But You Can Download It For Free, Right?

An unnamed reader writes: "It seems that Libranet wants to start a new trend. They are asking $15 for their download. They make a pretty good case for why, don't you think?" A note on their website (reachable from their download page) includes the following: "We at libranet have come to the conclusion that it is necessary for us to get paid for our work. We produce and support what is perhaps the best GNU/linux distribution ever, and we spend long hours and much effort in doing so. Also we think it unfair that only those users with fast connections can download CD images. We provide a free download of our previous release, which is still a first class product. We have made a simple calculation in deciding on a price for the download of our latest and best version. The price of the CD, less $5 for the production of the CD, less $5 for shipping. At $15 this is still little to pay for a product of this quality. Compare it to the price of windows software or even to a few cups of coffee."

Comments

Re:Why is this different from Debian, Slackware, e

[HeUnique]

Because Libranet is a very small company. They don't have partnerships and big contracts like Redhat or SuSE have.

They also don't have almost any clients...

But they do package debian and make it easy to install (and forcing newbies straight to GNOME on default - let the user search for KDE - it's on the 2nd CD).

So they have to pay saleries, QA tests, development (they did write some stuff there you know), Support (phone, email, web, newsgroups, etc) - and lets not forget - to pay for ISP, office rent, secretary, sales people etc...

These things do cost money and I think it's pretty fair to pay to them $15.

Personally I wouldn't buy it because I haven't seen a single review anywhere about it - not in Linux weekly news, LinuxToday, slashdot, and other places, but paying for ISO of Redhat or SuSE or Mandrake is fine by me (hey, as long as it's cheap and I get a decent bandwidth from the distributor)

Why is this different from Debian, Slackware, etc?

[Alan]

Now I'm not against paying people for good work, or being rewarded for mine, but what makes libranet the "best distribution ever"? Why is it different from a default Debian (with a few extras such as a CD full of stuff, or an administrative tool), Slackware, or Redhat that we can download for free? Redhat (for example) makes money on support and such, and either gives the OS away for free, or cost of media/shipping (except for the bundled software/manual version).

I'm not saying that their methodology is wrong, they are basically saying that the LPBs get the same deal as the HPBs, an OS for the cost of shipping and media, but I'd like to know why this distro is any different.

Re:Coffee?

[strredwolf]

"At $15 this is still little to pay for a product of this quality. Compare it to the price of windows software or even to a few cups of coffee."

Windows (32-bit versions): between $1 and $200, depending on vendor and shipping, on Ebay.
Coffee: 50 cents/cup, unless buying in bulk.

$15 is too much when I can get 30 cups of coffee (with free cream and sugar) at my communter train station for that much. Or two "twoway" tickets and two cups of coffee from near BWI to DC from the same vendor.

--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[Isaac-Lew]

Hmm...the difference between them & RH seems to be that they're not releasing their distro with a download option. Bad move if you ask me, this will only turn people away from libranet.

Re:That's the point of the GPL

[drsoran]

Whatever happened to sunsite.unc.edu? I know it became metalab and then ibiblio, but didn't that used to be THE source for distributing your Linux software? Long before freshmeat was around you could search through their directory listings and find neat stuff. To distribute it you had to pay a grand total of $0. Everyone seems to want fancy web sites with whiz-bang bullshit style sheets and mysql backends but when it comes down to it, an ftp site on a fast link is the only way to fly.

True..

[Danse]

That said though, I think they're most likely hoping that people who really like their distro will pay for it. Kinda like how everyone always says that they'd like to give their money directly to the artists instead of to the record companies. Well, here's a situation where you can do just that. If you like the distro that these guys put together, then send them the cash.

Re:True..

[Baki]

The problem is, there are equally nice (at least) disributions that you can get for free. And that are more widespread (maybe because of that).

So why go with a rather obscure distribution that you have to pay for, when you can something equally good or better for free?

Bad luck for them, but they have no chance. Yes it is their right to get paid for their work, but they should go into another business if they want to. Linux distributions is something you just can't make money with.

Another analogy (besides the tip jar)

[Tim Macinta]

we should collectively endorse the idea of paying for Free products (heh that reads kinda funny don't it)

Actually, it made me think of museums. A lot of museums are "free," but have a "suggested donation" at the door. Carrying this over into the software domain, you could probably get some interesting reactions by having what looks and smells like an order page, but allows you to enter in any amount that you want (include $0) to "pay" for your software.

Re:What's the problem?

[bhurt]

Are they paying anything to the thousands of developers who contributed code *FOR FREE* to their distribution? Why should they earn all the money?

If they don't like the racket, they should get out of the buisness of selling other people's code.

um.

[mattdm]

What user of *any* OS pays for something when they can get a comparable thing for free?

One of the cool things about Linux (and BSD, etc) is that there tend to be a lot of actually comparable free things available, so of course we use those. That doesn't mean we're *necessarily* any more cheap than anyone else.

Re:um.

[Richy_T]

I guess you don't tip in restaurants either, tightwad.

Rich

Re:um.

[Richy_T]

I've occasionally not left tips when I didn't have the spare cash on me (made up for it later) so it definitely isn't mandatory.

You don't know the programmer's motivations for not requiring payment for their program. Perhaps they did it that way so that people who are in the third world with no money can use it without cost but pehaps those that do have the money can show some gratitude for the utility they're deriving from it. I don't think it's fair for you to complain about your donation going to pay for the programmer's new hard-drive rather than food for someone in Africa when you're deriving utiity from the program and probably not exactly running off a ten year old 486 yourself.

In short, if you don't want to pay for it, don't. That's your prerogative after all. Just don't get all self righteous about it. Be a man and admit you're a leach.

Rich

Re:um.

[aozilla]

It seems to me an even more dismal view of human nature that anyone would give a donation to a programmer living in silicon valley when there are children starving to death in third world countries. Sorry, if my choice is to voluntarily give a C programmer an extra 500 megs in his/her hard drive or to give a starving child an extra day of life on this planet, I'll give to the starving child.

Re:um.

[aozilla]

No, resturants are completely different. Tips are expected. No one really claims that they're optional. The waiter/waitress only hides the fact that tipping is essentially mandatory to the extent that the resturant owner requires the person to. I don't really agree with the whole system, and if I ever ran a resturant I would include the tip in with the bill, but that is nothing like the situation with the programmer. The waiter/waitress has no choice in the matter but to rely on tipping. The programmer on the other hand has a definate choice. Be honest, and charge for the program if you *expect* payment.

Re:um.

[aozilla]

I don't know the programmer's motivations, and that's one of the reasons why I won't make the donation. For all I know, the programmer is going to use the donation to hire a hit-man to kill someone. On a less drastic note, maybe he is going to use the donation to buy his daughter pretty shoes. I'd rather buy my own daughter pretty shoes. Maybe he is going to donate the money to the Salvation Army. I'd rather donate the money to Goodwill.

If the programmer did it that way so that people who are in third world countries can use it without cost, I suggest the programmer state that in his/her license. Charge for the software and have a form which the person can fill out to request a free version due to hardship. You have to be careful with that though, price discrimination is illegal under anti-trade laws. It would likely be legal in this case, if done properly.

I don't mean to get self-righteous about it. I don't have any problems with a programmer who asks for donations. What I have a problem with is the dishonesty, and frankly, the self-righteousness of the programmer who expects me to voluntarily donate to his cause which I know nothing about. I find the dishonesty of not charging for software and expecting payment just as bad as the dishonesty of charging for software and not expecting payment, such as what Netscape did with their shareware license of the original product.

Finally, the fact of the matter is that donation systems don't work. If 75% of the people can afford to pay, and 0.1% of the people actually do, those 1% are paying 75 times as much as they would need to in a market driven system. I'll gladly pay $1/year for slashdot if that's required, but I'm not about to pay $750/year for myself and 749 others. This again is a key distinction from tipping at a resturant. Virtually everyone tips at a resturant, so the expected tip amount is very close to what the market would bear anyway. It also serves a useful purpose, as waiters/waitresses tend to perform better service to recieve better tips. With programming, it's a single service performed to all people simultaneously. You could argue that those people should still each pay a different price, but it's a different argument from the resturant situation (it's also illegal under anti-trade laws).

If that's leaching, then fine, I'm a leach. It certainly is selfish. I don't claim to be unselfish, in the sense that I'll give my excess wealth to causes which *I* believe in, not causes which *you* believe in. We each have a limited amount of time and resources. I believe that we should devote that time and those resources to things that we believe in, not to random people who happen to be good at programming.

Re:um.

[Alien54]

This is the second time I've heard a variant on "What sane person would buy it when they can get it for free?"

well, I guess the subtle point for the clueless would be to keep the joes that are working on it happy enough so they keep working on it.

I recall on place that used to provide free unlimited tech support for their product. It got to the point that people would be on a call helping the customer with their widget for hours. The company didn't quite go out of business,but is was damn close, and now they are a lot smaller than they were, and they charge for the live phone support.

Re:um.

[Zal42]

This is the second time I've heard a variant on "What sane person would buy it when they can get it for free?"

