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Old 05-05-2010, 08:29 AM   #1
Buider
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Linux's actual price


I have messed around with all the different linux systems a bit. I like them, but since I want to set up a business I wonder how much they would actually cost. If the cost would go up the more successful I was? The linux agreement says that the software is not actually free, but there is no stated price. To a person thinking of business that is a scary proposition.
 
Old 05-05-2010, 08:39 AM   #2
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I don't know what you are looking at, but most versions of Linux are in fact completely free of cost.

The main point of OpenSource Software is freedom of use, including access to the source code. The business models that go with this are all over the place, but selling service and support is one common thread.

If you want to spend the time, you can set up your business on Linux and never spend a cent on the software. Or you can get something like RedHat and pay them for support. (or Ubuntu, and buy support from Canonical)
 
Old 05-05-2010, 08:43 AM   #3
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Linux comes packaged in different "distributions." Most distributions are 100% free (no matter how successful your business is), some cost money, and some are free for the software but you can pay for a support contract.

The ones that aren't free are usually up front about the costs (they are after all trying to run a business), for example: https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/server/

Is there a particular distribution you're looking at, or is this a general question?
 
Old 05-05-2010, 09:14 AM   #4
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The GPL license specifies that the source code must be available for free (or reasonable charge when on distributable media), therefore Linux is 100% free, you can get the source code, compile it and never pay anything, ever. Some distros offer support, like Red Hat, which you can pay for if you need support. Some distros offer free support via a forum, like CentOS, which is really just Red Hat under a different label. Other distros don't offer official support, but there exist forums, like the one you are posting in, to help out with the usual problems. Yet other distros offer the distribution for a price, like elive, as well as the source code, and under the GPL this is technically also legal to do, in which case you have to pay for the distro.
 
Old 05-05-2010, 09:17 AM   #5
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Please post this "linux agreement" here and tell us where you got it.
 
Old 05-07-2010, 08:24 AM   #6
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Price of linux

Thanks for the response to my thread. The agreement I believe was for the new, or I suppose any ubuntu. Since I'm a person who reads agreements I have to say they are in general pretty frighting. For example the one for google earth, or a nextel phone. Sun microsystems has very deceptive ones. When I purchased vista ultimate I read the box, and found out it still belonged, and would always belong to microsoft. They would allow me to use it, but could take it back at any moment. I had to put it in a computer system I built, sell that, and then destroy the disk. Someone did kill it many times, and there is no recourse. So now after hundreds of hours of re-installing OS's I am far more leary than I was. Especially in this era of crushing small business while pretending their being helped. I haven't even been allowed into the expensive part of the game yet. Like the server program, and server support. If I had a very successful business would I have to work out a special support program?? Meanwhile, google is not allowing my poetry to be sold on the internet anywhere except India, because I don't want my books in their digital library. It seems to me that the internet is a massive control, information gathering(the thing)device. Linux represents the,"We have broken free ", segment of the internet. Or do You!! Google jumped on Linux. Do they control it too. Ultimately nothing is free, but finding out what it will actually cost might be impossible until the moment it's time to pay. Like free sex, and then signing your divorce papers. I stand for freedom, and the power of the individual. So I have concern.
 
Old 05-07-2010, 08:37 AM   #7
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Well, I agree, most EULAs are diabolical. And, technically, many companies that produce FLOSS also have EULAs that can also be non-free. For example, the Firefox branding is licensed under a EULA, and Red Hat has a trademark on the Red Hat and Fedora labels, so you have to take them out if you make your own distro or firefox in both these cases.
 
Old 05-07-2010, 08:42 AM   #8
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Buider;

I have a really hard time following that last post. Please consider breaking it up into maybe 2-4 paragraphs.

What is your specific question at this point?
 
Old 05-07-2010, 12:08 PM   #9
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I've been running my business on Linux for years. All payments I've made have been voluntary and because I use the software and want to see it supported. The size of my business doesn't affect this unless I decided that it should. So as my business gets bigger, do I have to pay more? No. Will I pay more? Probably, but that is my decision and mine alone.
 
Old 05-07-2010, 12:28 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Buider View Post
If I had a very successful business would I have to work out a special support program?
No. Whatever version of Ubuntu you got for free for use in your small business, you can certainly continue to use for free in your large business.

Almost certainly the same applies to future versions of Ubuntu (you can upgrade to them for free regardless of how much your business has grown). But no one is going to write you a guarantee that there will even be a future version of Ubuntu, much less a guarantee that it will be free.

You should think of Ubuntu as a beginner friendly variant of Debian. As you become less of a beginner, the difference between Ubuntu and Debian for you will become smaller. If for any reason the next version of Ubuntu isn't available, as a non beginner you would have little trouble upgrading instead to the next version of Debian.

For Debian, there is even more confidence that a next version will be available and that you can still use it for free. But there is still no one to write a guarantee of that.

Debian itself is based on Linux and GNU etc. open source projects that do effectively guarantee the next version, if it exists at all, will still be free. (still no guarantee that next versions will be written).

Despite no one to guarantee it, you should be more confident of the ability to get next versions of Linux for free than for anything else in the future of your business.

If you want support, you might have to pay for it. (Though at the moment, I think the free support here at LQ is generally better quality and responsiveness than most paid support). Also, even in support, no one will control the market. Since the source code is open, anyone with the skill, effort and intent to provide Linux support can do so. If a major distribution decided on unreasonably high support charges for their customers who want support, someone would compete with them, using access to the distribution's source code to provide the same (subject only to skill and effort) support at a market driven price.

Last edited by johnsfine; 05-07-2010 at 12:30 PM.
 
Old 05-08-2010, 01:03 AM   #11
davidlu766
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Linux in general is open source. But some companies are making it proprietary because it features something that another distro doesn't have, for eg. the cisco callmanager (it's based on linux, but it's not free)

but most linux distros are free and open source
 
Old 05-08-2010, 09:19 AM   #12
Buider
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Heartening comments.

Your comments are heartening, and thanks for making them.
I don't mind paying for an OS's. That is not a problem. I do like a set price though. I have purchased XP pro 32&64
bit, Vista 32 bit, Ubuntu 32&64bit, Suse 32&64bit, Fedora 32&64bit, Arch linux 32&64bit, and Solaris. I would have paid a lot more than I did for the linux software.
MS killed my OS's, and tried to force me to the cloud. I had just installed Ubuntu (which I liked), but they had a very short term support program. Before I even started using it They wanted a Friend and I to make a utube vid about how much I loved it, buy their credit card, buy from their store, kick back some money, and contribute to their forum.
I researched Suse and Redhat, and decided to go with Suse, because their server SW is cheaper. I liked Suse, but then the hedge fund went for them to get their cash which threw their future into doubt.
I bought Redhat & loaded it, but then read about Ubuntu's new server OS. There was a list of servers that ubuntu could be installed on. I emailed both Redhat & Ubuntu, and asked if I could use their OS's on my home built server. Neither one responded to my email, so I presented that question on this forum, and then read Ubuntu's ambiguous agreement. Now I have to read everyone else's.
 
Old 05-08-2010, 09:36 AM   #13
pixellany
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I'm afraid I have missed the point of this thread...

Most Linux versions are available at no cost. What was the motivation for purchasing?

Quote:
I do like a set price though. I have purchased XP pro 32&64
bit, Vista 32 bit, Ubuntu 32&64bit, Suse 32&64bit, Fedora 32&64bit, Arch linux 32&64bit, and Solaris. I would have paid a lot more than I did for the linux software.
What are you saying here? It sounds like you are comparing things like SUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu to Linux. They ARE Linux!!

Quote:
I emailed both Redhat & Ubuntu, and asked if I could use their OS's on my home built server.
You can use ANY Linux in a home-built server!!
 
Old 05-08-2010, 09:57 AM   #14
johnsfine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Buider View Post
I have purchased ... Ubuntu 32&64bit
I just took another look at the Ubuntu web site to try to guess what you might have purchased.

You can't purchase Ubuntu (in the typical software purchase sense of purchasing a license to use it). Ubuntu is free and the web site makes that very clear.

