[Mageia-discuss] commercial support

[herman]

On Fri, 2010-09-24 at 12:24 -0700, Dick Gevers wrote:
> >
> >The software is GPL, everybody can open shop and support any
> >distribution
> >Partly wrong. You can always offer commercial support for openSUSE,
> >Mandriva Free Edition and such. 

I don't want to be unkind, but you don't understand, since you clearly
have not actually *READ* the Terms and Conditions of Redhat, Novel,
CentOS or Mandriva!

Here is the problem, which lawyers are concerned about and which many
geeks prefer to ignore:
"Can I distribute the modifications I performed on Mandriva One and
Mandriva Free?
You may not redistribute a modified version of Mandriva products unless
all registered trademarks, brands, names and logos referring to
Mandrivasoft are removed. This includes, for instance, the use of the
word "Mandriva Linux", "Mandriva", the Mandriva Linux and Mandrivasoft
logos. This is required to protect Mandrakesoft's intellectual property
rights and to avoid creating confusion for our clients. However, if you
wish to become a Mandrakesoft distributor, we would gladly welcome you
as a Mandrakesoft Partner and establish a win/win agreement. See our
Partner Page."

You will find similar text on every Linux distribution web site, except
for Debian and Scientific, which is why I keep repeating that
consultants cannot legally provide 3d party support for most Linux
distributions.  This is a problem which Mageia has to address, by using
a license similar to that of Debian or Scientific.