This seems to be an overly dismal view of human nature. Not everyone decides on their purchasing behavior based solely on price. Many people also factor in other important stuff, like ethics, working to improve the world, supporting others they like, and etc.

I.e., many people realize that every purchase we make (even those for $0) nets us more than the product itself, for better or worse. Although our democratic system is toast in the sense of having our votes actually accomplish anything, our "capitalist democracy" is alive and well -- our _real_ votes are directly purchased with the dollars we hand out every day. Be sure that you know what you're voting for, and be sure to vote for what you really want.

Actually, you're both wrong

[fizbin]

Though I suppose the immediate parent of this post is more wrong, in a sense.

You don't need to own the binary to have a claim to the source - you need to own a copy of a written offer to give you the source.

The person selling the binaries either has to give you such an offer (which you may then give to as many people as you wish), or has to give you the source.

In the hypothetical case imagined above, ddstreet would have to either have to: 1) buy a binary and source bundle, or 2) buy a binary, with which the distributor would have to include an offer to give the source at cost, or 3) ask someone else who bought from the producer for either their copy of the source or a copy of the written offer for the source.

Just because I have the binaries, though, doesn't give me a right to demand the source at cost - say that Geeko, Inc. made a customized version of Gnome and sold it on CD sets which always included both a binary CD and a source CD. (which they sold for, say, $100) Now, suppose that they offer a replacement source CD for $99. This is perfectly legal - because they always distribute the source with the binary, they are under no obligation to replace the source CDs of those customers who lose/misplace them.

Now what Geeko can't do is stop some other company from copying the CDs and selling them at $10/set, pocketing all the money themselves. This is one reason we don't usually see boxed linux distros selling for the same price as, say, Win2000 server. However, if Geeko could convince people to buy their CDs at the high price they were charging, that would be perfectly legal.

Free Speech

[sheldon]

Why do people keep confusing Free Software with Free Speech?

The two aren't at all the same.

Re:Free Speech

[Chris Burke]

No one is confusing them. The problem is that in this language, there are two meanings of the word "free". In the phrase "free software", the meaning of "free" used is the same one as in "free speech", thus "free as in speech". This does not imply that free speech and free software are the same thing. Got it now?

Personally, I prefer to call it "software libre".

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[sheldon]

So I go pay them $15, and turn around and place the exact same download on my own server, but only charge $5.

Perfectly legal, right?

Because they'd lose customers...

[Svartalf]

Copyrighting the CD's would mean that they're not honoring the GPL- any restrictions on the distribution, etc. is in violation of the license grant.

Re:Read the context

[spitzak]

I suspect distributing the binaries is allowed, but that sounds like an interesting variation for a license: If you are not copetent enough to recompile the program, then you cannot give it away (or sell it). Or even stricter: require that you have to make some "useful" modification to the program in order to distribute your new binaries and source.

Has anybody tried a license like this?

I suspect it is not GPL compatable and so you cannot use it for code that is already GPL, but it could be used for new software.

Re:I love open source advocates.. read the GPL

[Lars Arvestad]

Uh, well... some of us don't want to bother tweaking the code in our operating systems. I like to code as much as anyone, but my own little college projects.

I have several times taken delight in being able to read source code to understand why something is going wrong. One does not need to understand a whole system to detect a misuse of a feature. Remember that we are not only talking about the kernel here, but all the auxiliary libraries as well.

On the same note, there have been occasions when I have not been able to understand why something is going wrong with a proprietary system---and there has been no fast way of looking up why.

Lars
__

Howzabout this one?

[Zach Baker]

Anyone seen the the hackerlabs/regexp.com site? This site has almost the attitude of the article, but they do still provide anonymous ftp. I guess you could call it grudgeware. They only "strongly encourage" you to donate, er, I mean pay the "Download Fee." They also have self-assessed GNU "GPL Registration" fees in addition to traditional licensing. Huh. At prices like that, though, I'd hope it's both a regex library and a dessert topping.

Re:Read the context

[Ed Avis]

Go away and read what the GPL says. Then come back.

(It's at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.)

Re:Read the context

[Ed Avis]

What the GPL says is:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;

There are a couple of other options, one of which is to provide a written offer to provide source code for the cost of distribution. But if you choose option (a), you are not obliged to give out source code to 'anyone who asks' - you just have to ship the source code together with the binary.

Re:Yet another angle...

["Zow"]

why am I going to pay $5 to download an image you *say* is the same and free of trojans, when I could pay $15 to get it from the source?

Humm. . . Let's do the math. . . $10.

By Libranet's reconing, that's enough for, like, two cups of coffee.

-"Zow"

Is this smart?

["Zow"]

Okay, most of the discussion that I've seen centers around the point of "is this legal or not?" The conscensus seems to be that it is, with the caviot that anyone else can take it after they've paid their $15 and give it away ir charge less (I guess one way to look at that is that they're making mirrors pay).

Now what I'm wondering is, is this move really smart? I mean I don't remember hearing anything about Libranet before today - if I did I thought, "Just another disto" and promptly forgot about it. In this saturated market for Linux distros with almost everyone (esp the big ones like RH, Deb, SUSE, Mandrake, TL, Slack, insert fav here) giving their distro away for free, how does Libranet hope to ever gain any market share?

Okay, so they give away the previous version. That might work well for ghostscript where there's really no compitition & the product is stable, but that's not the case with Linux distros. I started using Debian back in '97 when my slackware distro wouldn't work on a friend's new machine. A year later I went to using RH because Debian wouldn't run on the new machine I had at work. (For the record I'm now using Mandrake, but I just got Debian and OpenBSD discs to play with.) Given my experience, giving away the old version of a distro is a sure way to drive away potential customers.

-"Zow"

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[FFFish]

I'm sure you'd have no quibbles were they to be selling the distribution on solid gold discs, hard-carved by wizened old men wearing loupes and working with nanochisels. It'd be worth the price of the gold plus the cost of labour, surely.

How's the download version any different than that? Sure, it's perhaps not quite so blatantly labour-intensive, but someone had to do some gruntwork in putting together the package, let alone creating the fancy website for it. That's gotta be worth some amount of money.

--

What's all the fuss ?

[AftanGustur]

I realy, realy don't understand all this fuss.

Until today I had never heard of this "libranet" distribution and yet we have people crawling all over slashdot claiming this is the best linux distribution.

Come on guys, the company doesn't even support it's own distribution: ftp://ftp.libranet.com/pub/updates

--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

Re:What's the problem?

[Angst Badger]

If you are angry that you have done some hard work coding a piece of software and no one is paying your bills, then stop coding.

It's not about money. I'm already paid reasonably well for writing software during the day. The code I write on my own time and release under the GPL is another matter altogether -- it's about freedom for its users. If I wanted to help fatten the coffers of businessmen, I'd keep it closed and demand a licensing fee, not release it under the GPL.

I find it disturbing that so many software companies think the generosity of GPL software authors is an invitation to theft, especially when those same companies would not hesitate to sue anyone who blithely disregarded their licenses.

--

Re:SuSE went that way too

[k8to]

This is at best misleading.

SuSE can be installed, for free, off their own ftp servers, which they pay bandwidth costs of. You simply download a floppy image, boot it, and install off the network. CDROM images are not put up, partly because it would be significant effort (especially to keep them up to date!), bandwidth, space, etc. And partly beacause they're giving you an incentive to buy the product.

This doesn't change the fact that you can install off the internet for $0, quite easily.

You CAN'T mirror the Binary...

[trims]

... OK, I went back and re-read a couple of sections of the GPL, and though IANAL, it makes no mention of how/what I have to do with the binary itself.

Thus, as far as I can tell, this is a perfectly legitimate way to work this:

1. Create an ISO image of the distro
2. Charge $15 per download
3. Offer a free download of the source code for all GPLed packages on the ISO image.
4. Forbid anyone to mirror/give away the binary from #1.

Now, of course, people could take the source obtained from #3, and build their own ISO image, then redistribute that themselves, and this is perfectly legal. However, should the original author choose to, he can forbid the distribution of the original executable if he wants. Or he could demand a royalty. Or whatever. It's all legal under the GPL.

Probably about the only way to enforce this would be through watermarking the original binary. Otherwise, how would you tell if a binary is yours or not?

One last thing: I could certainly see a possible place where this would be a big benefit: suppose I have Super-Wiz-Bang-Studdly-Compiler that spits out really optimal code. I could sell the binary that I compiled with my compiler, and then give away the source for use by people with GCC (or any less Studly compiler). You could charge per copy, and not let people distribute your version, but still give people the freedom of the code. IMHO, this is a good value-add.

-Erik

Who are they targetting?

[rnturn]

How many people have bandwidth that they can devote to downloading a set of 600MB ISO images to burn onto a CD-ROM? I find that it's a big enough pain to download a comprehensive set of patches to apply to one of the Tru64 systems at work -- usually about, say, 70MB (which include text and postscript versions of the patch release notes, installation guides, etc.) -- that I usually wait until after hours to keep from impacting anyone else.

