Deepin Linux: Security Threat or Safe to Use?

EndeavourOS deepin is currently sound. I see no reason to discontinue it. :hugs:

Did I know that the Deepin desktop could not be officially installed on Debian, or did I not understand

This is exactly the answer I got to my question about the Deepin login sound I asked on the Manjaro forum last time.Not much has been promised to me that there will be progress on this issue.

I think deepin is safe, but nowadays it’s more catered to Chinese users.

Endless OS has a nasty EULA too.

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Most of the distros with commercial backing/ownership have a EULA.

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But Fedora is backed by Red Hat. But does not have an EULA

They stopped calling it a EULA but they still have license agreements:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Licenses/LicenseAgreement?rd=Legal/Licenses/LicenseAgreement

NOTE : In the past, Fedora used the acronym “EULA,” for End User License Agreement, to inform people using the Fedora operating system about their rights and responsibilities. However, that term is misleading because any end user can easily be a redistributor of the Fedora operating system, because of the way that free and open source software work.

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How much does the EULA make sense in the case of free and open source?

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As much as it makes sense anywhere else.

The goal is tell the user what their responsibilities are as well as to ensure the entity creating the software is protected from liability.

For example, someone could want to ensure that the product they made couldn’t be modified and resold as commercial software. Another company might want to protect themselves from being sued if the product they provide for free has some error/bug that costs someone else money.

In some localities, it might be required to have some sort of agreement to comply with local laws.

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Enterprise-level Linux distributions obviously have an EULA but the GNU GPL distributions do not need it.

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Out of curiosity, what is your basis for that statement?

Also, are you sure a distribution can even be covered under the gpl?

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An EULA is an agreement between a seller and a buyer. I don’t think there are any such participants in GPL Linux distributions.

The GPL is no longer applicable to everything today.

A EULA is a license agreement. As far as I know, it doesn’t require a seller or a buyer. There are many examples of no-cost software products which contain a EULA.

That being said, does it even matter? The contents of the agreement are more important than what it is called.

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I was just thinking that the EULA for free and open source software should not be interpreted in the same way as closed source software. From Wikipedia : Unlike EULAs, free software licenses do not work as contractual extensions to existing legislation. No agreement between parties is ever held, because a copyright license is simply a declaration of permissions on something that otherwise would be disallowed by default under copyright law.

So, here is the question. What protection do free software licenses provide to the producer(s) of a Linux distribution?

A distribution is a collection of things that are individually licensed under a variety of different licenses. They are often a mix of free and non-free licenses. Even for those distributions which are fully libre, I would still question if the makers of the distribution are provided protection by the licenses of the software which make up the distro.

So, if someone puts together Linux distribution and a business installs on their computers. The distribution has flaw which costs the business millions of dollars. Since there is no formal agreement between the parties they have to rely on whatever implied agreements would be relevant. Since these a distributed all over the world and the laws vary from place to place it becomes even more complicated.

If it was a distribution you put together by yourself, would you risk it, or would you put in a basic EULA to give yourself some degree of protection?

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Well, that’s a big dilemma you’ve written about, and Munich has already gone through that once. However, as a private user, the risk is lower, so the lack of an EULA is not as much of a problem as there is community support. The creator of the free software may not claim any remuneration under the relevant license. Anyway, even with paid software, there is no guarantee of everything.

It isn’t about the user. It is about whomever is creating and distributing the Linux distro. That is why many distros have EULAs, to protect themselves.

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Right, many paid distros have EULA.

Many free distros also have them. That being said, at this point I am ducking out of this discussion because I have long ago lost track of what the original point of it was.

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