If linux is free then what are some selling?

[ken631]

I've noticed that some linux venors have a price. What are they selling if linux is free or has it gone commercial?

[Revolutionary101]

You can sell Linux. Red Hat and other companies that sell Linux distros are mostly making money off of all the applications that come with it plus the distro support, not linux itself.

Think of it this way (watch out, huge metaphor incoming). You own a fast food restaurant and you sell burgers. One of the burger's ingredients is free (linux), but the rest are not (applications). In order to get all the ingredients together you must buy the burger (distro). That is at least my understanding of it.

If you want a thorough explanation go here:

http://www.linux.com/archive/forums/topic/830

[wil08son]

Companies that sell Linux are usually also selling some amount of professional support with the distribution.

[tyler9]

This might be interesting:

Selling Free Software
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

...found the link on OSDisc.com, which sells different Linux distro CDs and DVDs. Good service for people with slow dialup connections who don't want to download ~700MB files.

[anewguy]

You too can sell Linux!!!!! Okay, that may have gotten somebody's attention. At any rate, you can usually even redistribute the free version and charge a reasonable fee for the media and shipping - like a CD and mailing cost. I don't know if anyone has ever actually given guidelines on that, but you can "buy" a lot of the "free" Linux distributions on Ebay. I suppose if you download the thing yourself, buy a crap load of really cheap CDs at a discount, that maybe with enough volume you could make a couple of bucks.

As everyone has noted, the kernel is free - it's the stuff that's added on to that. This is why some cheap people like myself ;) like Ubuntu - everything I need is free!

Dave ;)

[Tombgeek]

Linux itself is free. You are not allowed to sell a Linux distribution. Most companies that sell Linux like Red Hat or SUSE sell propietary software and drivers, as well as support.

Canonicle, for example, does not make money from Ubuntu, but makes its money from investors (Dell is one of them) and selling support.

Of course, some businesses sell Linux distributions to users who have slow, capped or no internet. Like here in South Africa, I ordered Ubuntu 10.04 and Xubuntu 10.04 from a service called FOSS CD (I have capped internet). They do not sell the OS itself, but rather the CD that had a printed label and a DVD case, as well as the time it took to burn the CD/DVD.

[philinux]

Moved to Cafe.

[Kimm]

People seem to have misunderstood this... you are allowed to sell Linux, or any software licensed under the GPL, even if you didnt write it. BUT - this is the part that makes it free - you also have to acknowledge that you where not the original creator of the parts that you didnt make, and you have to redistribute the code, even if you made modifications to it.

Linux is free as in Freedom, a opposed to free as in beer. (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)



“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”

[Bachstelze]

If linux is free then what are some selling?

When you buy a piece of Free Software, you're not really paying for the software itself. You are paying for the service of having it delivered to you, or perhaps just because you want to support the developers, or another related reason. It is still Free because when you have acquired it, regardless of whether or not you paid for it, you have the right to redistribute it yourself (once again, either gratis or for a fee, it absolutely doesn't matter).

[John Bean]

Moved to Cafe.

I'd have put it in "Recurring discussions"...

[new_tolinux]

and you have to redistribute the code, even if you made modifications to it.
Before this part gets misunderstood by users which are unfamiliar with the license:
You have to redistribute the sourcecode with it if you redistribute (part of) the original progam/programs, even if you made modifications to it.

But there's nobody who can say: you downloaded ubuntu so you'll have to redistribute it. It's your choice wether you want to distribute it or not. It's up to you wether you change it or not.

[Barrucadu]

You are not allowed to sell a Linux distribution.

Incorrect. You can sell Free Software as long as you comply with the terms of the license (so, providing source code for free/the cost of the physical media for GPL'd software).

[98cwitr]

Linux itself is free. You are not allowed to sell a Linux distribution.

free as in liberty, not as in free beer. You can sell linux as long as you comply with the license.

[limestone]

Also, some will just cover up the price of the cd/dvd

[steveneddy]

I'd have put it in "Recurring discussions"...

yeah - me too

[forrestcupp]

At any rate, you can usually even redistribute the free version and charge a reasonable fee for the media and shipping - like a CD and mailing cost.Not completely true. You can legally charge $1000 for a Linux distribution, if you can find someone ignorant enough to buy it. Ethical? maybe not. Legal? yes.


Linux itself is free. You are not allowed to sell a Linux distribution.
As stated before, this is completely untrue. You only have to follow the license rules, which have nothing to do with charging a fee.

There are licenses that don't allow you to charge, but GPL isn't one of them.

[Dragonbite]

You can sell Linux, and open source applications.

Yes, "sell".

The thing is, how well are you going to sell, or how happy will your customers be, when they find out they can get it for free elsewhere? That is why 99% of open source software is given out at no cost, plus to tap into the open source developer network you need to be able to let them see the code and work with it.

Go ahead, download Red Hat, it's free. Of course you have to remove the trademarks and other things and then recompile it back into a distribution. Just because CentOS has a dozen developers doing essentially that with minimum "mucky-mucking" so as to keep it 100% compatible, shouldn't shy you away from doing it yourself. Heck, maybe you'll get good enough to finish it by the time the next version comes out!

Oracle found this out the hard way with Unbreakable Linux, which if they do too much to it then it becomes a fork of RHEL and they are on their own to rebuild it with their tweaks at every release.

Red Hat makes their Linux money off of support subscriptions. You pay for being supported for the year(s), and in turn you get the RHEL upgrades option included.

JBoss, MySQL and other open source applications can make their money off of dual-licensing. This way a proprietary or non-open source product can include MySQL or other application bits without having to release it under the open source license.

Plug-ins, on the other hand, do not necessarily have to be released under the GPL even if what they are plugging into is open source. Fluendo codecs plug into GStreamer, which is open source, yet they do not have to release it as open source. Monodevelop has MonoTouch, which allows for programming applications in Mono fro the pre-4.0 iPhone. Monodevelop and Mono are open source, but MonoTouch is a paid-for plugin.

Eclipse is open source, but I believe a number of businesses build pay-for plugins for specific tasks, languages, etc. I'm not sure if Joomla's open source, but I know they have a large number of pay-for modules.

So yes, you can sell open source. The question is who's buying.

[philinux]

I'd have put it in "Recurring discussions"...

Call it finger trouble. I was using my palm pre at the time.8-)

[samalex]

Actually this is what I really like about Linux... Red Hat for example sells an Enterprise level OS with Linux at the core but wrapped with proprietary software. But given Linux is FOSS others have pulled out the proprietary software to create basically generic Red Hat-based distros for free, like CentOS and White Box Enterprise Linux. So most of what can run on RH Enterprise can also run on these other distros (Oracle for example).

Just shows the power and flexibility behind open source software and Linux.

Sam

[John Bean]

Call it finger trouble. I was using my palm pre at the time.8-)

Now I'm impressed. I have an old Motorola Q9H (WM6) and there's no way I can even browse this forum with it let alone do anything vaguely useful. It'll have to go one of these days... just as soon as there's a browser-friendly (read: big screen) Android phone that costs less than a good netbook. I'm not holding my breath though.

[cariboo]

I'll move this to recurring, seeing as philinux is suffering from thick fingers. :)

[Shining Arcanine]

I've noticed that some linux venors have a price. What are they selling if linux is free or has it gone commercial?

Why do people sell water or air?