Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier Discusses OpenSUSE 11.1

"Q1b -- How would you characterize the new license, in layman's terms? It seems more complicated than the usual warranty disclaimer I'm used to seeing in Debian, for example.

"A1b -- Basically, it's a step away from the old EULA [end-user license agreement -- 11.0b version archived here] used with 11.0 and earlier. That license was more restrictive, because we had some bits of software that you couldn't redistribute freely. The new license just says that OpenSUSE is made up of a lot of different components, each with their own license. However, the aggregate work that we're distributing -- the disk itself, in that form -- is copyright Novell and distributed under the GPLv2. So, if you want to redistribute the entire disk, that's the license.

"We went through a lot of discussions about what we want the license to do. I had conversations with community representatives, and with Paul Frields [Fedora Project leader -- mini-interview here]. We settled on not reinventing the wheel, but rather to apply the "open source principle" and with Fedora's blessing, lift their license, more or less. It has been a very successful license for them. [Fedora's licenses are typically presented at first-run rather than before the installation, and are archived here.]"

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• openSUSE 11.1 Released!(Dec 18, 2008)
• The Reluctant Lawsuit: The FSF Pursues Its Claim Against Cisco(Dec 18, 2008)
• Sneak Peeks at openSUSE 11.1: The Latest GNOME Desktop(Dec 16, 2008)
• The Lizard Roars: openSUSE 11.1 Coming This Week(Dec 15, 2008)
• Creative Commons Asks How You Define "Non-Commercial"(Dec 05, 2008)
• openSUSE Bids Good-Bye to EULA(Nov 28, 2008)