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

[Steve Baker]

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.

Yes - the company I work for was shipping a complete RedHat license with
every embedded computer we sold because "Linux" was a line item on our bill
of sale and they didn't like things with $0 next to them.

I think we've gotten over that now - but it took a major effort to make people
understand that it's NOT piracy to install Linux on a dozen computers from one
set of CD's.

> 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.

Sure you can sell OpenSource software.  You are also required to make it
freely available - but you can charge for it if your customers are stupid
enough to pay for it.  You are explicitly allowed by the GPL to charge a
fee for the 'freely available' stuff to cover your 'reasonable costs' of
putting it on a CD, maintaining the website or whatever.

> 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.

That's a very good thing.

> 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)

You can just sell it.  That's what RedHat, SuSE and others do.

You are just making a 'distro' of Samba or whatever - just as they
make 'distro's of the kernel and all the GNU tools or whatever.  So
long as you provide a way for them to get the source code, you are in
the clear.

The sorts of problems I'd expect you to have to worry about is collecting
sales tax and passing on the benefits as a charitable contribution without
having to pay tax on profits that you effectively made along the way.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjbaker1 at airmail.net>    WorkEmail: <sjbaker at link.com>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
Projects : http://plib.sf.net    http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
            http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
GCS d-- s:+ a+ C++++$ UL+++$ P--- L++++$ E--- W+++ N o+ K? w--- !O M- V-- PS++ PE- Y-- PGP-- t+ 5 X R+++ tv b++ DI++ D G+ e++ h--(-) r+++ y++++
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----