I guess some people are a lot more patient than I am when it comes to downloading software. I really can't imagine seeing any benefit in taking the time to downloading up to a half dozen ISO images. It's gotta be cheaper to drive to the nearest bookstore and just purchase a distribution. Plus there's the disk space needed to hold all this prior to burning. Heck, if I have 600 MB free on a disk it doesn't seem to stay that way for long. :-)

How many downloaders are they trying to get to pay the fifteen bucks. It surely can't be that many.

--

Re:Who are they targetting?

[mr_burns]

I stayed up an entire weekend following the spot on the planet that was at 3AM, trying to grab parts of mandrake 7.2 from mirrors that resided in the "dark spot" at the moment.

Did I get all the packeges? Nope. After 48 hours of servers uploading a package only 98%, hunting down servers, dealing with fsck'n pacific bell's fsck'd up excuse for DSL...I gave up with about 70% of what I needed.

These guys aren't going to get my money.

Not because I disagree with them, not for some moral imperitive. I'm just never going to try to grab a distro from cable or DSL ever again.

I did it successfully once using an academic OC-3 that was maybe 50 yards from the box I was using. But that's a whole different world.

I'll stick to buying $3 distro's through the mail

No problem with this

[Omnifarious]

I have no problem with this. As long as they still allow it to be freely redistributed and still provide source, it's still fine under the GPL.

Of course, a mirror will come up somewhere and people will be able to download for free from that I'm sure. While I wouldn't suggest you should be brought to court in any way for doing it, I would ask that people refrain from downloading from a free site out of courtesy.

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[arivanov]

It is perfectly valid and legal. You are allowed to charge for distribuition. Check the GPL. You must provide the source free of charge and accessible though.

So I see no problem here.

Re:If they want $, it better not suck

[josepha48]

With that kind of attitude I hope that you are not running windows as it sucks just as bad. I'm sorry but If you look at what you are getting with Linux vs windows you get a whole lot more bang for your buck. The installations for both windows and Linux are for someone who is slightly experienced in installations, and computers as are the upgrades.

Both have problems recognizing hardware and my experience has been that windows networking is not as good as Linux networking and Linux is nice cause it is easier to load and unload modules from the kernel without the reboot that is required in win 95/98/NT4. I have not tried w2k or winme but I know both of them still crash and they only are supposed to support a limited hardware, so they say.

If you don't like Linux you can try solaris, or a BSD or even MAC OS X. Don't think of this as flame that is not what I am intending, more my point is that just because they are requiring money is not a bad thing for them to do. They need to make money to continue doing what they are doing. you want a free Linux distro, get debian. It will probalby always be free.

I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!

Re:If they want $, it better not suck

[josepha48]

Actually I get it.

A module is a driver. In windows 95/98/NT 4.0 you have to reboot after adding a new driver. Try this.. turn off your scanner on windows (if you have one) then start your windows box. After your system boots up turn on your scanner. Is is recgonized? Probably not. I ahve not tried w2k so maybe that will, but with Linux you can modprobe -a and presto it is. Then when you are done you can rmmod if you want. I do this with my scsi cdrom and scanner as they share the scsi card and I don't use them all the time. This is what I meant by modules. A modules is a peice of code that makes things work. It may be a driver like in case of my scsi card or it may be some peice of code that can be dynamically loaded and unlaoded from the OS to change 'running' behavior of the system. Linux has been doing this for years and windows has not.

I think the problem here is that you don't care about learning anything about your system, not Linux. Windows is making things easier in that sense, however there is a cost. The latest windows XP almost needs 128Meg of RAM as well as a pretty fast processor to run quickly. I imagine that soon your need the power of a web server to run the desktop windows operating system. No joke here cause that is where they are heading and they really are not adding anything but useless fluff that people could do without.

Use what you like .. I use Linux and windows as I think they both have plusses and minuses...

I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!

Few notes

[DLG]

As to whether one can charge for GPL sure... But as far as I can tell, if someone else posted a copy of the libranet distro and offered for free that also would be legal. Infact anyone else, based on GPL could even charge for the CD, or charge for the downloads, and never have to pay Libranet.

Atleast that is my recollection of the argument. You can charge for distributing but you can't keep others from distributing except as far as the GPL does.

---

Whether or NOT libranet provides a service that is worth paying for, or whether they deserve to be paid for it, the question is more effectively whether anyone wants to pay for it. As far as it goes, if they have written some software they want to sell, well GPL isn't always the best way to get money. If it isn't GPL'ed then of course whatever license they choose to use is their business. In any case it seems to me unlikely that anyone who is sophisticated is going to pay for libranet. Debian itself is quite easy to handle and they DO provide cd images as well as other several other installation methods. Infact Libranet just takes debian and adds to it if I recall correctly.

d

Re:What's the problem?

[HiThere]

I think you misunderstand. You are paying for the service of their making the download available. Not for the code.

You know, the server, the T1 lines, the sysadmin, etc. Overhead. This is fair, if a bit tricky to price. The problem is, that once you start charging anything, you start needing to add bookkeepers, accountants, lawyers, insurance, ... the standard overhead that goes with any business. And this is likely to be a significanly larger share of the overhead than the technical staff would have been. Which drives prices up.


Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.

Re:What's the problem?

[earlytime]

> If Libranet isn't making money off their
> distribution then tough. There's no such thing as
>a right-to-profit. You work for a start-up you
>take your risks. Sometimes you get burned. Find a
> new business plan, guys.

i think that's exactly what they have done.
Not that you should have noticed ;-)
-earl

SPEECH not BEER

[gatkinso]

Sheesh!

Yeah...

[Teferi]

...so someone'll just download it once, get the source, compile it, and put up a mirror, all within his/her/its GPL rights.
Wasn't there an earlier article about a case like this in which some company wanted to charge something like $1-2k/copy?
It's perfectly GPL-legal to charge for distribution. What the license-holder can't prevent is -re-distribution.

"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.

Re:What's the problem?

[Midnight Thunder]

Sure there is an argument that people have the right to get paid for the work they do. On the other hand if I am contributing to some tool that is then included in the distribution, then where is my part of the cookie? What they should be doing instead is making all of the code that they haven't created 100%, available for free, and then what is their own property they should be allowed to charge for. So, the directory structure could be seen as follows:

• /pub/isoimages - pay for
• /pub/theircode - pay for
• /pub/containsgplcode - free

With this approach any GPLed code is still available without a cost. If they don't use this approach then they are in danger of having to pay for QT and other software which has a 'commercial' clause in them.

SuSE went that way too

[MeanGene]

SuSE 7.1 - their latest distribution - is available as 3(?) Gb ftp directory, but there's no ISO image (what they used to call "evaluation" version).

SuSE developers stated that at this moment they have no plans to produce a downloadable CD.

Re:SuSE went that way too

[j_zero]

They actually have an iso for 7.1 (not live-eval), but it is for sparc.

Re:SuSE went that way too

[AOLgurl69]

the othr day i went to wallmart with my dad an i asked him if we dould buy reddhat linix an he let me by it and i took it home and put the disk in my computar but the commputar didnt add linix to my modem. why dont reddhat linix go on my modem like its sopposed to ifolowed the directions on the baack of the box????/?

Re:SuSE went that way too

[ma_sivakumar]

When the distributions charge for the CD version and provide free download of the same iso image what they are doing is a sort of regressive subsidizing.

Those with high band width connections (have's) can download the image and pay not a dime. Those who have only dial up connections decide to pay for the CD (which includes the cost of running the distribtuion). This money is used to provide the downloads for the have's. Pretty unfair.

This is the beginning I think. All the companies should come this way sooner or latter. Only the price will be debatable and will reach a equilibrium level eventually.

Re:Coffee?

[Mike Schiraldi]

Agreed. We get coffee for free.

Not for long!

--

Absolutely.

[mindstrm]

They can do this, absolutely. Nothing, I repeat, nothing in the GPL *requries* you to distribute to anyone, it just requries you license what you DO distribute under the GPL.

So.. nothing prevents someone you 'sold' a copy to from simply giving it away to all your potential customers. Nothing at all.

It also only requries you to provide source to people you have distributed to... so if I pay for a copy, and then give it to you, the people I got it from have no obligations towards you at all... I do.

Corrections.

[mindstrm]

They don't 'owe' you anything . They are under no obligation to give you an image of anything. That's at their discretion.

The only time they have an obligation to provide anything is if they distribute a binary version to you, they must give you source, or make it available to you. So if you bought the CD from them, they would have to provide source as well, on a commonly accepted medium.

The GPL only requires a couple thigns that are relevant here.
1) that anyone you distribute to gets the code licensed under the GPL as well.
2) That you provide/make available source to anyone you distribute binaries to.

So.. accordign to #2, if your 'friend' somewhere has binareis he received from them, they are not obliged to give you the source... they are obliged to give your friend the source.

They are not charging for the work.. they are charging you for a distribution in a cd-image format, which is a lot of work. They are not charging for 'other people's work'. They are not pretending the 'own' the copyrights on the work, and not telling you you can't go and give it out to everyone after you get it from them. They are simply saying 'if you want to download the cd image from us, you pay us $15'
That's perfectly fair.

