I have a passing familiarity with the Gnu public license as well as the BSD license. Take the various distros out there in the *nix world. For this example we will discuss Redhat and Mandrake along with FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Am I prohibited from distributing their product? Specifically, if I build a computer for an associate, and sell it to him for parts + labor, are there any legalities concerning loading Redhat (or others) on it and then selling him the finished product? What does a company like Dell have to pay RedHat to sell RedHat computers (if they were sold minus any official media). I am under the impression that typically the distros charge for media and support, as well as good natured contributions to *free* software fighting the Evil Empire. So if I download Redhat .iso''s, rip them, install, and sell them with the computer, is that a *potential* legal issue? I know that OpenBSD .iso''s are copyright Theo, but that I could download the source and make my own .iso. No point in saying "who cares it''s one computer for an associate;" this is more of a theoretical question to further my own knowledge of the various forms of free software.

The GPL under which linux (and, therefore, all linux distributions) is released requires that anyone has full permission to distribute the software in any way he wants. In other words, it is 100% legal, at least if you download it from the Internet. However, if you purchase the boxed set of some distributions, it may be illegal to resell because of some packages included for which there are royalties due. The only reasons to actually purchase a linux distro would be if (a) you want those commercial packages (b) you have a slow Internet connection (c) you want the technical support and security updates that most distributions provide only if you purchase their software.

or d) you actually want Linux distros to remain in business and keep putting out new releases...

That mindset is what is killing many distros, literally.

quote: Original post by tortoise
or d) you actually want Linux distros to remain in business and keep putting out new releases...

That mindset is what is killing many distros, literally.

Not really. Distros that think they can survive based solely on user sales are kidding themselves. An operating system is a commodity; that''s the entire philosophy surrounding FSF/GNU, so it''s only logical that a commercial entity look to provide a service people actually are willing to pay for. Distros that depend on unit sales ought to die as commercial entities, perhaps to be reborn as purely community-driven initiatives a la Debian.

@OctDev:
If the code is GPL''d, you can distribute it for free or for a fee as you choose. If you bought, say, an RH9 boxed set, you could copy all the GPL''d code onto another CD and sell it/give it away/make technicolor coasters with it. 100% legit.

quote: Original post by Oluseyi
Distros that depend on unit sales ought to die as commercial entities, perhaps to be reborn as purely community-driven initiatives a la Debian.

So who gets the awful of job of writing new OS code for zero bucks an hour, in their free time at that? I sure wouldn''t take that from my boss, why should the distros?

Why is it so acccepted that the open source community will just create new software with no other incentive than to merely create it, and people then take and eat it up with barely even a thank you? Volunteering is great and volunteer driven software is often great as well, but it has its limits. It''s no coincedence that commercial software, hell commercial everything, rules the land.

quote: Original post by tortoise
So who gets the awful of job of writing new OS code for zero bucks an hour, in their free time at that?

Linus Torvalds and the other thousands who already has and keep doing it.

quote: It''s no coincedence that commercial software, hell commercial everything, rules the land.

Which land? Hardly server land; open source rules there. Overall, open source pushes out commericial and closed source software to the margins of the computer world.

quote: Original post by CWizard

quote: Original post by tortoise
So who gets the awful of job of writing new OS code for zero bucks an hour, in their free time at that?

Linus Torvalds and the other thousands who already has and keep doing it.

And their contributions are quite noteworthy, especially Linus's of course. But they're not what keep Linux alive, the companies who make money off Linux are what keep it alive. The fact that huge companies have noticed they can make real money off of this software has ensured its survival more than anything.

quote: It's no coincedence that commercial software, hell commercial everything, rules the land.

Which land? Hardly server land; open source rules there.

Take those blinders off. Linux's share climbs quite nicely each year, it's far from the market leader (stats on *BSD are woefully missing, but then I imagine BSD's share is a mere sliver of Linux's, it unfortunately missed the hype train).

http://news.com.com/2100-1001_3-984010.html?tag=rn

quote:
Linux servers made up more than 14 percent of all servers shipped in the United States in the first quarter, but accounted for just 7.6 percent of total server revenue. A year ago, Linux made up 9 percent of server unit shipments and 4.7 percent of revenue.

5 to 7% of total server revenue for the past two years, open source is hardly "ruling". It probably will eventually, but only because these companies are making money with it , no other reason. And these Linux servers are almost universally eating away at commercial Unices, the real problem's not nearly as affected.

Linux is climbing nicely in the server world because money is to be had. The desktop world? What about poor ol' Suse and Mandrake and even Redhat? If they can't find any money in this market, they will leave. When Gentoo, and Slackware and whatever can't afford to pay their server bills and can't afford the time to maintain their software, they will leave too, Mandrake is already on its last legs. I prefer having them around, I prefer the choice they give me, and I especially prefer not having to use Debian

Unless Linux fans get out of their little bubble, and realize there's no such thing as a free lunch , then Linux on the desktop will continue to struggle.


