Hi, Happy new year.
I have been wanting to distribute mandrake 10.1 community or official on ebay for a price covering the cds and my time. I was wondering if this is legal without contacting mandrake. I have searhced the forum but nothing is there.

Thanks

I don't know if its legal, but I think if it was lots of people would be selling the CDs on ebay and on their personal sites. Since nobody is I assume it's not.
You should contact mandrake at this link to make sure:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/...form?contact=3

Well quite a few sell them on ebay, though i dont know if they had to contact mandrake first to do it legally. On the mandrake site it says you are allowed to distribute copy etc, but i dont know if you are allowed to sell them on places like ebay

I found a site that sells them
http://www.osdisc.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi/index.html

so maybe it is legal.
and you could always just put it up on ebay and see if the auction gets closed.
I doubt mandrake will press any legal action, prbbly just tell you to stop if it is in fact illegal and they find out.

And no auction has be stopped on ebay. They would have put a notice up to stop selling them if it would have been stopped. But im still not convinced
Thanks

Even if it is legal, can you undercut the excellent prices at http://www.linuxcentral.com and no, I don't work for them...

Capitalism, you gotta love it! Or hate it...

Yes you may if you follow the guidlines at:

http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/legal-faq

# 6.Can I distribute Download Products?
/a Yes, it is permissible to copy and distribute Download products. In any case, the following notice must appear clearly and distinctively: This product is the Mandrakelinux Distribution known as « Mandrakelinux Download Edition » or "Mandrakelinux Move Download Edition" (or any other freely downloadable Mandrakesoft product name). Commercial products such as "Mandrakelinux Powerpack Edition" (or "Mandrakelinux Move" or other derivative) include more features than the Download Edition such as commercial add-ons and third-party software. Commercial products also provide documentation and access to Mandrakesoft services such as support. Download editions may be freely downloaded via the Internet at the following location: (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3).
If you find this product useful, please support our efforts and join Mandrakeclub by visiting the on-line club page: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/club/

# 7.Can I distribute Commercial Products for free?
No. Certain third party software, not governed by a free software license, is bundled with commercial products. Additionally, you may not use the Mandrakesoft name, trademarks and logos (which is our business responsibility to protect), without prior agreement.

Thanks for that. It says that i cant use the mandrake name, so if i sell it on ebay, is it okay to use the mandrake name.

Just my opinion:

It does not bother me to see people distribute the three cd download edition for a fee as they do have the option of downloading it for free from Mandrake and other sites. That is ethically fine by me as it is free from Mandrake, and it would be useful to people with 56k dial up modems.

I feel it is unethical to redistribute the products that Mandrake sells(meaning 4cd set or powerpacks, etc)...for fee or free. Reason being, if everybody bought them from you and others, then Mandrake makes no profit. No profit and Mandrake will be gone. This is my distro of choice and somehow I doubt you and others selling it could pick up the ball and continue development of Mandrake yourselves.

This thread makes me cranky. This one too:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=271531

Again, just my opinion.

Come on, everybody knows that Suse, Mandrake, Redhat etc... make their money with their Professional ( read business oriented ) and servers distributions, not the "homeuser" one.
As long as there is no proprietary software involved, what's wrong with selling the downloadable edition ? Free ( beer ) is what Linux is all about right ?.
In my own case I got all my distros from various sources: Downloading, buying from companies like osdisc ( when I was using a modem ), using the DVD included with some Linux magazines ( Linux Format ) or... yes, even purchasing the official version directly from Slackware or Redhat.

Biased turkey,

The paragraph above the one you quoted does say, quote "It does not bother me to see people distribute the three cd download edition for a fee as they do have the option of downloading it for free from Mandrake and other sites. That is ethically fine by me as it is free from Mandrake, and it would be useful to people with 56k dial up modems."

Of course it's legal, we have been doing this for years, don't be so soft in the head, this is what GNU licence is all about. Get it out there.