Definition of free software

[slams]

I quote:

`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.''... Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere.

Now, this is part of RMS' official definition of free software, which the GPL was created to protect.

Now a quote taken from the GPL's Preamble:

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish),...

So, in conclustion... RFM people.

You can find the complete free software definition here: Free Software Definition

and the GPL here: GPL

Yet another angle...

[SuperKendall]

Yes, that's fine - but why am I going to pay $5 to download an image you *say* is the same and free of trojans, when I could pay $15 to get it from the source?

Re:Yet another angle...

[Rares Marian]

And when you find it doesn't work as well as the original you'll pay $5 several times. Someone looking to rip people off isn't going to keep updating their system.

Re:Isn't this kinda anti debian?

[Flower]

Anywho why use this debian when you can use the *real* thing for free?

Maybe to have a real installer that doesn't feel like pre-RH 5.2? Or to be able to have something better than aptitude/debconfig which will detect your video card and, at least, offer you a selection of monitors to choose from instead of inputing sync rates? Or to have software which is more up-to-date than what is offered in stable and packaged better (i.e. no conflict/broken dependancies) than the stuff in testing or unstable?

I use Debian every day and truth be told once it's installed it is, for the most part, a dream to work with. But the install is definately not Debian's selling point and it is an issue that may or may not be resolved when Woody is stable for all I can tell.

Going back to configuring XFree, why haven't the maintainers ripped the monitor values from RH's configuration utility which is GPL'd and incorporate that information into a user-friendly interface? Part of OSS is to stop reinventing the wheel. If somebody has done the legwork and got that data in an easy to access format then run with it! I'm not asking for RH's utility but I am asking for something better than what Debian currently offers and the pieces are out there for the taking.

Truth be told, while I use Debian I know I'll purchase Progeny and I might even purchase Libranet. Their efforts to make an easily installable distribution can go back into Debian which will benefit everyone. Heck, $15 is less than two tickets to a movie. Add in popcorn and some sodas and $30 bucks ain't that much. I can easily toss that into the communal kitty to improve Debian and add in a bug report or two just for kicks.

Re:What's the problem?

[StenD]

Actually, the GPL is specifically meant to sabotage LibraNet's ability to tweak a few things, makes lots of money, and then lock future users out of their improvements.

And it does. All LibraNet is doing is charging for the use of their bandwidth, and access to their support services. Anyone who wishes to do so can pay LibraNet for the download, put it on their own server, and permit others to download from them. That is what the GPL guarantees -the freedom to share what you receive, not the right to demand that someone to provide you their bandwidth at no charge.

Good Idea, if...

[miracle69]

I think it's a great idea, if you can still download it for free, and they aren't violating any of the licenses of their software.

Personally, I've contributed money to the Debian project by donating a few dollars whenever I purchased ISO cds from linuxcentral.com. Unfortunately, I now have cable, and I don't need to use linuxcentral any more.

I think more distros should have donation pages off of their main site - which would allow a user to donate some money for each ISO. I'm not sure that I could afford 15 bucks per distribution release (some are 3 a year) but I would happily fork over a few dollars here and there to help pay for the bandwidth and storage costs that allow me to access and download the isos.

Personally, I think that a few more distros are going to do this. Mandrakesoft has just released MandrakeFreq - a semi-regular update of the ISO with latest packages, and several people wanted to donate some money to the cause.

I, however, would not donate money to a distro that didn't allow others to still access the isos for free.

Double edged sword.

[Greg@RageNet]

They are free to charge $15 a download if thats what they like, it's within their right in the GPL to charge for it. However they should realize that someone can pay the $15 dollars and download it then set up a mirror and charge $1, or even provide downloads for free. That's also permitted in the GPL. They have to accept that charging for downloads is a double-edged sword and that anyone can just find a path around them to get their software.

As long as they accept this, it's fine with me; the moment they try to stop the second person from offering it for free then I wil have issues.

After all, they may be doing some work, but there was alot of work done for them by others contributing under the GPL; to put restrictions on code that isn't theirs would be a clear violation.

-- Greg

Re:Double edged sword.

[barracg8]

• That's also permitted in the GPL.

I'd be careful. The article is originally talking about the availability of CD images - well who is to say that all of the software on the CD is GPL'ed?

It is true that you can grab a debian CD, rip it, and freely distribute the iso you produce. But this is not true for any distributions that contain copyright software, and you could find yourself violating copyright on the non-GPL software.

cheers, G.

Re:Can someone explain something to me?

[cr0sh]

First off, make sure you are using a fairly standard distro your first time out - when I was starting, I first tried a funky copy of TurboLinux , it didn't come in a box, and I was sadly disappointed with it. I then tried RedHat 5.2, and liked it alright, installed good, but never got around to really using it. I then set up a SuSE 6.3 box, and have been using that since.

I will probably try a version of Debian next time round, or maybe go with the latest SuSE. Or perhaps Mandrake - not sure at this time. SuSE 6.3 has been pretty solid for my needs. I have only patched the kernel to 2.2.14 (13 as packaged) to get my ZIP drive working proper. I have been pretty pleased.

Drop the USB thingie and get a real NIC - they can be had cheap enough (under $20).

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ? executive summary

[darkonc]

I don't think that it was a troll. It was one of the real questions underlying the post.

This is my understanding of the GPL:

• You can do whatever you want with the source code. -- fold, spindle, mutilate or improve.
• You can distribute copies -- either source or object, as long as the people you distribute the copies to get (or have free access to) the source code -- and all configuration files, etc. needed to (re)generate the binaries you distribute.
• You can charge anything you want for the copies (or nothing).
• Anybody who gets a copy can do the same thing.

So, As I understand it, what they're doing is legal, as long as the $15 includes access to the full sources, and people have the rights to redistribute.
--

I love open source advocates.. read the GPL

[xtal]

There is NOTHING wrong with me taking a copy of Redhat Linux, or any other code - calling it XtalLinuX, putting up the XtalLinuX.com web site, and charging you $40/CD for it. I don't even have to make the source code available to the general public. That would be the nice thing to do, of course, but the GPL has one, and only one requirement:

Anyone who gets the binary gets the source, to do so as they please, under the GPL.

This of course means that you can buy a copy of XtalLinuX, and then give it away free to anyone who asks, if that's your perogative. If I charged you $5000 instead of $50, you might be less inclined to do so - but both are perfectly legal under the terms of the GPL.

What's wrong with this? I try to buy every major revision of Redhat because I think it saves me a lot of time, and it's a good product compared to the alternatives. The money IMHO is well spent, and like it or not, everybody has to eat - charging for support is one model, but there's nothing wrong with selling GPL code. I've done it in the past, and I'll likely do it in the future. The key point, is that once the binaries and source leave your hands, that person can do with them whatever they want - that's what FREE as in SPEECH means. IE is free as in beer - read the EULA - once you drink the beer, you don't get much else. Except maybe a nasty belch or two!

Hope that clears things up.

Re:I love open source advocates.. read the GPL

[Fervent]

I try to buy every major revision of Redhat because I think it saves me a lot of time, and it's a good product compared to the alternatives. The money IMHO is well spent, and like it or not, everybody has to eat - charging for support is one model, but there's nothing wrong with selling GPL code.

I'll drink to that.

IE is free as in beer - read the EULA - once you drink the beer, you don't get much else. Except maybe a nasty belch or two!

Uh, well... some of us don't want to bother tweaking the code in our operating systems. I like to code as much as anyone, but my own little college projects. I don't think it's a bad thing when a piece of software is "free" or "Free", it's just another way to look at it.

And besides, considering my experimentation with Netscape 6 on Linux the past month, IE seems to burp a LOT less. ;)

Re:Read the context

[ddstreet]

Another issue many don't understand: You have to own the binary to have a claim to the source.

BULLSHIT .

That is pure BS. You're saying that if I wrote a program as GPL, and someone else changed it and started selling binaries, I would have to buy a binary to get the source to the changes they made? You are totally wrong.

Once you make your GPL'd code public (sell or give it to anyone) then you MUST make the source available to ANYONE who asks.

Re:Can someone explain something to me?

[1010011010]

> a driver for my Netmate USB -> Ethernet

Since it's 10Mbps only, it's probably kawasaki-based. Try the "kaweth" driver at http://kaweth.sourceforge.net/

... there is also an updated version in the 2.4 "ac" series of kernels.


- - - - -

Re:I love the smell of irony....BANDWIDTH COSTS

[redelm]

_Very_ good point. Bandwidth costs real money. I don't know why people think they others will give away something incurs real marginal costs for them.

Bandwidth pricing is anything but simple. But AFAIK bandwidth costs at least US$3/GB for a big site. So that ISO someone donwloads costs the sender [if not the receiver] ~$2.

Re:From the GPL

[signe]

The GPL doesn't define what the "physical act of transferring a copy" is. It doesn't specify that the method of transfer has to be physical. It's really up to the GNU project and the FSF to define this, and they have said that it's OK (or so we are led to believe).

