Can Mandrake really do this?
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license
According to my source
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-17.12.02-000/
they say that owners of the commercial license are not bound by the GNU/GPL anymore. They can change the sources and are not forced to make the sources available.
How is this possible with GNU/Linux?
Jan Wildeboer
From the license:
In a production environment, such as a commercial company, it is highly recommended that users purchase a Commercial License Agreement which applies to all of the product components developed by MandrakeSoft.
This means that that license only applies to software developed by MadrakeSoft (this is also restated later in the FAQ).
It's the same SuSE does with yast and other tools. I don't see anything new or strange in here.
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 13:43, Jan Wildeboer wrote:
Can Mandrake really do this?
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license
According to my source
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-17.12.02-000/
they say that owners of the commercial license are not bound by the GNU/GPL anymore. They can change the sources and are not forced to make the sources available.
How is this possible with GNU/Linux?
Jan Wildeboer
Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mailman.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
João Miguel Neves writes:
From the license:
In a production environment, such as a commercial company, it is highly recommended that users purchase a Commercial License Agreement which applies to all of the product components developed by MandrakeSoft.
This means that that license only applies to software developed by MadrakeSoft (this is also restated later in the FAQ).
It's the same SuSE does with yast and other tools. I don't see anything new or strange in here.
MySQL AB works in a similar way.
Klaus Schilling
On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 01:53:05PM +0000, João Miguel Neves wrote:
In a production environment, such as a commercial company, it is highly recommended that users purchase a Commercial License Agreement which applies to all of the product components developed by MandrakeSoft.
Please do not discrimate commercial companies which use Free Software in production enviroments. They mean "proprietary software companies".
Il mar, 2002-12-17 alle 14:53, João Miguel Neves ha scritto:
From the license:
In a production environment, such as a commercial company, it is highly recommended that users purchase a Commercial License Agreement which applies to all of the product components developed by MandrakeSoft.
It may sound nave, but I read it this way: If you use our package and run a business on it, consider an investment paying us some money so that we can keep developing this useful tool for you.
Infact, they also state:
Q. Can I use the Download Edition in my company?
Yes, but for access to support, easy updating and product ^^^^^^ ^^^^ warranties, a commercial license must be purchased. ^^^^^^^^^^
Q. Is it possible to try the Download Edition first, and then purchase the Commercial Edition or purchase a Commercial License?
Certainly, there is no problem in doing so. Technically speaking, the products are identical. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It may be said that it is hidden, but that seems to me asking a bit too much from a commercial company... or isn't it?
Their message sounds like marketing fud, but MDK have stated more than once their loyalty to GNU and the GPL (read their press release about United Linux, for example).
It's the same SuSE does with yast and other tools. I don't see anything new or strange in here.
SuSE is a whole different story, yast is non-free software. point.
bye stef
Can Mandrake really do this? http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license
Sure. And I even tend to appeciate it.
they say that owners of the commercial license are not bound by the GNU/GPL anymore. They can change the sources and are not forced to make the sources available.
This only applies to the code they wrote themselves:
Q. Most components in your Software are covered by a Free Software license. How can you create a dual-license?
Only the components created by MandrakeSoft are under dual-license. All other components retain their own license and terms.
/alessandro
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 13:54, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
Can Mandrake really do this? http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license
Sure. And I even tend to appeciate it.
But they do say something that is misleading, and that promotes a common false assumption in their "In short" section:
# In a production environment, such as a commercial company, it is # highly recommended that users purchase a Commercial License Agreement # which applies to all of the product components developed by # MandrakeSoft. The Commercial License Agreement provides extended ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ # guaranties for the product such as access to support offerings and # the possibility to build and redistribute a derivative product with ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ # commercial licensing. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Software released under the GNU GPL already allows you to build and redistribute a derivative product with a well known commercial license:
the GNU GPL
Rui
On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 02:01:03PM +0000, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 13:54, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
Can Mandrake really do this? http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license
Sure. And I even tend to appeciate it.
But they do say something that is misleading, and that promotes a common false assumption in their "In short" section:
# In a production environment, such as a commercial company, it is # highly recommended that users purchase a Commercial License Agreement # which applies to all of the product components developed by # MandrakeSoft. The Commercial License Agreement provides extended ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ # guaranties for the product such as access to support offerings and # the possibility to build and redistribute a derivative product with ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ # commercial licensing. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Software released under the GNU GPL already allows you to build and redistribute a derivative product with a well known commercial license:
the GNU GPL
Yes, can you send them a polite email pointing this out?
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 15:15, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 02:01:03PM +0000, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
Software released under the GNU GPL already allows you to build and redistribute a derivative product with a well known commercial license: the GNU GPL
Yes, can you send them a polite email pointing this out?
Hi,
I sent them the following message. I hope that was polite :)
Hello,
I am a Systems Administrator of a banking entity in Portugal, so I felt somewhat curious about MandrakeSecurity Multi Network Firewall, specially since it came from an european company that distributes GNU/Linux.
