Message-ID: <19980701130100.64878@caldera.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 13:01:00 -0600
From: Tim Bird <tbird AT caldera DOT com>
To: mwebb AT mail DOT enterprise1701 DOT com
Cc: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Is Dr. DOS still free?
References: <199806280737.AAA18282@ shell1.ncal.verio.com> <199806281136 DOT HAA28158 AT mail DOT enterprise1701 DOT com>
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In-Reply-To: <199806281136.HAA28158@mail.enterprise1701.com>; from Mike Webb on Sun, Jun 28, 1998 at 07:18:43AM -0500
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On Sun, Jun 28, 1998 at 07:18:43AM -0500, Mike Webb wrote:
> > From:          Howard Schwartz <theo AT ncal DOT verio DOT com>
> > Reading over the Caldera web site recently I found myself confused as
> > to whether the current Dr. DOS 7.02 (and Web Spider?) is still free
> > to private individuals who use the OS for non-commercial purposes.
> > Can someone put this one to rest for me?
> 
> I recently emailed Caldera about this myself. The web site IS confusing; 
> the license agreement on the site no longer has the "free" wording, but the 
> download page does. The person I corresponded with had a time getting a 
> straight answer himself, but the bottom line he finally got was no. It's 
> free for evaluation (limited to 90 days for businesses, limited but 
> non-specific period for others), but that's as far as it goes nowadays.
> 
> I was disappointed with that answer; seems to me that a free non-commercial 
> distribution would be a great way to build recognition and eventual 
> commercial market share, but that's not the route they've chosen to go. I 
> understand they paid big bucks to get the DOS from Novell, so I guess they 
> figure that they have to charge everybody to recoup their $$.

My understanding is that DRDOS itself is still "essentially" free for
non-commercial use, but that WebSpyder is not.  Not much has changed
with regard to the freeness of DRDOS itself over the last year.  The
license is essentially the same as it has always been.  I helped craft the
license, and non-commercial redistribution has always been allowed.  It's
even bolded in the license, in part III, bullet item 6:

"REDISTRIBUTION OF THE SOFTWARE IS PERMITTED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES"

The license qualifies this with some junk about not removing copyrights,
etc., but I can't seem to convince anyone that it's OK to post
(redistribute) DRDOS for non-commercial use anywhere.

Tim Bird