Hello,
Can someone (as official as it can be) please clarify this me if there are any restrictions to the use of OpenSuse? Can it be used for free in any kind of business???
I was asking this because i found this article: 11 Best Linux Distributions for Power Users in 2024 where the very first line states that
OpenSuse is a Linux distro which is free as far as it is not used for commercial usages and remains for personal usages.
Is this True???
Thanks
It’s okay to use in a business environment. There a lots of enterprises using openSUSE if you care to search.
You should familiarise yourself with the license and legal stuff
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:License
https://www.suse.com/company/legal/
So the article is wrong and it can be freely used anywhere, is that correct?
On 2015-06-05 11:36, SpeccyMan wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Can someone (as official as it can be)
Nobody is “official” for openSUSE here, AFAIK
> please clarify this me if there
> are any restrictions to the use of OpenSuse? Can it be used for free in
> any kind of business???
>
> I was asking this because i found this article:
> http://tinyurl.com/mmvz42t where the very first line states that
>
>> OpenSuse is a Linux distro which is free as far as it is not used
>> for commercial usages and remains for personal usages.
>
> Is this True???
No.
They say:
«OpenSuse is a Linux distro which is free as far as it is not used for
commercial usages and remains for personal usages. True Competitor of
OpenSuse is Red Hat Enterprise Linux.»
First: it is not OpenSuse but openSUSE.
Second: openSUSE is not a competitor of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. SUSE
is, openSUSE is not.
SUSE is commercial. You can use it for testing for free, what you don’t
get are the updates; you need a contract for those.
openSUSE is completely free, both as in gratis and as in freedom.
Then they talk about Tumbleweed, which is very recent (end of 2014), and
then it gives the link to download 12.3, which is obsolete and not
maintained. Unless it refers to the previous incantation of Tumbleweed.
That said, each package in any distribution has its own license. In
openSUSE, the packages that come from the non-oss repository have some
kind of license that is not completely free, even commercial. For
instance, Flash.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Right, but the standard installation does not include those packages AFAIK.
Beside that, from what i understood from your explanation and from the one of Deano, the Distribution itself is usable for free in any environments (business included).
I’ve already read the entire license a few years ago, but since English is not my native language and since it was a few years ago i thought i might have understood it wrongly or that something might have changed. That was why i came here…
It is and the consulting gigs I do “sell” openSUSE (to be precise, they sell hardware with oS installed and applications / services running on top of it - no fee is taken for the oS itself)
On 2015-06-05 13:36, SpeccyMan wrote:
> I’ve already read the entire license a few years ago, but since English
> is not my native language and since it was a few years ago i thought i
> might have understood it wrongly or that something might have changed.
> That was why i came here…
Yes, licenses are difficult texts to read, specially for those of us for
which English is not the first language.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
I would like to thank everyone for assuring me that i can use it anywhere for free without any problems.
Thanks guys 
On Fri, 05 Jun 2015 13:44:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Yes, licenses are difficult texts to read, specially for those of us for
> which English is not the first language.
Well, let’s be clear here - even for people whose native language is
English, many (or most) license agreements appear to be little more than
“word salad” - they are intentionally written in legalese (to make sure
people are covered). Very little of this is, however, at all
comprehensible to anyone below the level of Advanced God.
(I’m quoting something here, starting with “Very little”.)
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C