Re:beer versus freedom (how Mandriva works, AFAIK)
Posted by: WarPengi
on April 29, 2005 07:08 AM
Thank - you for more clarification on this. the GPL is a long and involved document and summing it up in a paragraph is bound to lead to innaccuracies. Also, I tend to be somewhat cynical so my explanation as to why distros release free downloads is cynical as well. It is much nicer to think that "Mandriva is being very generous in providing an actual 'download' distro at no charge."
As has been demonstrated by several Red Hat Enterprise based distros (http://www.centos.org/, http://www.lineox.com/,http://www.piebox.org/,http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/ to name several) anyone is free to distribute 100% Red Hat compatible binaries as long as there are no trademark infringements. This despite the fact that Red Hat no longer releases a free download.
If someone wanted to release a 100% Mandriva compatible distro they could compile it from Mandriva source code and distribute it for free. You can bet that if Mandriva went to a paid only model that someone would do so. I don't know if the Mandrake Control Centre is GPL. If not that would not be part of the new distro, of course.
"If you want just the drivers, a "standard" club membership gives you access for $66 per year"
When I was a standard member of Mandrake Club, Nvidia and Ati driver binaries were not part of the package. One needed to be a Silver member or higher to get those with the kernels to support them. Has this changed in the last 6 months?
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Re:beer versus freedom (how Mandriva works, AFAIK)
Posted by: WarPengi on April 29, 2005 07:08 AMAs has been demonstrated by several Red Hat Enterprise based distros (http://www.centos.org/, http://www.lineox.com/, http://www.piebox.org/, http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/ to name several) anyone is free to distribute 100% Red Hat compatible binaries as long as there are no trademark infringements. This despite the fact that Red Hat no longer releases a free download.
If someone wanted to release a 100% Mandriva compatible distro they could compile it from Mandriva source code and distribute it for free. You can bet that if Mandriva went to a paid only model that someone would do so. I don't know if the Mandrake Control Centre is GPL. If not that would not be part of the new distro, of course.
"If you want just the drivers, a "standard" club membership gives you access for $66 per year"
When I was a standard member of Mandrake Club, Nvidia and Ati driver binaries were not part of the package. One needed to be a Silver member or higher to get those with the kernels to support them. Has this changed in the last 6 months?
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