I learned about MNF through the news on its terms of use (http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license). As I read them, I saw an unfourtunatly misleading phrase: <<The Commercial License Agreement provides (...) the possibility to build and redistribute a derivative product with commercial licensing.>>
Reading further, I reached the conclusion that that must've been an unfourtunately common confusion between proprietary and commercial.
After all, Mandrake is a commercial distribution of GNU/Linux, as well as SuSE and RedHat to name two more, and I can build and redistribute derivative products based on them, commercially.
Software released under the GNU GPL allows you to build and redistribute derivatives commercially!
Commercial software that is Free Software (Logiciel Libres) is a very important contribution that should be encouraged to exist. It helps paying for the development of more Free Software, for instance.
Therefore, please don't use the world commercial when you mean proprietary software, since that perpetuates the incorrect idea that Free Software is not commercial.
I hope that you will forgive me for writing such a long message, and also that you may correct that information as soons as it is possible
Best regards,
Rui
"Bernhard" == Bernhard Reiter bernhard@intevation.de writes:
>> Software released under the GNU GPL already allows you to build >> and redistribute a derivative product with a well known >> commercial license: >> >> the GNU GPL
Bernhard> Yes, can you send them a polite email pointing this out?
FYI, I'm in touch with MandrakeSoft guys (Jacques Le Marois et Fred Bastok) about this issue.
Fred.
On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 02:54:56PM +0100, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
I even tend to appeciate it.
I don't.
It makes it easier for proprietory software companies and harder for Free Software based companies.
Also it tends to harm the projects as contributing code is getting unnecessarily harder. A contributer needs to give them permission to publish the code as non-free software.
I don't.
Nor I do.
A contributer needs to give them permission to publish the code as non-free software.
I agree with this.
If they (Mandrake Software) put their license, I think they must be the copyright holder of the software. Or at least they must get such a permission from a contributer who would keep being the copyright holder of his contribution. In fact, it is like this contributer dual licensing his contribution.
Is dual licencing `viral'? ;)
I see this kind of dual licensing as:
1. If you want it free, you can have it free.
2. If you want to proprietarize your derivative work, you can do so.
Wouldn't they have the same effect with a single non-copyleft free software licence, such as BSD?
In fact, there is a difference: with this free *and copyleft* / proprietary dual licencing you have to pay to have the power to deny other people de freedoms you received. With a non-copyleft free software licence, it's gratis to do so.
I don't like the idea of reducing freedom. And I don't like the idea of paying to have the power to do so...
Guillaume Ponce http://www.guillaumeponce.org/
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 18:10, Guillaume Ponce wrote:
In fact, there is a difference: with this free *and copyleft* / proprietary dual licencing you have to pay to have the power to deny other people de freedoms you received. With a non-copyleft free software licence, it's gratis to do so.
I don't like the idea of reducing freedom. And I don't like the idea of paying to have the power to do so...
It's wrong to say that they are reducing freedom.
If you make a change you are not obliged to dual license it.
MandrakeSoft will simply not be entitled to use your modification in their non-GPL license.
You may not like dual-licensing but let not say false things, please.
Simo.
On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 06:45:01PM +0100, Simo Sorce wrote:
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 18:10, Guillaume Ponce wrote:
In fact, there is a difference: with this free *and copyleft* / proprietary dual licencing you have to pay to have the power to deny other people de freedoms you received. With a non-copyleft free software licence, it's gratis to do so.
I don't like the idea of reducing freedom. And I don't like the idea of paying to have the power to do so...
It's wrong to say that they are reducing freedom.
You pay them to get a freedom reduced license... I would only pay to get more freedom. :)
If you feel the need to geet this incorporate into non-free software, why shouldn't everybody have this capability? In not choosing a less freedom protecting license, like the GNU LGPL or an XFree86 style license, you are holding back that freedom.
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 18:58, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
You pay them to get a freedom reduced license...
You are pessimist :-) However you must be free to give away your freedom imho, but only if you do it consciously of course.
I would only pay to get more freedom. :)
You already have the freedom, you can always switch to the GPLed license. Only you do not get supplementary services that way.
In my opinion it is only a marketing move to sell services, nothing freedom reducing.
Simo.
On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 07:11:23PM +0100, Simo Sorce wrote:
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 18:58, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
You already have the freedom, you can always switch to the GPLed license. Only you do not get supplementary services that way.
In my opinion it is only a marketing move to sell services, nothing freedom reducing.
It is vendor lock-in for the proprietory licenses. It is publishing proprietory Software not just marketing.
Simo Sorce wrote:
You already have the freedom, you can always switch to the GPLed license. Only you do not get supplementary services that way.
Which would be interesting to know why. They could offer the same services for the same price for the GPLed version. Their current method says: Support only for the proprietary version. And exactly that is what I do not like about this. Support and other supplementary services should be independent of the license. IMHO though.
In my opinion it is only a marketing move to sell services, nothing freedom reducing.
In that case they would offer the same services for the GPLed version - which they do not do. It is more than a marketimg move. It is saying GPLed is without anything.
Jan Wildeboer
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 20:00, Jan Wildeboer wrote:
Simo Sorce wrote:
You already have the freedom, you can always switch to the GPLed license. Only you do not get supplementary services that way.