And personally, I think that this is a perfectly acceptable fee. Servers and bandwidth don't grow on trees. Someone has to pay for them. So why shouldn't they be able to charge a fee for the use of these things if they want to?

-Todd

---

Re:Great idea... should be micropayment based thou

[signe]

I agree that their implementation needs some work. However, if you think of it as you paying for their servers and bandwidth, then maybe you should pay every time you download it from their site. If you don't want to pay every time, archive a copy locally after you get it.

However, I don't agree with you that this should be a donation instead of a fee. If you make it optional, they're back to the same point where hardly anyone's going to pay them. Sure, if they make it easier to donate, they'll prolly get a little more money, but I don't think it will be a significant increase. Do you donate money to every organization that develops free software that you download? I know I don't.

-Todd

---

Re:Paid for their work??!!

[signe]

It's paying for the work of aggregating the various programs into a distro, running servers to host it, and having bandwidth to allow you to download it. If you don't like it, you can go put your own distro together, but personally I'd rather pay someone else $15 to do it for me.

In addition, what is your authority to say that this is a clear breach of the GPL when the FSF has said otherwise? I think they have slightly more authority when it comes to the GPL than you do.

-Todd

---

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[signe]

I would say yes. But it might depend on whether or not they copyright the ISO image. It's also possible that the FSF told them "Sure, you can do this. But if someone else downloads it and then posts it themselves, on their own hardware and bandwidth, you really can't say anything."

-Todd

---

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[signe]

They're not charging for the GPL'd work of others. They're charging for packaging that work into a distribution. And they're charging for the cost of their servers to host it, and the cost of the people to maintain those servers, and the cost of the bandwidth. Those servers and bandwidth aren't free, and I don't see money coming in from anywhere else to support them.

You're still free to go and get the GPL'd works yourself and put them together into your own distribution.

-Todd

---

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[bugg]

When were people turned towards libranet? Libranet doesn't have a huge following- the big question is will this alienate their audience? I don't know; does anyone here actually use libranet? Does this piss you off?

So? You can always mirror it.

[z4ce]

If you don't want to have to pay for the download find someone else that has the CD and copy it. Then put that copy on the internet. The GPL does protect your right to do that.

Ian

I must not get out enough

[wowbagger]

Perhaps it's losing my DSL line, perhaps I don't get out enough, but until this story I'd never even heard of these guys.

However, asking people for money isn't a problem. After all, that's how RMS funded much of his work: asking people to pay him to punch Emacs off to a tape for them. They COULD have downloaded it, or found somebody with a tape and copied it.

However, does anybody have any personal experience with these guy's distro?

Re:Paid for their work??!!

[Performer Guy]

I have read the GPL, I don't need someone to tell me what it says. The developers who contribute also read the GPL and contribute on that basis. Libranet also explicitly state that they are NOT charging for their service on the basis you and others claim for them. They are charging based on physical media costs, which is a totaly bogus approach. As I already stated I would have less of an objection if their fees were reasonably derived from (and limited to) their costs of distribution, and ONLY their costs of distribution.

Re:Cost of duplication...

[Datafage]

"In a machine readable format, in a format commonly used for data transfer..."

Or something like that, anyway. You lose, thank you for playing.

-----------------------

Re:I'll refrain from downloading all right...

[Datafage]

Relax. They're not DEMANDING you pay them to use their distro, just that if you plan to download an ISO from THEIR site, you must pay. You may download all the GPLed code for free, from their site, and you may freely copy anyone else's copy of the CD. It actually doesn't violate anything. Nowhere does the GPL say you must be provided with free ISOs.

-----------------------

Re:Really...

[Datafage]

After that last data comes "between computers." Others have tried that argument before. Doesn't work.

-----------------------

Coming?

[geomon]

I thought it (War on Copying) was already here.

Why don't we start a collection to take "ourselves" to court? We could take donations to pay for the court costs and attorney's fees (pro bono anyone?) to challenge the GPL by two parties who are not MSFT-beholden?

That way we could settle the issue amicably without threatening the GPL directly.

Who wants to volunteer to be the litigants?

What's the problem?

[Wind_Walker]

What's the problem with paying people for their work? It's gotta be tough for these people to keep coming into work everyday when they're receiving nothing more than a few "Thank You" notes for their work.

Even the god-among-men ESR thinks that Open Source does not mean that one has to forgo monetary considerations.

Pay these people their money and get on with your life.

------
That's just the way it is

Re:What's the problem?

[Amokscience]

Turnabout: If coders don't like others making money off of them then maybe they should pick a different license. The GPL doesn't forbid this. BSD certainly allows for this. The only way you could forbid this is to include a 'not for commercial' use clause.

Re:What's the problem?

[johno.ie]

Despite what other posters have said, Wind_Walker is right. Libranet have the right to charge a billion dollars for the CD if they want to. Whether you want to buy it or not is another question. Give these dudes a break. Linux distro companies hire people to work full-time on Free Software and they have to make money from somewhere. They are not trying to un-GPL the code on the CD just because there is money involved. If you want to use Libranet and screw the company that puts your distro together, buy 1 CD and give away hundreds of copies. Of course that will cost you hundreds of dollars and you'll have to switch distros in a year or so. :)

On its website the FSF encourages users to pay for the software they get from the FSF.

The FSF has a stated policy on charging for GPL'ed work, which you can read here.

Similarly, if I fix a bug in a piece of GPL'ed code I have to right to charge for the patch. Most people just don't bother because they don't rely on it for their living. I think a lot of the people complaining on this thread probably write proprietry software for a living. IMHO you are doing more damage to the Free Software Community than Libranet could ever do.

To answer someones question re donating to Debian, I haven't heard of any monetary donations to Debian/SPI from Libranet, but I believe they have provided some help with the core parts of Debian because its in their best interest to do so. BTW have you ever donated anything to Debian?

johno

ps: if you're going to flame me, at least read my links first so you know what you're talking about

Re:What's the problem?

[Richy_T]

Yeah, and it's not like anyone is holding a gun to peoples heads to make them download LibraNet. If you don't like it, download a different distro or roll your own. That's what free software and the internet is all about.

Rich

Re:What's the problem?

[Richy_T]

If I wanted to help fatten the coffers of businessmen, I'd keep it closed and demand a licensing fee, not release it under the GPL.

Then you are operating under a mistaken idea of what the GPL is for. It totally allows this kind of thing. If you don't like it and want to release software so that it doesn't fatten the coffers of businessmen then find another licence. But don't be surprised when your application gets snowed under by a GPL or BSD version

Rich

Re:What's the problem?

[cyber-vandal]

What bollocks. You can charge whatever you like for GPL'd code - you just have to provide the source with it.

Re:What's the problem?

[Fervent]

Says user #1081. Bias? I don't think so. Not at all.

Re:What's the problem?

[ichimunki]

I still don't get what your issue is. If you think $15 a download (remember, we're talking about a high speed download of a very large file) is really going to fatten anyone's coffers, I think you should take a close look at offering the same service and how much it would cost you.

I still don't see how you can say such use of the software is theft. This is exactly what the GPL is designed to promote. Free software.If you find this so dastardly, you are free to use all the same software and distribute an ISO for no charge at all (good luck, my investigations lead me to believe that high availability servers and file transfers in the 650mb range require very expensive ISP accounts-- or maybe you can host it on GeoCities!). You are also free to NOT GPL your software. Maybe you should consider a license that prohibits including your software in any collection for which there is any charge whatsoever.

Free Software is a commodity. If $15 is extreme, someone else will gladly provide this same service for less charge, until we get to the point where the price of the distribution beggars anyone who tries to put one together. The only alternative is to support, both through volunteer time and through financial means, non-profit, labor-distributed projects like Debian-- which would be just fine with me.

Re:What's the problem?

[ichimunki]

They aren't pirating a damn thing. If they distribute the source code with the binaries they distribute, they are complying with the GPL in full, both with respect to the letter of the license and the intent thereof. If you have obtained a copy of a piece of GPL'ed software and would like to give it out for free, that is your business. Given the popularity of Linux, I think you will be overwhelmed by the requests you get.

Libra, like anyone else, has expenses associated with distributing the software, and is trying to make sure they can continue to do so by asking for help paying their bills. Personally, I like this approach better than the "we'll give away our main draw and make all our money on support" line. This seems a lot more realistic.

If you are angry that you have done some hard work coding a piece of software and no one is paying your bills, then stop coding. If your software is that important, I'm sure the people who value your continued efforts on their behalf will be happy to work out a way to pay you for the service of programming-- whether a consortium funds you, or a non-profit grant, or whatever. The GPL is designed to protect the users and "consumers" of software, not the producers (except that if I've gotten ahold of a piece of software that I want changes to, as a non-programmer, the only way I get changes made is by hiring programmers, so the deal doesn't look that raw to me, especially considering the rates most programmers are able to charge.)

Re:What's the problem?

[Coryoth]

I don't get it - many people seem to want to get both: free software, and get paid for writing it.

The "thousands of developers who contributed code *FOR FREE*" to the distribution did so knowingly. I see no problem with someone trying to sell it. The contributed code is free elsewhere, so if you don't want to pay for it...don't.

What they are selling is convenience, not code. You can go to a restaurant and order some spaghetti bolognaise - it's more expensive to buy it that way than it is to buy the flour, egg, tomatoes etc. and make it yourself, but you're paying for the convenience of having it all prepared and delivered to your table (and not having to worry about cleaning up afterwards). Same principle here really. If you want you can go and download debian for free, or if that isn't quite what you need you can get a conveniently packaged version with your needs nicely built in. Whether that's libranets distro, or somethign else, or maybe just debian, depends on who you are and what you want. Libranet aren't saying you can't just go and download a different distro for free, they're saying that if you want to use the ftp servers and packaging that they've got, they would like something in return.

I'll reiterate: They are NOT selling other peoples code. A restaurant charges a lot more for food, is the extra cost involved "selling other peoples food"?

If you don't like what they offer, don't buy it. Or make your own mirror of it and give it away for free.

Jedidiah
--

ISOs can be copyrighted

[kevin805]

The iso may contain copyrighted stuff that you do not have a license to redistribute. Maybe it's as little as a "thanks for buying xxx distro" readme. That's enough to mean you can't redistribute it.

The OpenBSD ISO images are copyrighted. It's a way to bring in a little money. Someone else could make a new one, but it's more trouble than the bare bones duplicaters like cheapbytes.com want to go through.

To everyone saying, "you can mirror the binary"

[kevin805]

The GPL only applies to the GPL'd code. Nothing is to stop Libranet from including non-GPL code on the distribution. If Libranet includes something which they have an exclusive license to (it could even be a poem by the CEO's daughter), then they can prohibit you from redistributing that.

You are, of course, free to take the GPL'd programs and make your own ISO, but you cannot necessarily redistribute their ISO.

Consider this from http://www.openbsd.org/faq/obsd-faq.txt:

3.1.2 - Does OpenBSD provide an ISO image available for download?

You can't. The official OpenBSD CD-ROM layout is copyright Theo de
Raadt, as an incentive for people to buy the CD set. Note that only
the layout is copyrighted, OpenBSD itself is free. Nothing precludes
someone else to just grab OpenBSD and make their own CD.

Of course, OpenBSD isn't under the GPL, but the same thing would seem to apply. The location of the files, or the release notes, or whatever, is not a derived work from GPL'd code, so it doesn't have to be redistributable.

Coffee?

[JamesSharman]

"At $15 this is still little to pay for a product of this quality. Compare it to the price of windows software or even to a few cups of coffee."

Someone is paying way too much for their coffee!

Charging for GPL'd code ?

[aron_wallaker]

OK, here's the obligatory argument - no matter how you justify it or how much you might feel you deserve it, can you legally charge people for the GPL'd work of others ?

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[Richy_T]

It'd be worth the price of the gold plus the cost of labour, surely.

It would be worth the price of the gold but labout has nothing to do with it. What if JoeBloggs Ltd down the road is stamping out exactly the same gold discs with a machine down the road? The only time labour comes into play is where it adds value. The selection and arrangement of files on a distribution for example or, in the case of made goods the ethnic charm or artisitic style it adds (and if you want to go around boasting that your CDs are made by wizened old men with nanochisels).

I mean, would you pay a guy who you employed to dig a hole in your backyard more because he used a spoon rather than a shovel?

Rich

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[Richy_T]

Sure. But it wouldn't be worth any more to you if they'd flown to tibet and spent 18 months meditating and eating only caviar to determine the correct alignment of the files on the distro. Either it's a good distro or its not and the value applies accordingly.

The amount of labour they put into it does not determine the value, it merely determines what profit margin they can make.

Rich

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[Richy_T]

Agreed. In fact, they have the right to put zero effort into it and ask $300 per copy if they wish. It's perfectly valid in terms of the GPL. And I can even see it being valid in some cases "ArcticWare, the only company that delivers distros to the North Pole". I just wouldn't expect them to sell that many copies.

Rich

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[istartedi]

Yes. Perfectly legal. There could be a number of results: 1. your download becomes popular and you reach your transfer limit, so you have to stop. 2. your download doesn't become popular so it doesn't harm the original company very much.

As economic reality continues to progress into the web, expect to see more of this. When people are looking to cut costs, expensive servers that don't generate revenue are a good target for the axe.

Eventually, the cost of these "free downloads" will be born by somebody. Does anybody know what the real cost of a typical Linux download is? If this plays our like meatworld retail, we might expect the equilibrium price to be about twice the cost of the download (typical retail markup).

Any company that charges more will eventually lose customers. Any company that charges less will eventually fail to provide adequate service.

OTOH, the equilibrium cost of distributing free software might turn out to be ridiculously low. A distributed system like Napster (except perfectly legal in this case) could probably distribute Linux for very little. Of course, TANSTAAFL. The additional bandwidth usage might drive up ISP rates for everybody and/or lead to more ISPs clamping down on uploads.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Of course, despite what the Liberal Software advocates like to say, you are not paying for software here. You are paying for a copying service.

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[coolgeek]

Ummm, the GPL permits people to charge for GPL software.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

But then again, you were trolling, weren't you?

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[Fervent]

Sure. Just include some great proprietary code of your own.

Helps in having other people justify it, as well.

Re:Charging for GPL'd code ?

[jchunter]

*Exactly* the same, that might be legally twitchy, since they could concievably have copyright on that specific ISO. (IANAL). But putting the GPLed code up on your server? Certainly.

HOWEVER, this is the tricky part. You now have to pay for the bandwidth that would be taken up when hundreds of thousands of people start downloading off of your alternative site as opposed to the official LibraNet site.

For that reason, I think Libranet's charging this makes perfectly good sense. They may not make much money off of this venture, but it's a remarkably clued-in one IMHO.

--Jo Hunter

Re:you probably cannot redistribute at all

[naasking]

Once you buy the binary, it's yours to do with as you please. So you can redistribute it, modify it, do whatever you like.

-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"

Libranet makes no sense......

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Why whine about them? If they want to NOT be used by me, then they can charge 15 bucks a cd image. So what? I'll just download Debian! This is just a excuse for them to do what Red Hat already does, except they are not selling CD's at Walmart. Why don't they just make some CD's and sell them online for those who don't have a broadband connection? That would make more sense to me! Don't they realize that someone could just as well pay the 15 bucks, then upload the image to another server and charge nothing for it? The Kernel developers have made money with their work by getting jobs at the distros, but I bet there are still a good chunk who work on Kernel code just for the heck of it. There are millions of developers who have not gotten money for what Libranet is ditributing. Is Libranet going to pay them? What about the Debian developers that made Libranet possible?? Is Libranet going to pay them?? Nope. Libranet is putting a HUGE nail right in their foot. May as well say goodbye to Libranet. If I want a nice to use Debian based distro, I'd choose Progeny or heck Debian! It's NOT hard if you know a bit about your computer to install Debian. What you need to know takes 5 minutes to figure out.

Re:Proof of ownership. Re:Read the context

[teg]

Yes, but they have the right to modify and redistribute it with the same (GPL) license - you can control who gets it, but not what they do with it.

Read the context

[teg]

The part you're quoting is the part which guarantees the user the source to the binary - so you can't say that the program is $50 and the source $5000.

The GPL has no restrictions whatsoever on price of the binary - you can charge whatever you like.

Another issue many don't understand: You have to own the binary to have a claim to the source.

The GPL does not say that you have a right to get anything for free: It just says that you have a right to the source if you get the program, that changes are GPL as well if you distrbute them and that you can redistribute the program freely with the same license.

So if someone sold a high priced 3D package and GPLed it, you couldn't demand that they give it to you or put it on the web - you could ask another one who already bought it to give to you, but if you don't have the program, you have no claim.

Re:Read the context

[RedWizzard]

The GPL does not say that you have a right to get anything for free: It just says that you have a right to the source if you get the program, that changes are GPL as well if you distrbute them and that you can redistribute the program freely with the same license.

Exactly right. Clearly few people here on /. have read and understood the GPL, which is pretty disappointing.

In this situation what the GPL means is that anyone could buy the product and then redistribute it for less. Naturally that means that it will only be possible to charge reasonable prices. I don't think $15 is unreasonable, provided it's as good as they say (given the free alternatives).

Re:Read the context

[malaire]

Although there is text "that you receive source code or can get it if you want it" in GPL which can be understood as you say, that is said only in PREAMPLE section.

Actual license terms clearly states that only when you distribute binary, must you also give access to source code.

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

• a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
• b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
• c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

Part above is only place where licence talks about giving source code for free. And is states that source code must be made available to those who receive binary code.

Define "few cups of coffee"

[Domini]

We people in the Thirs World cannot pay $15 that easily. $15 == around 50 cups of coffee. (good coffee)
;)

That's the point of the GPL

[Carnage4Life]

So I go pay them $15, and turn around and place the exact same download on my own server, but only charge $5.

Perfectly legal, right?

