I'm just concerned about the new linux consumers who might be shocked if
they were told what percentage of the code they were getting in the
$40-80 shrink-wrapped box was free GPLd software. Sort of a consumer
information concern, in my opinion. Just like the right to know about
organic food content... Agreed, Suse makes a fine product.
On Sat, 2003-05-17 at 10:52, R.G. Mayhue wrote:
> On Saturday 17 May 2003 09:31 am, Eric Jahn wrote:
> >
> > What if Bob, in scenario #4, decides to change his name to "SUSE" and
> > then decides to charge more than shipping for his shrink-wrapped
> > project? Hasn't Bob/SUSE violated the GPL, even though Bob/SUSE may
> > tack on some proprietary plug-ins/enhancements?
> >
> [snip]
> > >
> > > 4) Bob sells his modified version of Ogre for $20 dollars, including
> > > or at least allowing anyone interested to get the source code for
> > > free or for no more than the cost of shipping.
> > > Alice finds out, and includes his changes into her own version of
> > > Orge.
> > >
>
> No. First of all the GPL does not say that you cannot sell GPL'ed software. If
> you want to assemble your own distro from all the pieces of the puzzle and
> sell it you can. As long as the source code for the GPL'ed parts is made
> available.
>
> I used the word *distro* in my repy because I believe in your example above
> you picked the name SuSE because you must not like the idea that SuSE charges
> for their distro and makes no ISO's available for download. Although I
> personally do not use SuSE myself, I must at least say that they have every
> right under the GPL to do what they do.
>
> As far as the proprietary plug-ins/enhancements you speak of they are what set
> SuSE apart from Red Hat, Mandrake and others and are the property of SuSE and
> the other software venders they have agreements with. As long as SuSE makes
> the GPL'ed parts of the distro available to you (which they do on their FTP
> servers), they are not violating the GPL in any way.
>
> Now if SuSE used (copied) GPL'ed source in their plug-ins/enhancements now
> thats a differant story. If they do, then it is *infected* with GPL'ed source
> code and must be released under the GPL.
>
> SuSE makes a fine product and they want to be paid for their efforts. I see
> nothing wrong with that.
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