Whats the deal with software licenses

[Controlpanel]

I lot of distros have disclaimers against software licenses. The ones that I have seen are Sabayon and Linux Mint. What does this mean and how does it effect me?

[oz]

I'm just guessing here, but this might not be an easy question to answer because it's doubtful that many of the users here have actually read the disclaimers.

What did they say when you read them?

[Controlpanel]

I'm just guessing here, but this might not be an easy question to answer because it's doubtful that many of the users here have actually read the disclaimers.

What did they say when you read them?

They talked about what country you live in and software patents and said that the OS has some codecs, ect. that may violate the patents depending on what country you live in.

Mint at the top

Sabayon at the bottom

[oz]

Most of that has to do with people living in the USA. It's reportedly illegal for them to install decoders allowing them to play DVD movies, and such.

[Controlpanel]

Most of that has to do with people living in the USA. It's reportedly illegal for them to install decoders allowing them to play DVD movies, and such.

Ok, so if I want to use these distros legally what should I do? Or should I just not use them?

[oz]

You can use the distros legally, it's just that it is reportedly illegal to install certain files into the distro if you are a resident of the USA.

[Controlpanel]

You can use the distros legally, it's just that it is reportedly illegal to install certain files into the distro if you are a resident of the USA.

I'm confused so what exactly can't I do with these distros?

Thanks

[oz]

If you live in the USA, it appears that Mint Linux is recommending that you use the Light Edition. I do believe the USA is a software patent oriented country, at least at the current time.

For Sabayon, it looks like they are saying that if you don't want to run their distro with proprietary drivers, you should just use the "noproprietary" boot flag. I'm guessing that you'd enter the "noproprietary" command at boot time to bypass all the proprietary drivers. Of course, if you read the licenses and agree to the terms of each license, there should be no problem with running the proprietary drivers.

Basically, if you agree to all the licenses, you can do anything you want with these distros, as long as you comply with the licensing terms.

[Controlpanel]

If you live in the USA, it appears that Mint Linux is recommending that you use the Light Edition. I do believe the USA is a software patent oriented country, at least at the current time.

For Sabayon, it looks like they are saying that if you don't want to run their distro with proprietary drivers, you should just use the "noproprietary" boot flag. I'm guessing that you'd enter the "noproprietary" command at boot time to bypass all the proprietary drivers. Of course, if you read the licenses and agree to the terms of each license, there should be no problem with running the proprietary drivers.

Basically, if you agree to all the licenses, you can do anything you want with these distros, as long as you comply with the licensing terms.

Ok thanks that makes sense.

[oz]

You know... I really dislike all that legal mumbo-jumbo, the fine print, the gotchas, etc!