[Gllug] GPL & Licence Fees

[Adrian McMenamin]

On Sun, 2007-11-11 at 12:50 +0000, Richard Jones wrote:

> There's nothing in the GPL that says anything about how the software
> is charged.  On the other hand, I would expect that if they are paying
> an annual fee then they should be getting some sort of support service
> and/or renting the hardware.  If they own the hardware and they're
> getting no support on the firewall, I'd advise them not to continue
> paying!
> 


Well an annual charge for the software is clearly unsustainable under
the GPL because of the rights you have under section 2: "You may modify
your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a
work based on the Program"

So you can can get the source modify it (eh to say "this is the non
subscription version") and distribute it to anyone.

So the only way an annual charge would make sense is if it is for a
service.
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug