I cannot guarantee any of this (I am not a lawyer, etc etc...) but at least to
the letter of the GPL (which covers most if not all applications that are part
of most major Linux distributions), it is allowed to charge a fee for the
physical redistribution of a program. A company is also allowed to charge a
fee for providing a warranty for the program.
So a distributor is entirely within their rights to charge a nominal fee for
the packaging and redistribution of GPL packages, and on top of that charge a
fee for providing support and services, since that would constitute a warranty
for the product they deliver to you. There is of course no limitation to the
amount of such a fee (putting such a limit in the GPL would probably be a
killing blow to the entire GPL idea anyway). So, as long as a distributor is
offering some form of service that goes along with the distribution, they can
charge for that. And if they bundle other packages with the GPL stuff, and
those are their own development, they of course can charge for those as well.
Kris
On Tue, Jan 22, 2002 at 10:02:08AM -0500, Coffin Michael C wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> I heard that the SuSE 7.2 distribution (which includes a "mandatory service
> contract"!) is around $15,000! I don't mind paying $100 for CD's (even
> though it's WAY too much), but $15,000 for the $10 CD's and $14,990 for
> service I don't want - that's a pretty hard sell to management who has been
> told that Linux is "free for the masses".
>
> I was under the impression that under the terms of the Linux distribution
> license, vendors (RedHat, SuSE, etc.) are allowed to package and sell Linux
> the Linux kernel but that the fee charged for the distribution was supposed
> to be to cover their expense on the packaging and distribution (or something
> like that). Can someone elaborate on this? I could be totally wrong about
> this, but when I first got involved with Linux this was my understanding.
>
> I realize that all of the sources can be downloaded from the vendor sites
> and manually applied, it's just a lot faster and easier to use the vendor's
> packaged distribution (but not for $15,000).
>
> Please feel free to correct me anywhere I may be wrong here (I HOPE that I
> am VERY wrong). :)
>
> Michael Coffin, VM Systems Programmer
> Internal Revenue Service - Room 6030
> 1111 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
> Washington, D.C. 20224
>
> Voice: (202) 927-4188 FAX: (202) 622-6726
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Ross [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 11:34 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: reasons why management don't want linux
>
>
> > > > less software costs (one copy per engine vs one copy each for each
> >boxes) then
> > > > most other platforms.
> > >
> > > software costs lower. How many copies of Red Hat PC boxed set can
> >you buy
> > > for a VM license ;)
> >
> >How much is a SuSe Linux/390 distribution these days? A German user
> >told me yesterday that the cost is very far from insignificant.
>
> It can be downloaded at no charge.
>
> For a proper boxed distribution with CDs, Suse guy at Linuxworld last year
> quoted me IIRC $100. It wasn't very far from that figure at any rate. No
> idea what official Suse support costs are.
>
> Mike
> http://www.corestore.org
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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Software Developer & Creator of Worlds