Which would be interesting to know why. They could offer the same services for the same price for the GPLed version. Their current method says: Support only for the proprietary version. And exactly that is what I do not like about this. Support and other supplementary services should be independent of the license. IMHO though.
At a first impression I think they want to attract that lot of people that are diffident toward free software, that's why I called it a marketing move. I may well be wrong, until they release the GPLed version I'm fine, there's room for others to offer services that MandrakeSoft do not want to offer.
In my opinion it is only a marketing move to sell services, nothing freedom reducing.
In that case they would offer the same services for the GPLed version - which they do not do. It is more than a marketimg move. It is saying GPLed is without anything.
If you want my opinion, I do think like you, I would offer services on the GPLed version through a separate contract.
Simo.
It's wrong to say that they are reducing freedom.
And it's wrong to say that I said that they (Mandrake) are reducing freedom. They don't as one of their release is GPLed. And they won't as long as both free and proprietary releases will be technically the same.
But they open a way for proprietary vendors to make proprietary versions. Those vendors would reduce freedom, not Mandrake.
And it's not a matter of `are Mandrake good or evil people' or `did they prove their loyalty to the free software movement'. It's a matter of `do they try to achieve their goal (selling service) the right way'.
There are lots of `good people' who have just been wrong at least once in their life....
If you make a change you are not obliged to dual license it.
MandrakeSoft will simply not be entitled to use your modification in their non-GPL license.
And they probably won't use it in the GPL version, so that the two releases keep being technically the same. But that is not a problem as you can release by yourself your GPL-only modifications.
It may be unlikely to happen, but it could be a dangerous game for Mandrake. They could lose contributions from free software developers that are not willing to dual license their work, and they could lose contributions from proprietary vendors... because it is proprietary.
A superior version of their software could be developped but they could not benefit from it, because it would break their strategy (the two versions being technically the same), or because they would not have the right to do so (proprietary copyright infringement). If this superior version is free, it's fine for the community. But if it is proprietary, it's a pity.
Guillaume Ponce http://www.guillaumeponce.org/
They are not restricting GNU/Linux or any other GPLed program, they are restricting only the packages on which they are owners.
So thi license apply to all pieces of software they made to complete the distribution: installer, management tools, ecc..
You can still do whatever the license say for all the free software packages in the distribution, but not with the software made as MandraleSoft.
As this software is needed to proprerly run the distribution it becomes impossible to replicate the distribution as a whole and as consequence install it on different computers.
It's the same thing SuSe (and now UnitedLinux) do with the Yast installer. The distribution becomes unusable/uninstallable without it. So if it's use is limited (and it is), you cannot replicate the distribution. (tough you are always free to take and distribute any package that is free software.
Simo.
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 14:43, Jan Wildeboer wrote:
Can Mandrake really do this?
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license
According to my source
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-17.12.02-000/
they say that owners of the commercial license are not bound by the GNU/GPL anymore. They can change the sources and are not forced to make the sources available.
How is this possible with GNU/Linux?
Jan Wildeboer
Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mailman.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 15:04, Simo Sorce wrote:
It's the same thing SuSe (and now UnitedLinux) do with the Yast installer. The distribution becomes unusable/uninstallable without it. So if it's use is limited (and it is), you cannot replicate the distribution. (tough you are always free to take and distribute any package that is free software.
Someone made me notice this phrase can be misguiding. I was speaking of the Mandrake license, not giving any merit to the licensing scheme. Like alessandro I think dual licensing may be a good thing. Remember you always have the same product available with the GPL License on it. But I also think Rui Miguel is right, speaking of a Commercial License as opposed to the GPL License is unfair.
If they called it a "Service License" they would have made a great job.
Simo.
|| On Tue, 17 Dec 2002 14:43:01 +0100 || Jan Wildeboer jan.wildeboer@gmx.de wrote:
jw> Can Mandrake really do this? jw> http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf/license jw> ... jw> How is this possible with GNU/Linux?
It seems this is indeed legal as they only seem to be dual-licensing code they have the Copyright in.
I must say that I am worried about this development and consider it a mistake. Also it furthers misconceptions about Free Software that Mandrakesoft should help disspell, not spread.
Calling it "Commercial License Agreement" is the old beginners' mistake about commercial Free Software. A more suitable name would clearly be "Proprietary License Agreement."
Instead of offering an extended service contract with more support and guarantees for their Free Software package they require companies to buy proprietary software in order to get the support they need in a commercial environment, it seems.
This comes awfully close to educating customers that you cannot get proper services for Free Software.
Regards, Georg
This comes awfully close to educating customers that you cannot get proper services for Free Software.
That's right, I stand corrected -- not only by this very message, though.
/alessandro, who should read more carefully before commenting on such stuff
Alessandro Rubini wrote:
This comes awfully close to educating customers that you cannot get proper services for Free Software.
That's right, I stand corrected -- not only by this very message, though.
And I would like to add a possible reason for all of this ;-)
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/future.php3
Seems they are in financial trouble. And that is not caused by Free Software - it is home-made ...
Jan Wildeboer