Is this legal ? I see some dude doing just that on a dutch selling site (www.marktplaats.nl) Those CD's are send free of charge by the ubuntu people, so morally its not right in my eyes anyway. Any thoughts ?
Yeah, it is legal. GPL software is free as in freedom so he has the freedom to sell it. Just as any potential buyers has the freedom to get it from somewhere else (download/shipit/copy from friend/etc...) instead of from him.
Originally Posted by Kvark Yeah, it is legal. GPL software is free as in freedom so he has the freedom to sell it. Just as any potential buyers has the freedom to get it from somewhere else (download/shipit/copy from friend/etc...) instead of from him. Even if his CD's are the shipit CD's (that's what they are) ? If so, Ithink a "only for give away, not sale" label should be on the discs. btw GPL is free as in speech.
Originally Posted by minze Even if his CD's are the shipit CD's (that's what they are) ? If so, Ithink a "only for give away, not sale" label should be on the discs. btw GPL is free as in speech. Open Source software (OSS) lets you give away or sell a cd with OSS. A piece of software can be distributed under a liscence that gives you every right as the GPL but if it doesn't let you commercially distribute the software it's not OSS and does not meet the Debian Free Software Standerds (DFSS). And OSS is not included on the Ubuntu cd's so your allowed to do that. I think even RMS said that if your going to give someone a "GNU/Linux" cd you might as well charge for it and make some cash. My liscence permits it. EDIT: And what if someone wanted to take the Ubuntu Linux distro and decide to make it into a $50 commercial distro like RedHat or Novell Desktop 9? Are you going to say "No you can't do that because it's not morally right" no. Copyleft and the GPL was written the way it was to make sure businesses could charge and make money off of the "GNU operating system".
Last edited by BWF89; July 17th, 2005 at 03:15 PM.
Originally Posted by BWF89 Open Source software (OSS) lets you give away or sell a cd with OSS. EDIT: And what if someone wanted to take the Ubuntu Linux distro and decide to make it into a $50 commercial distro like RedHat or Novell Desktop 9? Are you going to say "No you can't do that because it's not morally right" no. Copyleft and the GPL was written the way it was to make sure businesses could charge and make money off of the "GNU operating system". Actually I wouldn't say no. My point is : someone invested money into getting the ubuntu distro pressed on a disk and gives it away for free (shipit). Now someone else orders them (for free) and then charges other people money for it. It may be legit but it doesnt feel right. He/she is making money of of something that is free. Making a new distro out of an existing one by adding new inhouse developt utilities is something different to me. If the tools were good I would pay for them. I would also pay for support for that matter. I'm a programmer by trade so I know money has to be made somewhere But not out of the pockets of the donaters of ubuntu. Is my thinking that strange ?
You are right in that even if anyone is free to sell the data on those CDs. It might feel morally wrong to charge a fee for the physical plastic disks shipit sends. The logical border here would be to require the data to be repacked to another medium before sale. One way for shipit to do that is by forbidding use of their trademark for sale purposes (assuming "shipit" and a logo is stamped somewhere on the CDs). I believe redhat uses their trademark to prevent anyone else from distributing the redhat distro. But in redhat's case it is a lot more work to repack without their trademark then to just reburn it on an unlabelled CD. They got the trademark all over the digital data too. Another way is to stamp a pricetag of $0.00 on the CDs. Which would make them embarrasing to sell without any legal backup needed. This is what I would do if I was shipit and had problems with people selling the plastic disks I give away for free as in beer.
Last edited by Kvark; July 17th, 2005 at 08:21 PM.
Originally Posted by minze I'm a programmer by trade so I know money has to be made somewhere But not out of the pockets of the donaters of ubuntu. Is my thinking that strange ? No, but "value" is a subjective thing. Sometimes, when you charge for something, it's more valuable than something given for free. I say let people sell what they want. Free as in freedom. Now if they start using the code in proprietary settings without fulfilling the GPL obligations, then I'm mad, because that's against the rules. Selling free cd's is not.
Originally Posted by Kvark You are right in that even if anyone is free to sell the data on those CDs. It might feel morally wrong to charge a fee for the physical plastic disks shipit sends. The logical border here would be to require the data to be repacked to another medium before sale. If someone is really serious in the Ubuntu distro they would have allready went to Ubuntu.com and if they spent any time at the site at all they would have seen that you can order a shitload of them for free. Theres a link that says "Shipit- Free CD's" right there on the upper left hand side. So if they don't like getting "ripped off" as you put it they should put out some effort and do a little researching before they spend their hard earned cash on something. Besides what if someone doesn't want to wait 6 months for the CD's to arrive via Shipit and has a 56k modem and doesn't want to spend 22 hours downloading a distro. Especially if there are other people in the house who want to use the computer? Ordering Linux cd's might be the difference between useing the distro and sticking with Windows.
Last edited by BWF89; July 19th, 2005 at 03:27 AM.
He/she is making money of of something that is free. Kind of like those folks who put a bottling plant over a spring and sell all that "free" water? The GPL is not there to deprive people of income.
Originally Posted by Kvark Another way is to stamp a pricetag of $0.00 on the CDs. Which would make them embarrasing to sell without any legal backup needed. This is what I would do if I was shipit and had problems with people selling the plastic disks I give away for free as in beer. It might even solve the customs problem some people are having with customs.
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