already are standardised. If the end user needs a license, then it fails the Free Software definition at freedom 0 (the freedom to use the software for any purpose) and the OSI's definition. It is not Free Software, and it is not Open Source Software. One of the main attractions of F/OSS is that it makes accounting much easier, because you can not be in violation of the license unless you distribute it. Add an end user license agreement, and this advantage goes away - even if it's permissive, you still need to get your legal department to check it and agree. With a F/OSS license, legal don't need to go near it unless you are producing derived works or distributing the code.
Parent
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Raven is right here. Which documents take priority is very very tricky legally. With software coming from mixed sources it gets worse. Having the english GPL be the official license and having local languages be additional documents dealing with local legal systems makes the most sense.
EULA what the fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
EULA means End-user License Agreement.
Why the fuck should I as a end-user have to agree to an EULA?
Free software is copyrighted, and copyright is for distribution not for use.
EULA covers use.
Why the fuck should I have to agree to something just to use it? It should hamper my freedoms?
Man fuck that. OpenSUSE? So much for open.
EULA is something you expect from proprietary software, not from free open source software.
Fuck that shit.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
As long as it's still GPL, you are allowed to modify the software before use, so I don't see any problem in removing the EULA.
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By receiving this software you agree to the terms of the license of each individual package.
By receiving this distribution you agree not to utilize SuSE and the little green lizard thing and a few other logo's and icons owned by Novell, inc. in another product or redistribution them.
There is more to a distribution than just a collection of open source tools. They want to make sure to protect the branding they apply to the collection of tools.
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Don't let the door hit your behind on the way out, potty mouth.
Oh, grow up. I try not to use such language, but my eyes aren't bleeding from reading it. If that put you in a moral panic, I suggest you avoid the rest of the Internet; you may be in for some surprises.
It's only words and if you can get so bent out of shape over words you obviously have not read, you need help.
Pot, meet kettle.
Why bother (Score:2)
Why do they make such a long EULA... and why do end users have to "agree" to a license?
Why not just change the EULA to a concise "Notice of Rights" telling end users to do whatever they like, and distributors to follow the GPL?
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That's probably part of their evil interoperability scam, you see. Nevermind the GPL.
Re:I gave up with Suse (Score:5, Informative)
Well, that is because there are no x.0 products. All products are just a follow up on the previous one. The x.0 does not exist in the way it exists in numbering with software packages.
11.0 could have easily been named 10.4 and be identical, except for the naming. 11.1 could have been named 10.5 or 7.15 or 3.1415 (or whatever)
There is NO relevance to a release x.0, except that is vaguely is the version that usually is the version before a SLE release, although this is not a fixed truth.
So you must have never used even S.u.S.E. or SuSE or SUSE, because this has been the case since forever.
Parent
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Well, that is because there are no x.0 products. All products are just a follow up on the previous one. The x.0 does not exist in the way it exists in numbering with software packages.
11.0 could have easily been named 10.4 and be identical, except for the naming.
That's not really true. 10.4 would have all the same old versions of things (e.g. ssh) with even more patches applied by SuSE, along with the old kernel, patched up the wahzoo.
11.0 has a new kernel, additional things that weren't in 10.x, and newer versions of most everything else, and the patching starts anew.
It's arguable whether the old versions, plus all the SuSE applied patches, are equivalent to the newer version or not.
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Re:I gave up with Suse (Score:5, Interesting)
pi rounds to 3.1416
TeX's versioning is done by adding one more digit of pi [tex.ac.uk] so that the version number becomes more accurate with each upgrade.
Your nerd card revoking card is hereby revoked.
Parent
Re:And this means what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily you gave the answer yourself. No. Read the licenses and it will become clear.
Novell put YaST under GPL. It openend up the development of the distro. It made available their Build Service. It gave tools to remove trademarks and the ability to make your own distribution. (somethink like CentOS is pretty easy to do with openSUSE)
It stopped the time difference of availablity of boxed set and downloadable version. It gives a lot of time and people to coding directly.
Yet when Novell does something, it must be evil.
I am still waiting on the collaps of Linux after the Novell/Microsoft deal. All that I see is that Novell giot a load of money from Microsoft and Novell keeps going on fighting for OSS all the way to court.
The sole reason the license has been changed is because thay want to put their money where their mouth is. I know they are interested in even better ways to do this, so if you have an idea, do not hesitate to tell them. If youi have a good case with a good explanation, they will listen. (That does not mean they will do what you sugest)
Parent
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There the person talks about having a look at 11. There was no openSUSE 11. Only 11.0. The fact that people are sometimes so narrow minded and think there is only one way to number should lighten up. There is more then one way to give names and numbers to things then the *.0 is an advanced Beta.
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M$ might keep the deal floating for sole purpose to have something next time they are sued for desktop/server OS monopoly.
On other side, connections of M$ are so deep rooted in IT industry, that I guess that you can't buy a PC without ever using a single component produced by company not dealing with M$.
Yes, they are evil. Yes, we have to keep our eye on them. But you can't go around without ever coming into contact with them.
P.S. Actually on several occasions M$ was spotted to actually signing -
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You have a good point though, that could be one additional use of their setup, but of course they're also using it to:
a) Push development on their platforms like
b) Push their "patent protection" scam. These days, you can buy any kind of insurance you want, even patent protection insurance!
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a) Push development on their platforms like .NET onto Linux, so that even Linux developers will be developing for Windows and will be in their control, and in turn have some sort of control over Linux software and the Linux ecosystem.
I doubt with Linux zoo of languages C# would make any huge splash.
But frankly, I'd say ".Net on Linux" has also positive side effects: Windows devels, bound by their jobs into Windows, now have a choice. And I have more than one friend who tried Linux solely to try their .Net app on Linux.
Point here is that Linux community should try to gain from deal to the fullest. Seeing what's happening now with Java, I doubt that in the end M$ would have any control over Linux or its ecosystem. If they push .Net
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Re:Read between the lines - they want to lock you (Score:2)
Here was our experience with Linux as we started development on our latest series of product. We took an off the shelf computer for development machine. Here is what happened:
Fedora 9: Kernel panic on boot.
Ubuntu: Hung after splash screen
Kubuntu: See Ubuntu
PCBSD: Installed, no printer drivers out of the box
openSuSE: Installed, printers worked out of the box
I outright prefer FreeBSD on the server side and Mac on the desktop side, but in our case, I can't make a good argument why we should not be deploying