Running Linux, 5th Edition - Matthias Kalle Dalheimer [23]
People and organizations can distribute GPL software for a fee and can even make a profit from its sale and distribution. However, in selling GPL software, the distributor can't take those rights away from the purchaser; that is, if you purchase GPL software from some source, you may distribute the software for free or sell it yourself as well.
This might sound like a contradiction at first. Why sell software for profit when the GPL allows anyone to obtain it for free? When a company bundles a large amount of free software on a CD-ROM and distributes it, it needs to charge for the overhead of producing and distributing the CD-ROM, and it may even decide to make profits from the sale of the software. This is allowed by the GPL.
Organizations that sell free software must follow certain restrictions set forth in the GPL. First, they can't restrict the rights of users who purchase the software. This means that if you buy a CD-ROM of GPL software, you can copy and distribute that CD-ROM free of charge, or you can resell it yourself. Second, distributors must make it obvious to users that the software is indeed covered by the GPL. Third, distributors must provide, free of charge, the complete source code for the software being distributed, or they must point their customers on demand to where the software can be downloaded. This will allow anyone who purchases GPL software to make modifications to that software.
Allowing a company to distribute and sell free software is a very good thing. Not everyone has access to the Internet to download software, such as Linux, for free. The GPL allows companies to sell and distribute software to those people who do not have free (cost-wise) access to the software. For example, many organizations sell Linux on floppy, tape, or CD-ROM via mail order, and make a profit from these sales. The developers of Linux may never see any of this profit; that is the understanding that is reached between the developer and the distributor when software is licensed by the GPL. In other words, Linus knew that companies might wish to sell Linux and that he might not see a penny of the profits from those sales. (If Linus isn't rich, at least he's famous!)
In the free-software world, the important issue is not money. The goal of free software is always to develop and distribute fantastic software and to allow anyone to obtain and use it. In the next section, we'll discuss how this applies to the development of Linux.
SCO and Other Challenges
In March 2003, a company called SCO—which had a tortuous history of mergers and divestitures that involved purchasing some rights to Unix—claimed that Linux contained some source code to which SCO had rights, and therefore that SCO had rights to Linux as well. The company started by suing IBM, a bold choice (to say the least) because few companies in the computer field could be more familiar with litigation or be better prepared for it. In any case, SCO made it clear that their complaints went far beyond IBM; indeed, that they were owed something by anyone using Linux. In December 2003, according to news reports, SCO even sent letters to a large number of Fortune 1000 companies advising them to send licensing fees to SCO.
Red Hat and other companies joined the fray. Novell, which by then had bought SUSE and become a solid member of the Linux community, added some zest to the already indigestible controversy by citing its own rights to Unix. Over time the whole affair became a tangle of lawsuits, countersuits, motions to dismiss, public relations grand-standing, and general mud-slinging.
As of this writing, the SCO case is unresolved, but the results seem salutory. Few observers believe Linux is in trouble; rather, it is SCO that is financially threatened. The network of companies, individuals, and key organizations that support Linux has handled the challenge well. Some major vendors