> no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. > > It seems quite clear to me that no one can charge extra for a > distribution that contains their own software, since that is obviously > a 'work' within the terms of the GNU Public Licence 2(b). What > surprises me is that the word 'must' in 2(b) also seems to preclude a > bundled maintenance contract. Anyone adding value (under the terms of > 2(b)) MUST (my emphasis) license their 'work' AS A WHOLE (my emphasis) > to me at no charge - and if I refuse their maintenance contract, they > still MUST license the 'work' at no charge no matter how much effort > they've put into it. > > One wonders how you're supposed to make any money at this game. It's > obvious from "... in whole or in part contains or is derived from ..." > that you can add just as much "pay software" as you like - the result > still has to be shipped at no charge.
I don't know about others, but I would tend to consider the distribution and vendor's support together; if I want a support contract for SuSE Linux, SuSE would have the inside running. I'd be unlikely to order SuSE Linux and Red Hat support. If their support didn't stack up, I'd look to third-party support. It could be that Red Hat would be invited to support SuSE Linux. It wouldn't be so different from Amdahl providing MVS support in the mainframes it supplied. -- Cheers John Summerfield Microsoft's most solid OS: http://www.geocities.com/rcwoolley/ Note: mail delivered to me is deemed to be intended for me, for my disposition.
