SuSE Denies UnitedLinux Per-Seat License Model

m0RpHeus writes "According to Linux Today, SuSE is denying per seat licensing for United Linux. `We really don't plan any per-seat licensing for UnitedLinux,' said SuSE's US Director of Sales Holger Dyroff. UnitedLinux, it seems is divided on this issue."

Re:Doom...

[robburt]

This really reminds me of the "Green Day" special that I watched the other night. The band had it's roots in "Real" punk rock, with the street kids an whatnot coming to the Berkley shows (Gilman St), but as soon as they decided to bank on their talent (which was becming apparent), the community turned it's back on them.

I see a similar situation here, and I have to say that I really do feel for the decision makers in this area. I mean, everyone has come to see RedHat as "bad" b/c they decided to make a profit on "free" software. It's got to be tough to decide where to draw the line. Do you really want to alienate an entire user group?

How is this divided?

[jaaron]

Okay, maybe someone pointed this out already, but how is this divided? UnitedLinux is NOT ONE distribution. It's a standard base that several distros will be based on. Just because Caldera doesn't understand the market and wants to compete with Red Hat using per seat licenses doesn't mean that SuSE, TurboLinux, Conectiva, and any others who join in the future have to follow this madness. They will STILL be SEPERATE distributions each with their own licenses and quirks. They'll just have some common components that will allow interoperability. This wouldn't be news if so many people would just quit jumping to conclusions about this project before much information is available.

Re:Doom...

[Clue4All]

I think you almost hit the nail on the head with this one. Four Linux companies that haven't done anything in a long time (Caldera, TurboLinux? Are they kidding??) are ganging up to try to take on RedHat, but the fact remains that they're still four dying companies. I'm really not sure what they're trying to accomplish with this initiative, but it looks like a last-ditch effort on the way out, which is really a shame because SuSE was almost sustaining a business and I had high hopes for it, even if I'm a Mandrake fan, myself.

Starting to really disagree with the FSF

[drew_kime]

[Bradley] Kuhn [Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation] stated that the FSF has long been concerned with the distribution companies' approach to free software. "Every one of these GNU/Linux companies have been including non-free software with their releases of GNU/Linux," he said, "It's a wrong-headed approach to mix free and non-free software."

Citing SuSE's own YaST application as an example, Kuhn said that the inclusion of software such as this completely negated the value of distribution. He feels the market is bearing the FSF out, too. "Users don't want this non-free software in their distros."

The official line from the FSF is that the "correct" way to make money off of free software is by charging for the services surrounding it. That used to include charging someone to install and configure systems. Isn't that what YaST does?

It's starting to seem like all the "services" that can be profitably charged for can eventually be automated. Once these services become programs, suddenly it's no longer OK to charge for them.

If the FSF got its wish and non-free software could never be shipped or used alongside Free software, the companies charging for services would have no incentive to automate these services. One of the selling points of Free software is that it doesn't require as much service. Barring non-free software from working with Free software provides a disincentive to automation.

Gross Generalizations

[Carnage4Life]

SuSE, Caldera, TurboLinux... Their deep wish would actually be sell their products "a la Microsoft" with one license per seat, without providing ISO images and so on. They actually have a very "proprietary" ideal, so they try to offer a not too bad image to the Linux community while acting against its ideals in reality.

I don't work for SuSe but consider it rather slanderous (or is that libelous) for you to claim that they are trying to get a free ride out of the Linux community and usurp the GPL by being proprietary when they have explicitly stated that this is not the case. I can believe that Caldera would be in support of per seat licensing since this doesn't differ much from how Ransom Love has described his business plans but to simply paint other companies that contribute to the Open Source community with the same brush because they want to provide a Linux Standard is extremely unkind.

In my opinion, Red Hat is lucky because they can stay open and make real business, MandrakeSoft is *extremely* innovative in inventing a real business model for Free Software while being a fervent defender of its rules. And SuSE, Caldera... didn't understand anything to Linux/Free Software and are going to be banned by the Linux community, and see their revenues decrease.

It is rather sad that such a glorified troll is currently rated +5. All the companies you mention are trying to make money while giving you Free Software. Quite frankly, people like you are the ones that give Slashdot a bad name and make it seem like the Open Source community is a bunch of unfriendly freeloaders.

By the way, most reckonings indicate that MandrakeSoft is just barely doing well [slashdot.org] and although Red Hat's financials are good, they are one of the few software-based company to be able to make a living off of Free Software. Even then they've been on the ropes a bit, I don't see why people should begrudge others for trying to find a way to provide Free Software and still make a living or is it that you'd prefer that all the companies you just besmirched created proprietary software?

How to create a profitable business from Free Software is still a black art and in many cases may be impossible but while we are still trying to figure that out I don't think that it is fair to malign the people who are simply trying to make a living while contributing to Free Software.

Re:Starting to really disagree with the FSF

[oGMo]

It's starting to seem like all the "services" that can be profitably charged for can eventually be automated. Once these services become programs, suddenly it's no longer OK to charge for them.

Er, no one has a problem with charging for them. The problem is when they're not Free(tm) Software. If the FSF had a problem with just charging, they wouldn't want to see commercial distros at all.

Re:Doom...

[lunenburg]

This may be cynical, but this is how I look at most of the "Wah wah, Red Hat is Microsoft" talk.

A sizable portion of the "computer elite" get a great deal of self-worth from how obscure the software they use is. So back several years ago when your choices were Microsoft and Apple, they could crow about "You're using those toy operating systems? Hah - I'm using Linux." And it really didn't matter what distro you were using (even thought most people were on Red Hat or Slackware), because Linux was so small and off-the-radar that Linux was Linux.

Now, however, with Linux becoming mainstream (preinstalled on servers, available in Wal-Mart, etc.), you can't be "cool" just by using Linux any more. If you run Red Hat, there's the chance that you might (gasp!) be running the same OS as the neophyte computer kid down the street. Can't have that happen and keep the cool-points. So you see the kiddies running to the other Red Hat-like distributions (can't be too complicated or different) such as Mandrake and SuSE, so they can still keep that air of superiority on Slashdot ("You use Red Hat? Hah - I'm using Mandrake. They're not sellouts.")

Red Hat may not do the right thing 100% of the time, but they come as close as anyone. From the way some of the kids talk around here, though, you'd think they were skewering babies and switching the gas at the local BP with sugar. So I chalk most of it up to insecurity. But that may just be the cynic in me.