[CS-FSLUG] FSF/GPL Sued For Price Fixing

Don Parris gnumathetes at gmail.com
Mon May 2 19:07:33 CDT 2005


Don't know if anyone is paying attention to this, but...

http://linuxbusinessnews.sys-con.com/read/80782.htm

What I find very interesting is that the charge is price fixing. 
Price fixing???  Does "Mr. Wallace" know that RMS doesn't even approve
of Red Hat or Novell because they typically include some sort of
non-free software in their distros.  Far be it from RMS to engage in a
"contract" with them to fix prices.

The other thing that kills me about this charge is that, technically,
developers can charge two separate fees (based on the FSF site's
information) - one for the binaries, and a second for the source. 
IOW, developer's are allowed to charge (even on a per copy basis)
whatever they feel they can get for the software.  Nothing prevents me
from buying your software and redistributing it, but you can charge
what you feel the market will pay.  The only stipulation is that the
source cannot be priced higher than the binaries - otherwise, the
price for the source could be set at an exhorbitant fee, making it
virtually inaccessible.

Price fixing???  No wonder Gates is seeking to import foreigners.

Don
-- 
DC Parris GNU Evangelist
http://matheteuo.org/
gnumathetes at gmail.com
Free software is like God's love - 
you can share it with anyone anywhere anytime!




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