Therein lies the rub. GPLing a piece of software effectively drives its cost to $0. No matter how high or low you charge for it, there'll be someone who bought it and has access to the source who can charge less and someone further down the chain who can charge even less until we get to the last link in the chain who will allow it free to be downloaded or at cost of distribution media.

If I was one of the Libranet developers I'd simply stop distributing the software if it costs them that much to distribute it. No one says you can't hack GPLed code on your own, as long as the people they give it to can access the source they should have no problems. Heck, I just spoke to someone who is hacking C99 compliance into gcc and as long as all the people he gives the binary to (i.e. no one) have access to the source he doesn't have to deal with having to pay excessive bandwidth costs, people complaining about bugs or lack of features, complaints about potential GPL violations, Slashdot editors questioning his motives, etc. All he has to worry about is hacking the code, which what it's all about anyway.

Re:That's the point of the GPL

[Odd Job Man]

That's right. Don't get hung up on the "monetary value" (?) of a download. The GPL is bigger and more subtle than that. I hope I don't sound like the little brother of Fidel Castro here (I'm just pissed, that's all. But my punctuation's perfect. Pissed and English, that must be it). People who spend weeks of their spare time writing code under the GPL are not interested in creating an economic entity. Now go and download Python, and shut the f k up.

The FSF charges, why can't they?

[Fencepost]

They're not doing anything that the FSF itself isn't doing - I can right now go to the FSF site and order a CD of the GNU source code for only $70. Sure I can download it as well, but they're charging me for the time to put it on a CD and mail it out. They're giving me a free ride on the download, but that's certainly not a requirement.

As has been pointed out by others, it's just fine to charge for transmission costs, whether that cost be time, materials & postage for a physical copy or bandwidth charges for a downloaded copy. Similarly, they're not saying you can't copy it and put it up yourself - if you have lots of available bandwidth that someone doesn't mind you using, go ahead, the licensing allows that.

-- fencepost

Re:I love the smell of irony....BANDWIDTH COSTS

[Richy_T]

But funilly enough, someone not downloading the ISO costs the "sender" also ~$2

Ideally, you want to fill your pipe to the brim without actually overflowing and incurring penalty costs (assuming the bandwidth isn't capped), especially if your business model is charging for supporting those downloads.

If you're not expecting to make money off supporting those downloads, why are you allowing them to be dowloaded for free? (not counting that it might be part of a "free updates" scheme but then the downlaods have already been paid for)

Rich

Re:Coming?

[Richy_T]

Might be a good idea and the anti-GPL party could make a weak case so it goes in the GPL's favour. Would be a good precedent to set. Don't know if it could be donw legally though.

Rich

Wrong

[Galvatron]

The iso uses GPL'ed code, and hence is also covered by the GPL. That's why it's called a "viral license," because it infects everything it comes in contact with.

Re:Wrong

[aozilla]

"In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License."

The 15 dollar question being: is an ISO aggregation, or is it a derivitive work? I'd probably bet on the side of aggregation.

Downloading for "free"

[merc]

Remember what Richard Stallman says: "The `free' in `free software' refers to freedom, and not price". If paying for bandwidth is an issue, it's reasonable (IMHO) to pay a small fee. I'd much rather do this than see another Linux-based business fall.

HoLY ShIT!

[SuiteSisterMary]

Almost every poster who's posted to this story (at least the 'top level' comments seems to think that GPL means 'Cannot Charge Money(TM)'. False. GPL only ONLY means that you cannot stop whoever gets their hands on it from doing what they like with it, short of removing the GPL. That's it. I could go download RedHat Linux, and sell it for one million dollars a copy if I really wanted to. The GPL seems to have been designed to a) keep code free and b) encourage payment by means other than monetary; i.e. by contributing more code, but it certainly does not preclude charging money. How do you think Stallman himself lived for a while? Anybody who can't understand why these guys want money have obviously never tried running a public site. Geocities doesn't count. Neither does apache on your 1337 Linux box behind a cable modem. Go price a T1 sometime.

3 steps to Big Profit.

[SpanishInquisition]

Step 1. Make Linux Distribution
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Big Profit

--

From the GPL

[HerrGlock]

"You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee"
If this is considered a 'physical transfer' then they have a point.

It is not a physical transfer, it is an electronic transfer. Physical transfer is disk, CD etc.

DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page

Re:From the GPL

[kfg]

If the file were tranfered from their disk to your RAM and never copied to disk, you might have a point.

If you SAVE it a physical transfer has been made.

KFG

Re:From the GPL

[DeadVulcan]

"You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee"

It is not a physical transfer, it is an electronic transfer. Physical transfer is disk, CD etc.

Hmm, this is interesting wording. Is it talking about a physical copy, or a physical act?

A "physical copy" is pretty clear - a CD or a box of disks.

But would a "physical act" include labour and the cost of maintaining the internet link?

Another question for those familiar with the GPL: does the license explicitly say anything about charging for the labour involved in development or packaging (in this case, the cost of assembling and maintaining a distro)?

--

Linguistic Nit: Re:What's the problem?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

If it were my code they were pirating -- and that is the correct word in this case -- I'd sue the hell out of them

Hmm. Unless they're wearing eye-patches and murmuring "Arrgh!" all the time, they're not pirates. They aren't sailing the high seas, capturing ships, sacking and pillaging small towns, etc. They are not pirates!

I'm not talking about their right to do this under the GPL or anything like that, about which I know nothing and care less. I'm talking about the accepted, but stupid, convention of equating mis-use of intellectual output with crimes of robbery, murder, and mayhem.

Yeah, I know it's a convention and it's understood by everyone. Yeah, I know it's losing battle to get people to stop accepting a bad usage with all its unconscious connotations. I just don't care: Improper copying simply is not piracy.

Interesting test case

[gilroy]

I think this will be an interesting test case. I hope people find a way to make a living off Open Source work, because I think it's a good idea. For a while I've felt that people are basically reasonable and will pay a reasonable fee even if something is available for free.

Since the GPL (apparently) allows people to re-post this for less, we'll get to see if people really will put their money where their mouth is. Assuming, of course, that LibraNet has a relatively convenient way to get the money to them. (I believe this lack of easy mechanism is what kills most shareware.)

A small idea...

[shepd]

OK, so people downloading their ISO for free from them is costing them too much money. They want to charge for it, but I hope they know many people are cheap and aren't going to pay.

Here's what I'd do:

- High speed (Lets say a server connected to multiple T1s, or better) download for paying users.
- Low speed (256kbps or less total bandwidth) for free.

People could sit on their low speed link for a few hours [maybe days or weeks :) when the new release is out] waiting for the download. This doesn't cost them too much since slow speed links aren't extremely high cost. But it lets people enjoy their distro for free (and therefore, perhaps, consider buying a new release later on), and keeps the whiners away.

You want it now? Just pony up the 15 dollars and download it in 30 minutes!

Everyone wins. Or so it seems.

Re:Logic, my god!

[wholesomegrits]

Hey, they could do like 94% of the other Linux distributions: CALL FOR MIRRORS.

It's a novel idea, really. Asking people like myself, with big fat, unsaturated pipes to both the commodity internet and Internet2 (really big pipe), and gigs of HD space unused on a spare box, to host a DL. Redhat wouldn't have been quite so profitable (breaking even in Linux is called profit) if all users had to DL their 2 CD set from Redhat run servers. Mandrake, king of the super distros, has a monstrous page of mirrors.

Looking over the DL page, clearly the distro has some mirrors. Why not say "Get the newest version from ibiblio.org or its mirrors"?

Sounds like a business plan based on OPP -- other people's products.

I'll host the damn iso. Email me.

I love the smell of irony....

[SquadBoy]

at least from where I sit they are /.ed hard. I wonder if they are going to try and charge Rob for the bandwidth. Very funny.

Can someone explain something to me?

[Lostman]

I have been trying to change my home computer over to linux for a little while now... I still havent found a driver for my Netmate USB -> Ethernet device yet but anyways...

I have tried out maybe 4 distros so far... exactly what is it about Libranets Linux that makes me say "Hey, lemme pay 15 bucks for this distro and actually keep it"?

I dont hold store in the manufacturers hype so maybe someone here who has used it can shed some light, eh?

Re:Logic, my god!

[Fervent]

How exactly, does a company make any money off mirrors?

Let's say it takes me $300,000 to make my Linux distro ($200,000 for my developers and $100,000 for my internet connection to spit it out -- an exageration to be sure). I sell 5,000 copies of each distro for $30 each. I make $150,000 net.

Even if I mirrored all my connections, I'd still need $200,000 to pull even. And if we were looking at this realistically: say $50,000 to host the net connection as a percentage, then the debt becomes even more: $250,000.

The internet connection is so little of the total cost that "getting a bunch of mirrors" isn't a solution. I love it when a bunch of Linux hobbyists, who clearly don't even recognize the effort that goes forth to do this stuff, complain about paying. I just don't get it.

I pay for my RedHat distro to help the community. They can't rely only on support fees either.

Re:Logic, my god!

[Fervent]

This is why the model for making money on GNU/Linux is a support oriented one.

Um, but is this really a model? That's like saying the dot-com/advertiser model worked (which we all know didn't). By the way, the numbers were abritrary.

