Hello fladget,
Following are some relevant sections from the GNU or General Public
License that SUSE Software abides by (NOTE: I can not yet guarantee
that OpenExchange Server abides by this license, but I am looking into
this for you and will have a clarification on Monday and should know
if this is the case or not. I sent a detailed email off to the proper
department as SUSE requesting a copy of the licenses for Openexchange
Server if the GNU does not apply, or if it is not the only license
that applies. I do believe however, that the OpenExchange Server
license (if there is a different one) will be even more restrictive
than the license below. Note that anything in brackets was typed by
myself. The entire text of this license can be found here:
http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/licenses/gpl.html
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom
to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License
is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if
you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
rights. [This does not mean that your email users need to see the
source code though.]
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on,
we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the
original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect
on the original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at
all.
==========================
I found this rather interesting: “These requirements apply to the
modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are
not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and
its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as
separate works.” [This means that SUSE certainly has all the rights
they want to have on their OpenExchange product, because it is not a
modification of Linux, but rather a “new work”.
==========================
In summary, I highly doubt that you will be able to legally use
OpenExchange server and I suspect that the license, if different from
the one above, will be even more restrictive because OpenLinux is a
“new work” and not a modification of Linux. SUSE makes it quite clear
in the OpenExchange Server manual that “No other rights to YaST, or
any other program under this license or to SuSE Linux are granted
other than negotiated in this license.” Manual can be found here:
http://www.suse.com/us/business/products/suse_business/openexchange/misc/SLOX_Admin_Manual.pdf
==========================
I know this is probably not the answer you were hoping for, but it is
what I came up with after reading through the licenses that I was able
to find on the SUSE website. If you only need one or two groupware
clients, perhaps you can negotiate with them for a lower price?
According to their press release: “The recommended retail price for
SuSE Linux Openexchange Server is USD 1,249.00, including the base
license for ten groupware clients and an unlimited number of e-mail
clients.”
Source: http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releases/archive02/openexchange.html
I also found the following: “The inexpensive, fair license model makes
full use of every obtained license, as only the number of users who
are logged in simultaneously is used as a basis for calculation.”
SOURCE: http://www.beelite.nl/openex.htm
The last paragraph suggests to me that they will allow you to purchase
OpenExchange with less than 10 Groupware clients.
Finally, it could be the case that OpenExchange application is NOT
Open Source software (although I doubt this)! My reason for thinking
this is that SuSE Never claims that it is open source… they say things
like: “SuSE Linux Openexchange Server combines proven Open Source
components with comprehensive software applications to offer an
impressive functionality:” SOURCE:
http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/press_releases/archive02/openexchange.html
NONE, of their customer testimonials for OpenExchange talk about any
of them gaining access to the source code or modifying it. I have
asked SuSE about this as well, and will let you know if this is the
case.
I guess even software companies who work with Open Source need to make
a profit above and beyond charging for technical support. I hope this
was the type of research you were looking for. If you need any
clarifications of this answer, please let me know and I will do my
best to get back to you as soon as possible. As soon as I hear back
from SuSE, I will append the additional information to this answer.
tisme-ga
Search Strategy: (on Google)
openexchange license
openexchange license one
open source openexchange license
open source openexchange
open source
site:suse.com license openexchange
site:suse.com openexchange source |
Clarification of Answer by
tisme-ga
on
07 May 2003 17:25 PDT
Hello fladget,
It took a few emails but I have finally managed to receive replies to
all of your questions. Without further delay, here are the replies I
have received from SuSE:
To the question "Can I use OpenExchange in my business, legally and
ethically, without paying SuSE anything?" the answer is:
No. We call OpenExchange a solution based on open source. Even as it
comes with nearly all the source code the groupware/collaboration part
of the product is not open source.
To the question: "Can I use it for commercial purposes, e.g. creating
a service like Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail but adding features and charging
for that service? I want to use it for an unlimited number of users,
and it must support webmail accounts too."
The answer came back as: No, not without payment. The Groupware part
of the product is licensed based and comes with 10 base licenses.
To the question: "Can I alter the source and not release my changes to
the source?"
The answer came back as: You can amend the product without giving the
code to anybody, but you need to pay the license fees.
I did find out that the groupware component comes from a third pary
though... but am not sure if it can be purchased for a lower price
through them. Here is the information:
The OpenExchange Server is a hybrid product - it consists of a Linux
installation together with standard open source componenents such as
postfix, cyrus, openldap and samba.
However the groupware component is provided by the proprietary comfire
application which was developed by Netline:
http://www.comfire.de/englisch/produkt/netline.htm
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you... I wanted to ensure that
I had all the answers and that I clearly understood the position of
SuSE.
All the best fladget,
tisme-ga
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