[NTLUG:Discuss] to 'sell' or not to sell opensource

[Jerry Haltom]

GPL'd software is not unsellable. You misunderstand Free. Free as in
speech. Free as in beer is a side effect.

You can sell GPL'd software, and the GPL explicitly permits it, as long
as you also distribute a copy, or make available a copy of the source
code, the same code used to compile what you are selling. This means, it
is not profitable to sell GPL'd software. But you can still do it.

On Wed, 2003-05-21 at 14:01, Richard Geoffrion wrote:
> I have found that many customers and potential customers do NOT like the
> concept of FREE software.  They can not get over the concept of having a
> company take responsibility for software used in their production
> environments.
> 
> To this end I have decided to start charging for open source software I use
> for my customers.  The money raised during the "sale" of open source
> software can then be used to donate to the open source projects in question.
> While I realize that I can't SELL open source product, I can charge for a CD
> that represents the time and effort to download and then prepare the
> customized compiled version of that software for their system.
> 
> I'm hoping to start making regular contributions to Samba, Dan(qmail , the
> inter7 group, Sam V.(courier mta), apache, and whoever else I can find that
> have 'donate' options.
> 
> So the question becomes..
> 
> How do I sell 'unsellable' software without selling it??
> 
> Mandatory donations? (an oxymoron)
> Hide it in the hardware price and risk it being construed as an attempted
> 'sell' of open source?
> Separate it into an additional labor line item? (what I fear I'll have to do
> and would like to avoid)
> 
> How do YOU handle this on your invoices? What is your wording?
> 
> -Richard
> 
> 
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