Selling Lunux distros

[Rand Dusing]

Say one of my friends has 56k and didn't want go out and buy or download a copy of Linux. Is it llegal for me to sell him a copy on a CD?

[vass0922]

Yep, as long as you offer to include the source code
If you want, you can also give it to him for free... its up to you.

[thePh@r@oh]

maybe not illegal but i would think it was wrong since your proffiting from something that isnt yours to sell...IMO you can charge him for the CDs you use to burn it. that would be ok

[Siliconjunkie]

You can profit from it, if you can find someone to pay. As long as you include the source as vass said.

Now, there are some moral questions about this and there was a thread about it a while back.

But, even from a moral standpoint I don't have a problem charging someone for the downloading, burning and such. Say $5 or something nominal like that.

[DanGrease]

Lunux? What is that?!
As for being ilegal, yes if you bought it. If you downloaded it from a legal site where its free, then no. Thats what I think at least

dan

[strangerstill]

You can charge him whatever the hell you like. That's what the 'free' in free software means - you have the freedom to (among other things) make copies and sell them on.

However, once he has hold of it, he has rights as well - in particular, the freedom to examine and alter the source code. This means that you now have the obligation to (a) let him know he has the right to the source code, and (b) if he asks for the source code, sell it to him at a reasonable price.

Note: (b) is satisfied by, in this case, selling him the Source CDs of the distro. It's not enough to just tell him where he can download the ISOs from.

Personally, I like to see people trying out Linux, so I tend to give people CDs in exchange for blank CDRs. But that's just my own moral code - if yours says that you deserve to be reimbursed for your time in burning the CDs, then charge whatever you feel is appropriate. Watch out, though, in case your friend feels that paying you for CDs implies a support contract...

Finally (oops), the above applies in general only to CDs which you can download the ISOs from a website. If you bought a boxed set, those CDs might contain stuff (e.g. artwork or software) copyrighted under a non-Free license, in which case you mustn't copy them (just download and burn the ISOs instead).

A boxed set should say whether the CDs are all-Free or mingled with non-Free material. (If it doesn't, ask the distributor.)

[Siliconjunkie]

You can copy the CDs, even if you bought them. Only exception I know if is Suse

[Rand Dusing]

Ok, well with my friends I would give them Linux for a CD. But for someone I don't know well and asked me for a Linux distro I would charge a buck or two.

[Rand Dusing]

I'm going to give RedHat 9 a try and was wondering if i should download the SRPMS ones or the i386 ones, is there a difference?

[crouse]

srpms are the "source" files..... you want the normal i386 iso files if your wanting to install it.

BTW ........ sell linux all you can..... it is perfectly legal........ well, unless you talk to some stupid SCO exec I mean