Notes for commercial CD-ROM vendors ----------------------------------- Thanks to the following people for helping me put this together: Daniel Quinlan Patrick J. Volkerding Alan Cox 1) The first thing to be aware of is that people who write free software want people to be able to use it. If you find that someone's copyright is preventing you from placing their work on a CD, talk to them about it. There is every chance that they'll give you permission to include their work. Author's aren't trying to prevent distribution, just stealing. 2) When you make a CD-ROM distribution of sunsite's linux archive, please be aware that you are creating a commercial distribution while sunsite provides a noncommercial service. This affects your legal right to distribute certain pieces of software without paying royalties to the author(s). Here's a list of software this affects - please tell me if you know of any others. This is not an authoritative list by any means, so there are likely omissions. C-Kermit is included in slackware, MCC, and debian, so your right to make commercial CD-ROMs of those distributions is limited - be sure to remove kermit from them. C-Kermit is also on sunsite in /pub/Linux/apps/comm. You should remove it before creating a CD. Mosaic is also included in slackware (and perhaps debian - I don't know) and appears on sunsite in /pub/Linux/system/Network/info-systems. ncftp is in /pub/Linux/apps/comm/term/term, /pub/Linux/apps/comm/termstuff, /pub/Linux/system/Network/file-transfer, and the je distribution. The version in slackware is included by permission, but you should ask Mike Gleason (mgleason@cse.unl.edu) for permission to include it on your CDROM to be sure. Versions of xv >= 3.0 can't be distributed - it is in /pub/Linux/X11/xapps/graphics/viewers. The version in Slackware has been okayed for distribution, but you should ask John Bradley (bradley@cis.upenn.edu) for his permission to be sure. Versions of getty_ps <= 2.0.7e can't be used, but it is being moved to GPL. Chimera can't be distributed, but I don't think that's on sunsite. Both trn and gated are borderline - decide for yourself. trn is in slackware (and probably other distributions) and /pub/Linux/system/Mail/news. Gated is under /pub/Linux/system/Network/sunacm and /pub/Linux/system/Network/daemons. Many of the Linux logos can't be distributed commercially. Those are in /pub/Linux/logos. Gated requires commercial distributors to join the gated consortium. Apparently this is free. 3) If you include sunsite's Linux archive on a CD-ROM, please tell me when you do so and keep me informed of new releases. I work hard on this site and would like to know how many people are using it. If you'd like to offer me a free CD, that's fine too, but certainly not necessary. If I get enough responses to this, I'll maintain a list of CD-ROM versions of sunsite, so please include price and a contact address if you'd like to be included. Erik ewt@sunsite.unc.edu