Stefan Meretz stefan.meretz@hbv.org writes:
I don't see a difference between SuSE and Caldera. Both are selling freedom subtracted GNU/Linux systems. SuSE just allows for verbatim copies if you don't take money for it; this is freeware and not Free Software. So Caldera now switched to take money - Microsoft could do the same with their Internet Exploder at any time.
This is a too simple answer! Suse and Caldera use the same logic (add prop software to free software), but the results are different: I can copy Suse-Systems as often as I want and put it on many computers, and this is covered by the Suse prop license for Yast. I can not use Caldera in the same way, I have to _buy_ a license for every system on which I want to install Caldera. I don't want to defend Suse, but this is an essential difference in practice.
Yes, it's a practical difference. It can be very inconvenient, because it may cost you money. But it's not more than that, a practical inconvenience. The fact that you *can* get bitten by this at all, is the fact that Caldera's package is indeed freedom subtracted. But so is SuSE's.
Just because SuSE imposes smaller practical inconveniences for you at this point in time, you see no harm in freedom subtracted packages?
Jan.