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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!ferkel.ucsb.edu!ferkel!jim
From: jim@ferkel.ucsb.edu (Jim Lick)
Subject: Re: Restrictions on 'free' UNIX / 386BSD (Re: selling 386BSD)
Message-ID: <jim.714115328@ferkel>
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara
References: <63DILTJ@taronga.com> <PHR.92Aug15214245@soda.berkeley.edu> <22221@venera.isi.edu> <1992Aug18.020754.8683@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 05:22:08 GMT
Lines: 25
In <1992Aug18.020754.8683@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes:
>How do you synchronize this with the $100 and/or "reasonable copying fee"
>from the GPL? Charge $300 for the book?
You are under a false impression. The GPL does NOT put a limit on what
someone may charge for an FSF product. The limitation of a charge which
covers the cost of duplication applies only to source code for the product
in the case that source code was not provided in the sale product. Thus,
you could easily sell a FSF product at a price where you could profit.
Let's say you want to sell GCC for $500. If you include source code with
this, then you are done. If you don't include source code, any customer can
come up later and ask for a copy of the source which you must provide at
cost. In general if there is a savings in media costs for the main product
without source as opposed to with source, it would probably be more cost
effective in the long run to sell it without source. But if you sell on
some large capacity media like tape or CD-ROM, you probably have plenty of
room left over, so you might as well throw it in and save the hassles later.
Jim Lick
Work: University of California | Play: 1236 Camino Meleno
Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara, CA 93111-1007
Dept. of Mechanical Engr. | (805) 964-2088 voice/msg
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