[NTLUG:Discuss] Novell 'open'SuSE

[Chris Cox]

Mike Hart wrote:
> I am working with MIDI alot lately and have been
> reviewing all the distro's which claim 'audio
> production' capability. 
> 
> One of these audio distros is Jack Audio Distro, which
> is a variant of OpenSUSE.  After I install JAD, during
> the first update process (to the OpenSUSE update
> servers), an EULA pops up claiming that the fonts in
> SuSE are 'valuable intellectual property' and any
> commercial use of those fonts is theft from (I forget
> the legal company name here). As a result, Jack Audio
> is no longer being investigated by me, tho it
> initially showed a lot of promise for what I need.  

Most fonts are 0wned.  At least most of the professional
looking ones with good hinting anyhow.

Many of the clone fonts, while not 0wned, are merely
a lawsuit that hasn't happened yet (sad but true).


> 
> I don't feel that a company which allows predatory
> lawsuit lawyers into it's auto-update process is
> 'open'. I'm sure there's nothing illegal going on
> here, but it doesn't represent the best practice of
> the open source community. 

It's probably better for them to display that than
to NOT display that... which is what used to happen
and what is effectively happening on many distros.

> 
> Bottom line, Ditching Microsoft for a puppet company
> that is in a marketing agreement with Microsoft
> doesn't make a lot of sense to me. 

openSUSE is a NOT Microsoft puppet company.  Thanks
for the Microsoft-like FUD though.  I know it's
popular to hate (or should I say HATE) openSUSE
because Novell attempted to provide their customer
base with some protection against a litigious
company, but it would be nice if you looked at
what Novell has to say about their position... and
at least not like it or HATE it based on
facts instead of spreading FUD.

Thanks.

With regards to fonts, openSUSE (and the
now and forever no matter what they do... HATED
Novell) realize the problem with the lack of high
quality fonts in Linux and HAVE actually been moving
towards including licensed fonts that look pretty
good.  However, it is well known in the Linux
community as a whole that fonts are an issue inside
of Linux (again, mainly with regards to well hinted
professional fonts).

Perhaps on the positive side, perhaps people can
suggest some well hinted serif and san-serif fonts
that are freely usable.