Re: [cobalt-users] Support, Warranty and Hype

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Thurman wrote:

> Why would it be "Illegal" to place Taq4 OS on a Cobalt box of any type.

Because in addition to the opensource software on the system, there's
proprietary software as well.  For example, ChilisoftASP is proprietary.

> I would like to see the paragraph from Sun/Cobalt that states you are in
> violation.

It's on the license that accompanies the Restore CDROMs.

> If what Bruce says is correct, why then do people like Apple and
> dell and the others allow you to place OS's of your choice on machines??
> I am cornfused...

When you buy a Dell PC it (usually) comes with a copy of Windows they've
licensed.  Sure you can put any other operating system on the machine,
and they don't care.  But if you take the operating system that came on
your Dell PC and put it on a clone you picked up from the neighborhood
vendor, that's when the operating system vendor (Microsoft) would care.

Some thing, except Cobalt/Sun is the vendor of both the hardware and the
software.  As the hardware vendor, Cobalt/Sun doesn't care if you put
any other operating system on the RaQ.  As the software vendor, they
care if you put one of their commercial systems on the RaQ that you
didn't buy from them.

What you can legally do is separate out the portion of the RaQ4
operating system that's open source, and put it on your RaQ3, but then
of course you'd have a pretty-standard Red Hat Linux 6.2, with only a
few changes.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Linux and Cobalt/Sun/RaQ Consulting
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 778-9980  *  fax: (702) 548-9484