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Technomage wrote:
> 
> this took some digging on their site ti find, but it is there and it pertains 
> to Suse 9.3 pro. (and all derivatives therein):
> 
> *********************************************
> 
> OWNERSHIP RIGHTS
> 
> No title to or ownership of the Software is transferred to You. Novell
> and/or its licensors owns and retains all title and ownership of all
> intellectual property rights in the Software, including any
> adaptations or copies. You acquire only a license to use the Software.
> 
> Novell reserves all rights not expressly granted to You. You may not:
> (1) reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software except
> and only to the extent it is expressly permitted by applicable law or
> the license terms accompanying a component of the Software; or (2)
> transfer the Software or Your license rights under this Agreement, in
> whole or in part.
> 
> THE SOFTWARE MAY NOT BE SOLD, TRANSFERRED, OR FURTHER DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT 
> PRIOR WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION FROM NOVELL.
> 
> *******************************************

Obviously the above restrictions cannot apply to code under GPL or
other Free licenses.  Novell would not be so ignorant as to apply
said restrictions to the entire 9.3 distro.  Since you did not
provide the URL of the source, I can only speculate that such
restrictions would apply to any non-Free components in the distro or
perhaps only to the "enterprise" offerings that are not available
for download.  I base such speculation on the following:

- - Novell is not ignorant of the licenses of the software they
distribute, as I stated above.
- - The download mirror list page
(http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/downloads/ftp/int_mirrors.html)
has an invitation saying "If you are regularly mirroring
ftp.suse.com and are not listed here, please drop a note to
webmaster@suse.de."  This looks like an invitation to be listed not
to be sued.
- - The above download mirror list page has many educational
institutions and well known mirror sites (U of Colorado at Boulder,
Sunsite, Oregon State, U of Utah).  If Novell doesn't want it
mirrored, why allow such sites to do so?
- - The mirror policy (ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/README.mirror-policy)
states "... we are grateful for offers to mirror our directories on
publically available servers for the non-commercial purpose of
providing download service." in it's first paragraph.

So, while the above license section you have quoted is indeed quite
restrictive, I believe your are incorrect that it applies to "Suse
9.3 pro. (and all derivatives therein)"  It must apply to something
else.

Alan

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