[Dclug] Still Lost in the Linux Labyrinth of Distros

[Peter Larsen]

On Thu, 2012-07-12 at 10:02 -0400, Patrick Ouellette wrote: 
> On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 09:50:03AM -0400, Peter Larsen wrote:
> > 
> > So, charging money for open source would be illegal according to GPL. We
> > can charge for media and distribution costs, but not the code itself. So
> > it's always been a bit of a falsehood to claim that Red Hat and Novel
> > "sell" Linux - they don't. They sell Linux services. And the
> 
> Absolutely WRONG.  You are free to charge any amount you want for any GPL
> software if you can get someone to pay your price.  You are obligated to
> provide access to the source code, and cannot prevent the person who buys
> it (or otherwise acquires it from you) from selling or giving away the GPL
> licensed code.

I guess it depends on the version of the GPL - I missed the change in
GPLv3 - but here's what v2 says:

"You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a
fee.:"

which in v3 now states:

"You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and
you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee."

So you're right as long as we're talking about the latest GPL. 

-- 
Best Regards
  Peter Larsen

Wise words of the day:
"You, sir, are nothing but a pathetically lame salesdroid!
I fart in your general direction!"
	-- Randseed on #Linux
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