dude making CDs costs MONEY, those developers may do it because they love linux but they are not going to PAY MONEY to spread the joy of Linux.

First of all, folks, remember that Linux is free as in speech, not as in beer. I don't see a problem with people making money with free software. If Red Hat wants to make money with Linux, what's wrong with that? Why else would anyone want to run a business if they can't get money from it? There's nothing wrong with a business making money, as long as it doesn't become the second Microsoft.

As already said, Red Hat can not become closed source. The GPL license simply doesn't allow it. And as for charging for downloads, I don't see a problem with that either. I don't understand how it could be illegal to download and share Red Hat Linux with others if RH started to charge for downloads. I'm not sure but I don't think the GPL license would allow this to happen.

As long as you can still get the unofficial CD's for free, or download from a mirror for free, I wouldn't have a problem with RH (or anybody else) charging for official CD's or downloads. As long as companies don't violate the GPL or start doing things the Microsoft way, they can do anything they want. After all, Linux is FREE, and they have the FREEDOM to do anything they want.

If you don't like the business practices of some company, DON'T USE THEIR PRODUCTS! Unlike with Microsoft, you have a choice. Don't use Red Hat or SuSE or whatever Linux distro you don't like. Use Debian which is a truly non-commercial distro. Or download the sources and compile your own Linux system from scratch so you don't have to use any distro at all.

i'm strongly and i mean STRONGLY against charging money to DOWNLOAD IT. i mean come on, people mirror that thing because they WANT TO, they WANT to spread the joy of Linux around. if RH started to charge for downloads it would flop in a second. all other distros of Linux are free to download and that includes FreeBSD which is sort of like Linux but not quite.

charging for CDs is to cover the cost of making that CD, iso files are downloaded off of MIRRORS and not the company itself. they can't pretend that they are paying for other peoples' bandwidth which means charging for a download would be complete BS and unjustified.

Your theory might have some weight if Red Hat actually cared about whether people downloaded their ISOs.

The simple fact is, Red Hat sell their distributions/services to enterprise, and preventing people from downloading CDs for free would not damage their revenue, it would simply cause home users and developers to switch to another distro. Red Hat's brand is significantly large enough for this to have neglible impact on its enterprise business.

Don't know of anyone who charges you to download off their site. There may be some, but you are not required to use that site.

People/companies who provide a service are usually rewarded for providing that service. That reward is generally in the form of a monetary payment.

Quit being a grump and just find the least costly way to get the most out of your Linux experience ! If you want to download iso images, find a free site and do it. All it will cost you is your time. If you want to have a CD made for you, find the place that offers the lowest price and do it. Just get on with your life!!

It wouldn't change a thing if Rh or anybody started charging for downloads - they only lose money with it anyway. I don't see why a OS has to be free. What else is free? At the same time a lot of people complain about lack of games devicesupport and,and,and.
With some cash flowing that stuff would happen much faster.

no.......Linux works good now because they have absolutely nothing to gain from releasing a version which does not work. Microshaft released WindowsME knowing that it consumed 80% of your resources when you started the computer, took over 100mb of ram and would basically slow to a halt in a few hours. they made TONS of money off that OS even though it's a piece of crap. if money starts to get involved, stuff will start to be rushed out and the quality will deteriorate.

if there will be a charge for Linux, it will go down the drain. people are not willing to pay money to try an OS they may or may not like and it's a total bitch trying to get that hard drive to have Windows on it again because Windows can't create its own partitions.

Since so many people are worried about finding a fast download mirror, here are the steps to get one:

1. Find a university/college in your vicinity.
2. Go to their FTP server, search for a "mirrors" directory/server.
3. Chances are, they'll have most major distros mirrored.
4. Download away!

Here's an alternative:

1. Go to www.linuxiso.org
2. Click on the distro of your choice.
3. The download link will automatically provide you with a random mirror.

If you're using Windblows, get Download Accellerator (www.speedbit.com), and you'll be downloading your ISOs much, much faster, trust me!

yep i got DAP

here is where i got my Mandrake 8.0
http://sunsite.ualberta.ca

BTW, any idea if there's anything for Linux like DAP? I know there are some download managers, but they're not the same as DAP. DAP really kicks ass and sucks the servers dry.

First off, lets not get personal here as we all have opinions were entitled to. Read the rules please if your not familiar with them.

To add my own 2 cents,

I truly don't care if they charge for distro's as I believe everyone is entitled to some compensation for their hard work. Like mentioned before, Linux is actually stands more for freedom in speech, as in source code ...etc. Linux itself is freely available, sourcecode and everything. It would be possible to use the Linux kernel, in which that is all Linux really is, modify the sourcecode to suit your needs with maybe some proprietary software you code to work and use as a OS, only have to release the source code of the Linux kernel you modified to work with your own software, sell it and never have to release the full source code of your own.. something to think about.

So all in all, whatever Redhat is doing is quite actualy legal, as long as they keep the source open for any modifications they make to any GPL software they have in their distro.

Actually just like when Slackware 8.1 comes out, I have already planned on buying it instead of downloading it, just to get that fuzzy feeling I am helping out supporting Slackware, especially when Patrick is working alot on his own to make such a great distro.

But lets keep it down a bit, no bashing or name calling, keep it clean or you will be taken care of. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, just don't take it so personal.

Two things, and I wouldn't harp on these if I hadn't been spending my past three working years in a Patent and Trademark Depository Library: every time you've typed Copywrite, spelled Copyright, you meant Trademark.

The summary you had was largely correct about Intellectual Property, but in the examples of Kleenex and Xerox you have it backwards: both of those companies were well on overjoyed that their brand name became the consumer's concept of the product. RedHat is overjoyed of the fact that when people think Linux, they think of RedHat first. That's the whole point of branding. In the first two cases this was key as to how the products succeeded so well for so long (Xerox's problems now largely come from them giving away technology from Parc because their brass are a bunch of diaper-heads)

As for RedHat enforcing their trademark, good for them, because when you buy a RedHat CD, that's basically all you are buying, is branding. If you strip out REDHAT from the doc folders on the top end of the ISO, and change them to... Bob, then rebuild the ISO and re-market it as Bob Linux, you are 100% within the laws of: copyright, trademark (I looked it up, there is no US Fed Mark on BoB Linux), patent (well, when the .gif thing gets settled), and trade secret (which is damn well impossible with source code involved), the big four of Intellectual Property.

The point to that was that 100% of RedHat's download set is GPL, GPL2, MPL, or one of the minor mod licenses. This is not the case with: Madrake, SuSe, or Caldera, which all carry some form or another of limited license software. For instance, look at the license with YaST2 sometime.

Like Tricky I'm going to pay for Slackware 8.1, but not really because I want to pay for the product, which Patrick just put together for us, 1000s of other people built that, I just want to contribute to the Slackware organization, even if its just him :P

Cheers,

Finegan

P.S. Trademarks can serve a lot of purposes. Linux is a trademark. Some dork in Boston snatched it up in 95 and Linus and Eric S Raymond and some of the Linux International people had to help him snag it back from the guy. Here's the record on it.

As long as GPL is working, you can get your redhat.
And why to whine, Mandrake is much better.

BTW, I want my cdrom.img for RedHat 7.3!!!

GPl has nothing to do with free downloads - thats a courtesy of the distros.

It has. I can always have an GPLed program at my ftp site.