Use Suse Enterprise Linux Server v10 sp3 without support

[AVINASH JADHAO]

I want to use suse enterprise linux server edition v10 sp3 for
academic use. Its available for free for 60 days. But I want to use it
afterwards without buying it and without support. Will the system up
for use after the trial period of 60 days.
I just want my system up, I am not interested in support. So will the
system be still running after trial period?
I dont want to make money out of it, its for my final year B.Tech
project.
Waiting for reply.

[AVINASH JADHAO]

[Rob]

AVINASH JADHAO <avinashdj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I want to use suse enterprise linux server edition v10 sp3 for
> academic use. Its available for free for 60 days. But I want to use it
> afterwards without buying it and without support. Will the system up
> for use after the trial period of 60 days.
> I just want my system up, I am not interested in support. So will the
> system be still running after trial period?

Please note that downloading security updates and bugfixes is also
considered "support". I.e. you won't be able to do that unless you
buy the product.
(this is different from the old days, when you could always maintain
the system yourself and only needed "support" when you want to ask
questions)

[John Bowling]

My understanding of the commercial server versions was that they were
brought out using what was 'tested' in the openSUSE versions, and that
the support was available, and paid for, for several years. If that is
what the concept still is, the only disadvantage to using an openSUSE
version is to have free updates limited to less than 2 years.

I am running a server at home that I created using openSUSE 10.3. It
hasn't had an update available for a long time, but it still works well.
It does lack some of the new stuff, but I don't need that for a server.

Possibly there are some add on packages that are not available for the
openSUSE version, but then how would they test them effectively prior to
being put into a production product?

John

[Ulick Magee]

http://www.suse.com/products/server/frequently-asked-questions/#q22

<quote>
How much does SUSE Linux Enterprise Server cost?

There is no license cost for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and you can
download the operating system for free from http://download.novell.com.
SUSE charges a small fee, however, for support and maintenance. A paid
subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server comes with major
benefits—immediate delivery of upgrades, patches and security fixes;
access to award-winning SUSE technical support; IP indemnification; and
much more. For our most current pricing, and more information about our
Basic, Standard and Priority support subscriptions, please visit
www.suse.com/products/server/how-to-buy/

</quote>

You get access to patches/updates for 60 days without a paid
subscription, after that time your access to the patch download site is
cut off, but otherwise the OS would function as normal. I don't think
that releasing a time-crippled Linux version that would cease to
function after a certain time could be done without violating the GPL.

If you want a free enterprise OS that will continue to have access to
updates/patches then consider CentOS (based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux)
- there is no 'community' version of SLE that I'm aware of.


--

Ulick Magee

Free software and free formats for free information for free people.
LibreOffice for Windows/OSX/Linux: www.documentfoundation.org/download
openSUSE Linux: http://en.opensuse.org

[Ulick Magee]

On 29/12/11 17:50, houghi wrote:

> Ulick Magee wrote:
>> You get access to patches/updates for 60 days without a paid
>> subscription, after that time your access to the patch download site is
>> cut off, but otherwise the OS would function as normal. I don't think
>> that releasing a time-crippled Linux version that would cease to
>> function after a certain time could be done without violating the GPL.
>

> It could easily be done. As long as the code is available it can be
> done. GPL is about how the CODE is distributed, not about the funtioning
> of the software.

For it to work, you'd have to withhold the source for your crippling
mechanism. Even with closed source, copy-protection mechanisms are
usually broken sooner or later, with the source available it'd be trivial.

Possibly this could be done with kernel modules, which don't have to be
GPL if you write them yourself. It'd be pretty evil though :) and how
would you stop the end user removing the module?

>> If you want a free enterprise OS that will continue to have access to
>> updates/patches then consider CentOS (based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux)
>> - there is no 'community' version of SLE that I'm aware of.
>

> The community version of SLE is openSUSE.

I probably should've said 'clone' not 'version' :) there is no
free-as-in-beer clone of SLE analogous to CentOS - same package
versions, lifetime etc. as the enterprise OS - and CentOS doesn't feed
into the RHEL development process in the way that Fedora would (or
openSUSE feeds into SLE)