You can purchase media (CD or DVD) containing Ubuntu, but they seem to be quite clear that you are purchasing the media, while the software is free. They also seem to steer you away from that, toward getting the software without paying for media.

I would contrast that with the distribution I prefer, which is Mepis. Mepis, like Ubuntu, is free to download and use and its repositories are free for obtaining updates. But the Mepis web site tends to steer you toward purchasing media or purchasing a faster download. So the free option is less obvious. (It does cost money to maintain a Linux distribution and they won't get any if they don't at least ask.)

You can obviously purchase Ubuntu support. Maybe that is what you purchased. What aspect of support do you want?

A big part of support is having someone to answer, by email or phone, whatever stupid user questions you might have. In my experience, support organizations are not set up to field any questions that are even moderately difficult. They focus on repetition of the same simple answers that cover the stupid questions that most customers needing such support ask.

If you want answers to easy questions, I'm not convinced paid support will be better or more responsive than LQ. But paid support will provide such answers.

If you want answers to hard questions, I'm sure an ordinary paid support arrangement with any distribution will give you worse results than LQ. LQ often won't give great results either for hard questions. If you get lucky and pick the right consultant, you can get good but expensive answers to hard questions. But even an expensive consultant might give you worse answers than you'd get at LQ. My main point about hard questions is that paid support generally doesn't cover them.

Another part of support is updates. Red Hat, for example, connects updates to support. If you install RHEL, it only will know how to get updates from Red Hat, and will only be able to do so if you maintain (pay for) support from Red Hat.

So far as I understand, there is no difference in update method for supported Ubuntu vs. unsupported Ubuntu. So even if you pay for support, the updates are free. If your support agreement runs out, you don't need to change anything to continue getting updates. By contrast, if you discontinue support for RHEL, but want to keep using it without support, there is a poorly documented process to switch over to getting the free updates from Centos instead.

BTW, reading between the lines of what you have written here, I'm reaching the estimate that your best choice would be Centos. It doesn't have the support you might want. It doesn't have the level of guarantee of free future versions you might want. But I think you are worrying too much about those things. The free support at LQ is probably what you need and Centos will very likely have future versions for a long time and they will be free.

Last edited by johnsfine; 05-08-2010 at 10:04 AM.
 
Old 05-08-2010, 01:38 PM   #15
btmiller
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Buider View Post
MS killed my OS's, and tried to force me to the cloud. I had just installed Ubuntu (which I liked), but they had a very short term support program. Before I even started using it They wanted a Friend and I to make a utube vid about how much I loved it, buy their credit card, buy from their store, kick back some money, and contribute to their forum.
What now??! I have used Ubuntu extensively both for home and professional purposes and I've never had to go through anything like this. Are you sure you were dealing with Canonical (the makers ofUbuntu) or some sleazy 3rd party resellers (sadly, I have seen sleazy people try to sell people who don't know any better software they can get for free)? As others have mentioned, the Linux kernel is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and most of the free software that runs under Linux is licensed under the GPL or another open source license.

Long and short, Linux itself is free (some commercial distros such as RHEL or SLES may require you to pay for support or to use their officially released distros). It's because of this that CentOS is able to take Red Hat Enterprise Linux, remove all of the Red Hat trademarks and branding, and redistribute it for free. I don't know where you're getting the idea that someone's going to start hitting you up formoney if youstart using a free Linux distro in your business.

And if you're worried about someone else owning the software you use, I have bad news for you. Except for public domain software, all software remains the intellectual property of its owner (generally the person or company that developed it) and is licensed to you to use under specific conditions. The conditions under which open source software is licensed are usually much less draconian than a commercial EULA (compare the GPL or BSD licenses to the Microsoft EULA you mentioned). This is what makes free software so attractive compared to proprietary software; the license gives you the right to use it for free for any purpose and redistribute it to others so long as they have the same rights you have (obviously the exact terms and conditions varyfrom license to license, for example, the BSD license allows you to take software, modify it, and keep your modiciations closed source; the GPL on the other hand does not allow this).
 
  


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