License Change at Novell Adds Confusion

Jan 08, 2010

Marcel Hilzinger

The recent mail from Novell titled "Upcoming maintenance requirement to access patches and service packs for select Novell products" only adds confusion for Linux customers. As it turns out, nothing much has changed.

According to Novell's announcement, Novell will be changing the license conditions for most of its products starting February 1, 2010. And that's precisely the problem, that not even a graphic in their press release could clarify. The change, which limits access to nonsecurity updates to maintenance agreements only, applies neither to the SUSE Linux Enterprise series nor openSUSE or Novell Netware. All the previous agreements still apply to them, as Novell has informed us.

Of relevance is the third line only, as no changes are to occur to Netware or SUSE Linux Enterprise/openSUSE.

In subsequent mail from Novell's general manager, the message is, "To make it clear: no SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE product is affected!" The license changes, detailed in an FAQ, would then affect all Novell products other than SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE and Netware.

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