Selling Linux on CD
 

Sorry if this is a dumb question, But I cannot find an exact answer anywhere else. I have some clients interested in Linux, and would like for me to download and burn it to a CD for them. My question is this, Is it Legal, to charge say $10 per distro they want? To cover my bandwith usage and CD cost? Also, Is it "bad manners" to do this? Thanks for the info everyone!
Randy:Pengy:

If these are clients, then I assume you are working for them in a consulting capacity? If this is the case, then simply charge them for the time it takes you to download and burn the required CD-ROMs for the distro in question. Though I would double-check and make sure they understand that this is what you are going to do.

As for the cost of the media...if it were me, I'd probably just eat it as a cost of doing business. I mean, 3 CD's would cost you what, $1.50? You'll make much more than that on the consulting time.

As for the legality issue, I would guess it's probably not legal to charge someone for someone else's distrobution. Distros can charge for their CD's because they spend the time and effort to put together complete GNU/Linux based systems. So they are not charging for Linux, but for their time, the manuals, etc.

That's fine. There's plenty of websites out there which do exactly what you're wanting to do.

Have a look at this, for example:
http://www.osdisc.com

The only thing you'll have to watch is distros which aren't free, like RedHat Enterprise. If there's proprietary code or branding, then things get complex, but if you've downloaded the distro yourself from the distro's website and the whole thing's under the GLP, then you're OK. Fedora's fine, as is Mandrake Community, Slackware and most of the Live CDs. Just check the terms on the distribution's website.

Dave.

Edit: Sorry, I was editing while the next two replies were made.

Yes, it is legal as long as it's not a distro you're downloading illegally.. Xandros and Linspire are an example.

Its usually legal, unless theres some special restrictions on software thats part of the distro.

Thanks for the info guys! I will take Tino27's advice, and charge for time and shipping cost. Thanks for all of your help! I love this forum!
Randy

You can charge whatever amount you want. There is no restriction about that. Just be sure that you are distributing free distributions (e.g. not some newer RedHat or Lindows...).