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Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi Forum Raspbian 'PIXEL'  license agreement, Do you use it, have you read it? Are you concerned? (You should be)
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Raspbian 'PIXEL'  license agreement, Do you use it, have you read it? Are you concerned? (You should be)

rive
rive over 9 years ago

What good an open source software distribution that you can't legally redistribute because it has proprietary parts?

The whole advantage of free and open source is that I can just fire up as many copies of the operating system as I like, give it to friends, slice and dice it - and never worry!

"Redistributing" is very general. If I made an RPi disk image and handed it to a friend, this is certainly "redistributing".

 

This isn't like "all commercial rights reserved" which we all understand is reasonable.

 

A regular user opens themself up to be sued for perceived damages, if they so much as post a screenshot of their 'PIXEL' desktop. or if it is determined they so much as crop or edit the image(s), or resizes it to any size other than "long edge at 1920px".

 

You cannot use the desktop images if you are a commercial entity (because if you are selling/including Raspbian PIXEL in, or with your Pi product, you violate the PIXEL licensing terms).

 

You cannot redistribute them period, for any reason, commercial or not. You ( the end user) do not own them, you cannot do with them as you please or even share them (e.g, 'redistribution'), and (you the end user) cannot even use them yourself on your system/Pi/hardware after 10 years, (at which time you are no longer covered under the use license, and you must remove them if they are installed).

 

If you violate the use/licensing terms, you can be sued for significant damages. You indemnify the rights holder/owner/representative agent/authorized third party against any and all claims (in other words, if you get sued for unauthorized use of the images, you cannot counter-sue for monetary loss, attorney's fees, defamation, etc).

 

 

Source: /usr/share/pixel-wallpaper

 

license.txt

 

The photographer grants the Licensee the non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-

assignable use of all images named above for 10 years, for the purpose of use as the

default wallpaper included within the Raspbian operating system, distributed by the

Raspberry Pi Foundation. The licence is “digital only” and for medium resolution

(long edge at 1920px), images shall not be used in any other form (such as in print

publications) nor for any commercial activities. However, use of the images to promote

the operating system and the activities of the Foundation (such as on social media, on

blogs and printed at trade shows) is acceptable.

 

Provisions:

The photographer retains all copyrights attached to the images as well as any other

rights which may not be detailed in this agreement.

 

Selling and/or redistribution of the images is forbidden.

 

Licensee is allowed to crop and/or electronically alter images to suit their purposes

for the usage stated above.

 

Indemnity:

The Licensee indemnifies and holds harmless Greg Annandale against all claims,

liability, damages, costs and expenses stemming from a breach of this agreement,

the use of the images, your failure to abide by any restriction regarding the use

of an image, or any claim by a third party related to the use of the images.

Attachments:
license.txt.zip
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  • rew
    0 rew over 9 years ago

    Reading legal texts is not "rocket science". If you read carefully, things can be deciphered.

     

    Although specifics of copyright law may differ by country, the general line is the same everywhere. The places where things differ are for example when you make a copy of a book for your studies. Is "for my studies" a good enough "excuse" to violate the general rule "no copying allowed unless the author says so".

     

    What bothers me a bit is that the terms disallow redistribution. That would mean that if I prepare a raspbian image that works out-of-the-box with my DMX interface for Raspberry pi , I would be in violation of the licence of those images, even though that was probably not the intention of the author of those images and their licence.

     

    I don't usually use "desktops" on raspberry pi's. So I never see those images, let alone their lincence....

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  • royleith
    0 royleith over 9 years ago in reply to rew
    I don't usually use "desktops" on raspberry pi's. So I never see those images, let alone their licence....

    I agree. However, a Pixel splash screen appears during boot for my Raspi. I had no idea what it was about until a desktop background picture appeared and I saw this thread about it.

     

    As long as you are warned about the licence, redistribution of Rasbian images is fine as long as the copyright protected and unlicensed images are deleted before generating the images.

     

    If you don't get a sensible warning and you redistribute without a licence, then it may be that the users of that redistribution will be no more aware of it than you are because they are using it in the way that you intended.

     

    It's small comfort, though.

     

    The Pixel stuff should be an optional install, after the licence has been agreed to.

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  • royleith
    0 royleith over 9 years ago in reply to rew
    I don't usually use "desktops" on raspberry pi's. So I never see those images, let alone their licence....

    I agree. However, a Pixel splash screen appears during boot for my Raspi. I had no idea what it was about until a desktop background picture appeared and I saw this thread about it.

     

    As long as you are warned about the licence, redistribution of Rasbian images is fine as long as the copyright protected and unlicensed images are deleted before generating the images.

     

    If you don't get a sensible warning and you redistribute without a licence, then it may be that the users of that redistribution will be no more aware of it than you are because they are using it in the way that you intended.

     

    It's small comfort, though.

     

    The Pixel stuff should be an optional install, after the licence has been agreed to.

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  • rew
    0 rew over 9 years ago in reply to royleith

    Roy, Of course, I could abide by the rules of this licence by deleting those images, and maybe look for new ones. However that is not the point.
    I download "raspbian" images install them on a pi, boot the once or twice (possibly without a monitor attached) add a few software packages that seem useful to me and then I put it up on my website. My expectation is that this is allowed under the GPL as most things in that image are GPL and that explicitly allows redistribution.

    Is this a "really weird" use case of raspbian? I think not. Projects like "octoprint" and "koda" release modified raspbian images with THEIR software installed and configured ready-to-run.

     

    It is the foundation's responsibility to try to assemble a distribution that can be redistributed. I think they try and that this restriction in this case is unintentional. Both from the original licencer and from the foundation.

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