Selling linux for $25? Is this legit?

[rhett803]

So I was over at craigslist and found this:

http://columbia.craigslist.org/sys/237349959.html

The guy tells how HE wrote this OS as an alternative to windows. Well I had a few questions for him, the biggest being wtf, and he is basically a complete asshole. If you look it over you'll find lots of little weird things. Like him putting openoffice in it, yet he wont admit he has there permission, etc.

What do you guys think? Can he do this? You see anything else weird about it?

[bird603568]

you can sell it as long as it si for support like redhat and suse. im not a lawyer but this looks pretty illegal. it could be his own distro and hes selling the support. or like slackware does they sell the medium and accept donations

[rhett803]

If you look at some of the screenshots of programs he's packaging with it, you'll see things like thunderbird, firefox, openoffice, etc.

While they are free programs, alot of these companies like a little bit of recongnation for their works.

[noonebutme]

Well, listing was removed. But allt he guy would have to do is hand out source code if asked - he can package his own distro with linux kernel booting up to only firefox if he wanted, its not illegal.

[rhett803]

Here is the site of the guy and his distro he's selling.

http://crystaldawn.net/coulkat/ss/screenshots.php

[bird603568]

it looks like a freaken joke if you ask me

[jdhore]

it seems like he just changed some fonts, and the default skin on Ubuntu and installed some apps he used frequently then did something like ghosted it...i wouldn't buy this if the dude paid me $50

[noonebutme]

it seems like he just changed some fonts, and the default skin on Ubuntu and installed some apps he used frequently then did something like ghosted it...i wouldn't buy this if the dude paid me $50
Well, Ubuntu originally started out as a port of Debian that was easier to use. Forking a distro's legal.

[wastern]

I saw this on the craigslist near me a couple weeks ago and sent him an email about how shady it was that he selling some GPL'd software along with what seemed like a cracked version of windows in a virtual machine

this was his responce to me


GPL'd software can be sold, and there is no cracked version of XP on the DVD.
You have to supply the Winblows CD yourself but I do supply Qemu with a
virtual HD already setup and ready to be used. Not everyone on the planet
has the bandwidth to give this stuff away free. Especially when it's such a
large file. My ISO is 4.2GB's in size.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part
of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is
no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required
written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only
release.)




some people also made posts calling him out as a scammer. I don't have his responce to that, I think its long gone, but it was a lot like the email he sent me