Hello everyone,

I'm currently working on a free Live cd Distro for digital artists but because it's the first time I make something like this, I'm getting a bit confused with the licenses.

My question is: Since Krita is Gpl, does that mean I can ship the distro with Krita Pre installed?
All software I plan to include is under the gpl license and I'm contacting all the devs individually asking this question but I'm getting different answers.
Some devs say, "No. While what you're planning to do is legal under gpl, we consider it mass distribution and we are against it as devs so please don't include our software".

Where does Krita stand in this?

Any light shared in this subject would be much appreciated.


Thanks

Huh, that would be a weird position. After all Linux distributions do already mass distribution of Krita . You can redistribute any version Krita in any way you want to as many people as you want! If you're rolling your own distribution, please do make sure your users have access to the latest bug fix releases at all times, that's really important!

There are two side issues, one is Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a complete political mess at the moment, with Canonical claiming that if you do a derivative of Ubuntu you have to rebuild all their source packages yourself. It's blithering nonsense, and the FSF has confirmed that when they looked at whether you could add a distribution/rebuild restriction for GPL software, but they're still keeping up the pretense. Read this entertaining blog: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/38467.html, but don't be deterred.

The other is is if you really change Krita around, for instance strip out half the functionality or whatever, well, then it might be a good idea to call it a fork and choose a different name. I don't think this is what you're planning... You're still allowed to fork Krita, of course, hack it to pieces and give the result to the world. It's free software, after all

Last thing... If you're close to releasing, ping me, so we can work together on telling the world about your work!

Thank you for the quick reply Boudewijn.

Yes, the idea is this simply preinstall Krita, no changes made aside from including my brushpack as well.

Thank you for the heads up on Ubuntu. That's a problem for me.
I'm not a developer or programmer, so at the moment I've got everything together with a nice presentation, built a live cd using Systemback and would like to make available as a proof of concept to get people involved in the project.
Everything is ready and working, and although I removed the Ubuntu logo everywhere(including the plymouth), and it is using Cinnamon, you do see the word ubuntu in the repositories and in the system info.

Do you think I should start from scratch based on another distro? Sorry if I'm getting out of topic, we cant talk somewhere else if you're willing to.

Once again, thank you for all the info

I'd go for an opensuse studio respin myself, because opensuse actually _wants_ people to do things like this and makes easy-to-use tools for it. If you still want to go with Ubuntu, just go for it. They haven't got a leg to stand on.