OpenGL = IP mindfield, Intel is problem #1, vendors need to adhere to LSB -- WAS: Kernel source

Lamont R. Peterson lamont at gurulabs.com
Tue Apr 25 17:03:02 UTC 2006


On Tuesday 25 April 2006 09:28am, Tamal Kanti Nath wrote:
> Freespire supports MP3, Windows Media, QuickTime, Java, Flash, Real, nVidia
> drivers, Adobe Acrobat Reader. That is something like what SuSE 10.0
> offers. So, what is special in Freespire ?

Actually, Adobe Reader (they've dropped the work "Acrobat" from it) is freely 
redistributable.  it's license, however, is *_not_* open source compatible 
[ http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php ].  When you install SUSE 
LINUX 10.0 (or 9.3 or 9.2 or any older versions that include Adobe Reader) 
you have to agree to the Adobe EULA either before the installation begins and 
when each user runs Adobe Reader for the first time, or just when each user 
launches it.

This is perfectly legal and Red Hat could *legally* include Adobe Reader in a 
similar fashion.  However, I don't think they should.  Despite the fact that 
it would be "legal" to redistribute the binary, it's still not open source.  
*Everything* in Fedora and RHEL is open source.

Yes, I know; Red Hat's RHN Proxy Server and RHN Satellite Server products are 
not open source.  They are the only two exceptions and I have no problem with 
them being that way.
-- 
Lamont R. Peterson <lamont at gurulabs.com>
Senior Instructor
Guru Labs, L.C. [ http://www.GuruLabs.com/ ]
GPG Key fingerprint: F98C E31A 5C4C 834A BCAB  8CB3 F980 6C97 DC0D D409
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