Re: gEDA-user: More footprint stuff

[sdb@xxxxxxxxxx (Stuart Brorson)]

> > > You can sell GPL'd stuff.  You can sell the rights if you have them.
> > > You don't have to give something away just because it's GPL'd.
> > 
> > If you use other people's GPL'ed stuff in it you do.
> 
> No, you don't.  Red Hat does it with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (except
> the selling of rights one, because we give all our rights to the FSF).

This is an interesting case.  DJ is correct: RedHat does sell RHEL,
and it contains other people's GPL'ed stuff.  Nothing in the GPL
prevents this, as long as the source is distributed along with the
rest of the CD.

Now you might think that anybody could just get a copy of RHEL and
stick it on the web for free download, thus undercutting RedHat's
ability to sell their CDs for more than $0.00.   There is a catch,
however.  RedHat puts trademarked logos onto their CD, which you can't
legally redistribute.  Therefore, if you want a copy of RHEL with
RedHat logos on it, you must purchase the CD from RedHat.  OTOH, if
you want to redistribute RHEL yourself, whether for free or for
profit, you must first strip out all the trademarked RedHat logos from
the distribution, or RedHat will sue you.  And once you strip out the
RedHat logos, then it's no longer RHEL.

That's the theory, at least.

Stuart