I've often heard the phrase "Free as in Freedom of Speech, not Free as in Free Beer".

Something which has been bugging me, how can something be 'free', open source etc, and yet not financially free?

Are there any examples of a company which charges for its open-source product? If so, how do they stop the code from being distributed on the internet?

Are there examples where companies charge for open source code??? Yes. they are the commercial Linux distributions like SuSE, RedHat, Mandrake... et al.

How do they stop the code from being released on the internet??? Well in the case of SuSE (until just recently) the installer is NOT Open Source code,... only the Operating sytem. SuSE's YaST2 was closed source code. They recently changed that.

Also, a company can set the terms by which it's code is distributed. That is, if I make changes to Linux, and release those changes, I can specify that binaries not be released on the internet, that only the source code be available... So if someone wants to go to the trouble of recompiling my distro, then they can do that.

The bottom line is that there are enough freely (as in free beer) distros available that this is not a concern. I for one, choose the convenience of a commercial distro. Plus, it gives me the satisfaction that I am doing a small part to promote the company working on the Distro.

Generally, a company with an open source product will offer the software for free on the internet, and then sell a version which is the software, plus support, printed manuals, etc.

If a piece of software is open source, that means the source code may be freely distributed (I think).

Red Hat is an example of a company which sells open source software.

--Ian

I find SuSE's business model to be pretty solid. Yeah, they don't offer up their distro for iso download, but where in the GPL does it say you have to? They offer ftp installations and allow the SuSE Live Eval disk to be downloaded without charge. People who dig the results of either of these two options are likely to buy the box set in the future (as I did). They are a business after all, and who can really be upset that they don't give away their product for free AND make it easy and convenient to get it. When I tried the live eval I was impressed, so I weighed the cost (bandwidth/time vs. money) and bought the box-set. I don't regret it, their manuals were great and the distro on DVD makes installation much nicer.

I just wish they would represent themselves in the distro forum, like so many other distros do.

What about a buisness model where a company creates open source code and charges for it, obtained in any mode, even downloaded (no access restrictions or limited license - they'd be pointless anyways)?

Is relying on human honesty doomed to failure?

Closed source software has a problem with piracy almost to the point where anyone who doesn't want to pay for it, doesn't have to. The people who pay for closed source software will pay for open source.

You reduce tranaction costs. You don't pay for encryption or activation solutions (or man hours to write them) because they'd be pretty pointless.

Significant revenue streams would be unaffected - tech support, manuals, and training class could be left open to registered (paid) users only.

You could still reap most of the traditional benefits of open source. Admittely charging for open source invites "I'm paying you to fix your code" complaints, but complaining is better than busted software. Perhaps a "bug bounty" would remedy the problem.

off the top of my head from what i remember when reading the GNU or is it GNL, either way, the code must remain open.

that means anyone can read it and it must be fully documented.

that does not mean it has to be free of charge. wineX is a perfect example of this as are the full distros mentioned above.

wineX is not charging for the software they have created, they are charging for the service they provide. the code is open and fully documented, but for the updates and continued support you must pay for their service.