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-   -   Reselling Linux based products... (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/reselling-linux-based-products-945255/)

gadhisunu 05-16-2012 04:42 AM

Reselling Linux based products...
 
Since Linux is a free software is it possible to sell products developed on Linux and what are the restrictions/license agreements that need be considered?

kbp 05-16-2012 05:45 AM

There's a great FAQ here which covers GPL, however there could be any number of licenses to consider depending on which libraries etc you use.

schneidz 05-16-2012 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gadhisunu (Post 4679741)
Since Linux is a free software is it possible to sell products developed on Linux and what are the restrictions/license agreements that need be considered?

it is possible since android phones, some blue ray players/ tivo, wifi routers, ... use the linux kernel. i think the major consideration is that any open source software you use must be made available to others.

gadhisunu 05-16-2012 10:07 PM

Linux Product Reselling...
 
Thanks for the reply schneidz, kbp.I am asking about if I develop a specific application on the Linux Platform which involves say doing the package on say C/C++ or Java and this application I would like to market as a product what would be my responsibility vis a vis teh OpenSourceForum commitment. What am I expected to share? The source code of my entire application? For instance when I browsed throughthe Source Forge site I found that there are a lot of S/W packages developed by individual programmers like some PCB-CAD, some Neural Network package etc., which they have put it on the site. Supposing this were the efforts of those people for commercialization, forcing them to share the same for free would it not make the effort a waste of time? Please clarify. I have to invest time on Linux to do something commercial. Is it worth the effort at all is the Q? I understand if i develop some enhancement to say the GUI I need to return to the community the same. This I understand.

Satyaveer Arya 05-16-2012 11:33 PM

Checkout this- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

schneidz 05-17-2012 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gadhisunu (Post 4680471)
Thanks for the reply schneidz, kbp.I am asking about if I develop a specific application on the Linux Platform which involves say doing the package on say C/C++ or Java and this application I would like to market as a product what would be my responsibility vis a vis teh OpenSourceForum commitment. What am I expected to share? The source code of my entire application? For instance when I browsed throughthe Source Forge site I found that there are a lot of S/W packages developed by individual programmers like some PCB-CAD, some Neural Network package etc., which they have put it on the site. Supposing this were the efforts of those people for commercialization, forcing them to share the same for free would it not make the effort a waste of time? Please clarify. I have to invest time on Linux to do something commercial. Is it worth the effort at all is the Q? I understand if i develop some enhancement to say the GUI I need to return to the community the same. This I understand.

apple os-x and ios are based on bsdi kernel. check out:
http://www.apple.com/darwin

they share all portions of code that isnt theirs and they manage to turn a decent profit.

jefro 05-17-2012 10:35 AM

If you built it from sources then you might be able to sell it. As above every license needs to be clearly read and understood.

It is much easier to be legal if you purchase an existing product that is marketed to OEM's.

Linux is not exactly free. It may be free to download for some users but corporate use and selling of it are not the same at all.


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