[edited by - tortoise on October 20, 2003 8:17:12 PM]

quote: Original post by tortoise
So who gets the awful of job of writing new OS code for zero bucks an hour, in their free time at that? I sure wouldn''t take that from my boss, why should the distros?

Why is it so acccepted that the open source community will just create new software with no other incentive than to merely create it, and people then take and eat it up with barely even a thank you? Volunteering is great and volunteer driven software is often great as well, but it has its limits. It''s no coincedence that commercial software, hell commercial everything, rules the land.

The Free Software Foundation (GNU/GPL) and the Open Source Software movement are two different things. The OSS movement is about having the sourcecode for software open so that people can see it and improve it (the difference say, between selling cars where the hood is welded shut and cars where you can easily take a look at the engine). While the fact remains that source code is a lot easier to pirate than some security through obscurity binary, there is nothing stopping people from selling OSS in exactly the same way that CSS is sold (that is, you can''t download the source from any official site, you only get the source and binaries by buying them).

The Free Software Foundation (created by Richard Stallman, self described "sexual pervert" who spent his years before computer communism trying to promote sexual communism) is about taking rights away from developers and giving them to inanimate software. The FSF is the organization that wants programmers to be slaves of the community, producing code and then being dictated that their hard work must be given freely to others (read the GPL licence for more on that).

quote: Original post by tortoise
And their contributions are quite noteworthy, especially Linus''s of course. But they''re not what keep Linux alive, the companies who make money off Linux are what keep it alive. The fact that huge companies have noticed they can make real money off of this software has ensured its survival more than anything.

I can''t say I think this is true, but the fact remains that most of Linux and related GPL-like software has been and continues to be developed by volunteers.

quote: Take those blinders off. Linux''s share climbs quite nicely each year, it''s far from the market leader (stats on *BSD are woefully missing, but then I imagine BSD''s share is a mere sliver of Linux''s, it unfortunately missed the hype train).

http://news.com.com/2100-1001_3-984010.html?tag=rn

quote:
Linux servers made up more than 14 percent of all servers shipped in the United States in the first quarter, but accounted for just 7.6 percent of total server revenue. A year ago, Linux made up 9 percent of server unit shipments and 4.7 percent of revenue.

5 to 7% of total server revenue for the past two years, open source is hardly "ruling". It probably will eventually, but only because these companies are making money with it , no other reason. And these Linux servers are almost universally eating away at commercial Unices, the real problem''s not nearly as affected.

Linux is climbing nicely in the server world because money is to be had. The desktop world? What about poor ol'' Suse and Mandrake and even Redhat? If they can''t find any money in this market, they will leave. When Gentoo, and Slackware and whatever can''t afford to pay their server bills and can''t afford the time to maintain their software, they will leave too, Mandrake is already on its last legs. I prefer having them around, I prefer the choice they give me, and I especially prefer not having to use Debian

These numbers are irrelevant to what is actually out there. Server revenue? As the computer world has moved and continues to move towards open standards (which everyone, except some vendords, like), open source follows it. Internet infrastructure is dominated by open source (Linux, BSD, Apache, BIND, sendmail, wu-ftp, etc), regardless of how much of it counts as "server revenue", and it is eating more and more of businesses'' server software, as well as the end-user market.

quote: Original post by CWizard
These numbers are irrelevant to what is actually out there.

Would ya mind sliding that crystal ball this way? I''d like to get a peak at my future wife, maybe next week''s lotto numbers...

quote:
Server revenue?

Yes, as in money earned from selling servers. It''s a roughly 1 billion dollar a year business.

quote:
Internet infrastructure is dominated by open source (Linux, BSD, Apache, BIND, sendmail, wu-ftp, etc), regardless of how much of it counts as "server revenue", and it is eating more and more of businesses'' server software, as well as the end-user market.

Any sources on that? Any sources at all? Hmmm? Anyone? I''ll even give you a freebie, Netcraft has rated Apache as the most used web server for many years now. Apache is one of the very few documented cases of open source being more succesful than commercial, it''s quite possibly the only case. You can spout stuff out your ass till your blue in the face, doesn''t somehow make it true.

My company''s servers are roughly 90% Linux. I''ve got Linux installed on two boxes in this room, and all my friends use Linux. Despite all that, I know my very small view of the industry does not somehow reflect the whole, you''ve not yet realized this. Like I said, take those blinders off. Linux has got a long way to go. It will only go that way if the money''s there. Period.