The point I was trying to make (and which you seemed to argue inadvertantly and quite succinctly -- well done) is that the support model is clearly not an applicable "business model". If you backed RedHat up against a wall and said "Tomorrow, you could only make money off support. No boxed copies." (besides the fact that you get support with boxed copies anyway) they'd crumble. There is clearly not enough money to be made in the "let's give the thing away for free to everyone" model.

Logic, my god!

[Fervent]

All I've got to say is "Thank God for logic!" Yes, there are Linux programmers who make nothing for their code. But most have steady jobs elsewhere. Programmers at places that serve up Linux, and all they code is Linux, should be compensated.

Makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.

Free to charge

[autocracy]

Ready for something really insightful? Well suck on down because here it comes: They can charge whatever they want, GPL or not. In fact, the GPL never says that you can't charge for EVERYTHING you distribute, including source code. It only says that you must either include source with the object code or have a place where it is available free of charge for 3 years. If the person that recieves it wants to stand on a street corner handing it out then that's fine. But he can just as well charge anything he feels like as well, even for the source.

Basically, Joe can sell you the source for $50, and then sell you the executable for $100. And you can't demand that he gives you the source for free either, unless you've already bought the executable from him first.

#include disclaimer.h

I can't be karma whoring - I've already hit 50!

Intellectual property wants to be free!

[alacrityfitzhugh]

These guys should take a flying leap. Don't they know computer people are all communists who refuse to pay for anything we can steal over the net?

Selling Free Software: From The GNU's Mouth

[LionKimbro]

Selling Free Software

by Richard Stallman

Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.

Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.

The word ``free'' has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of ``free software'', we're talking about freedom, not price. (Think of ``free speech'', not ``free beer''.) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.

Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.

Non-free programs are usually sold for a high price, but sometimes a store will give you a copy at no charge. That doesn't make it free software, though. Price or no price, the program is non-free because users don't have freedom.

Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.

Free software is a community project, and everyone who depends on it ought to look for ways to contribute to building the community. For a distributor, the way to do this is to give a part of the profit to the Free Software Foundation or some other free software development project. By funding development, you can advance the world of free software.

Distributing free software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it!

In order to contribute funds, you need to have some extra. If you charge too low a fee, you won't have anything to spare to support development.

Will a higher distribution price hurt some users?

People sometimes worry that a high distribution fee will put free software out of range for users who don't have a lot of money. With proprietary software (18k characters), a high price does exactly that -- but free software is different.

The difference is that free software naturally tends to spread around, and there are many ways to get it.

Software hoarders try their damnedest to stop you from running a proprietary program without paying the standard price. If this price is high, that does make it hard for some users to use the program.

With free software, users don't have to pay the distribution fee in order to use the software. They can copy the program from a friend who has a copy, or with the help of a friend who has network access. Or several users can join together, split the price of one CD-ROM, then each in turn can install the software. A high CD-ROM price is not a major obstacle when the software is free.

Will a higher distribution price discourage use of free software?

Another common concern is for the popularity of free software. People think that a high price for distribution would reduce the number of users, or that a low price is likely to encourage users.

This is true for proprietary software -- but free software is different. With so many ways to get copies, the price of distribution service has less effect on popularity.

In the long run, how many people use free software is determined mainly by how much free software can do, and how easy it is to use. Many users will continue to use proprietary software if free software can't do all the jobs they want to do. Thus, if we want to increase the number of users in the long run, we should above all develop more free software.

The most direct way to do this is by writing needed free software or manuals yourself. But if you do distribution rather than writing, the best way you can help is by raising funds for others to write them.

The term ``selling software'' can be confusing too

Strictly speaking, ``selling'' means trading goods for money. Selling a copy of a free program is legitimate, and we encourage it.

However, when people think of ``selling software'', they usually imagine doing it the way most companies do it: making the software proprietary rather than free.

So unless you're going to draw distinctions carefully, the way this article does, we suggest it is better to avoid using the term ``selling software'' and choose some other wording instead. For example, you could say ``distributing free software for a fee''--that is unambiguous.

High or low fees, and the GNU GPL

Except for one special situation, the GNU General Public License (20k characters) (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy.

The one exception is in the case where binaries are distributed without the corresponding complete source code. Those who do this are required by the GNU GPL to provide source code on subsequent request. Without a limit on the fee for the source code, they would be able set a fee too large for anyone to pay--such as, a billion dollars--and thus pretend to release source code while in truth concealing it. So in this case we have to limit the fee for source, to ensure the user's freedom. In ordinary situations, however, there is no such justification for limiting distribution fees, so we do not limit them.

Sometimes companies whose activities cross the line of what the GNU GPL permits plead for permission, saying that they ``won't charge money for the GNU software'' or such like. They don't get anywhere this way. Free software is about freedom, and enforcing the GPL is defending freedom. When we defend users' freedom, we are not distracted by side issues such as how much of a distribution fee is charged. Freedom is the issue, the whole issue, and the only issue.

Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Updated: 5 Oct 2000 taz

A few cups of coffee

[commandant]

Maybe I'm a throwback, but I don't get my coffee fromt the latest trendy coffee bar, and it certainly doesn't cost $5. If I get coffee at a restaurant at all, it's more like $0.70.

However, the vast majority of my coffee is consumed in-home, from a can, making it more like $0.10 or less to produce. That's 150 cups, which makes half a year... quite a bit more than a few.

I'm not saying it's worth it; I have no idea. However, being cheap, the only Linuxes I'd use are Slackware or Debian, and these are absolutely free. Right now, however, my flavor of the month is FreeBSD, which comes free also.

I just find it ridiculous that they would call $15 "a few cups of coffee."

A new year calls for a new signature.

Electrons are physical; information is not

[Jonathan Byron]

Actually, the electrons you send out are not the same ones the person on the other end gets - only the pattern is transmitted. This makes the internet a metaphysical system more so than old economy paper or plastic (physical) distribution.

Free shouldn't have to mean zero cost

[Dr. Awktagon]

I think it is vital to consider the idea of getting paid for Free software (or music, or whatever). It costs very little to put a "tip jar" or a splash screen on a web site to take payments for downloads, and even if only a few people pay, it's a good start. Since so many people aren't getting paid at all for work they do in free software, what do they have to lose?

RMS and the FSF have done a good job of talking about freedom, and that's important, but someone should stand up and preach the value of paying for things that add value to your life.

Just like the GPL is mostly a social contract at this point, and hasn't been enforced by the courts, we should collectively endorse the idea of paying for Free products (heh that reads kinda funny don't it). For solidarity, if for no other reason.

I think this is the best way to battle the nascent War on Copying (just wait folks, it's coming).

We need reliable micropayment providers

[SirFlakey]

This is becoming more and more popular - quite frankly I really don't mind paying (some) money for a decent product. I'd rather not see the company go out of business.

I'd even pay some money for Mp3's of the bands I like. But with Paypal being more then little unreliable (IMHO) what is left? - I wonder why the bigger financial houses (VISA, MC, AMEX, Citibank...) haven't got their collective butts into gear and developed a micropayment solution?
--

Re:We need reliable micropayment providers

[SirFlakey]

Yes I had thougfht of the fact that the smaller teh tarsnaction amount the less they can conceivably skim on the top but afaik MC and similar companies offer a nuber of different ways to charge for the transactions. For the shop owner they have the x amount per transaction fee (most common I guess) but also a fixed amount/month and a lesser amount per transaction. But I do see your point - profitability is the key concern.
--

I like to pay something

[OpCode42]

Personally, I like to pay for my fave linux distro. I tried Mandrake 7.1 from a cover disk, liked it, bought the boxed 7.2 version.

From my point of view, i want mandrakesoft to keep producing Linux-Mandrake. They need money to do that, so I'm not going to mis-quote the GPL to avoid paying them money for a product which is worth it.

-----

Whoa

[mrparker]

Reading some of your comments, I am shocked.

Talking about downloading the ISO and mirroring it for free? My goodness, are some of you people just looking to pick a fight with the world?

These guys went out and got the approval of the FSF to do this, and are not asking for that much money.

Pick your fights somewhere else. There are much bigger threats to the Linux world than a small disto wanting to charge for downloads.

nice idea ... but...

[spir0]

here in NZ with my cable connection, I get 400Mb of free international traffic. then I pay just under 20 cents per Mb. so assuming in one month, the only international traffic I do is download this, I would have to pay NZ$35 in addition... or if I had already used my int. quota, I'd have to fork out NZ$115 plus US$15. I could order the CD for less, or I could go to a local shop and buy a distro like slackware for NZ$50. while I agree with them, it's not something that will work globally.

not just Linux users

[janpod66]

That's the way a market economy works: if you know you can get something comparable free/cheaper, you take it rather than the more expensive product. Doing anything else would be irrational, for a Windows or MacOS user as much as for a Linux user.

If people do pay for stuff where a comparable free product exists, it's for opportunity cost: somebody paying for some commercial system may not know that some particular free system would solve his problems just as well, or it may be too costly to actually get a hold of (e.g. download) the free product.