[wellylug] Lycoris Desktop/LX Software

Sam Cannell sam at plaz.net.nz
Sun Mar 14 22:22:25 NZDT 2004


On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 09:27:48PM +1300, Michael Dittmer wrote:
> I very rarely hear people having a go at SUSE or RedHat and also now
> Mandrake for making money from Linux. Lycoris is just another company making
> money from linux and are in no way breaking the GPL, the same goes with
> SUSUE, RedHat and Mandrake.

Redhat, Suse and Mandrake have historically given vast amounts of
support back to the community, be it through free distributions,
training, or assitance and sponsorship of other open-source projects.
"Redmond Linux", as the company behind Lycoris appears to be called, has
done none of these.

Neither have any of them ever tried to conceal the fact that there is a
free version of their distribution available.

Last time this subject came up, I could not find a single link from
lycoris.com to lycoris.org, where the freely downloadable version of
Desktop/LX is available.  I see now there is a "community website" link,
but no mention of a downloadable edition on the lycoris.com domain.
This is better, but in my opinion still somewhat deceitful.

> If you read the license agreemnt for Lycoris Desktop/LX you will find that
> it says that you are able to install it on multiple machines, you are also
> able to re-distribute the OS (and OS only). You just have to follow a few
> rules.

"2. License of Desktop/LX Product
Subject to the other provisions of this Agreement, Lycoris grants to
Licensee a nonexclusive, nontransferable license ("the License") to use
the Desktop/LX Product on a single computer system. Additionally, this
product may be installed on more than one computer system in a
non-commercial setting. Rights to Lycoris Software not expressly granted
to Licensee in this Agreement are reserved by Lycoris."

"nontransferable license" sounds like a fairly strong restriction on
redistribution to me.

Also the fact that you can only install the distribution on one machine
in a commercial environment doesn't sit right with me.  I am far from an
expert on software licenses and such, but I don't see how they can do
this without violating the GPL.

> For those of you who don't like that fact that DevTools and Source don't
> come with the OS, fine. You are not Lycoris's target market.

Yes, some people may not care about getting source with the
distribution.  This does not change the fact that Lycoris is *legally
obliged* to provide it, should anybody request it.

What means do you offer for somebody who purchases the Lycoris Standard
cd set to obtain the source at a later stage?

- Sam
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