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Re: Elive requires donation to download



In message <[🔎] 1164382814.18613.59.camel@zhora>, Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org> writes
On Fri, 2006-24-11 at 07:08 -0800, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
Elive <http://www.elivecd.org/gb/Download/Stable/>, based on Debian,
requires a donation, however small, to allow downloading the stable
version.
I wonder if this legally sound.

Is that just wondering out loud, or a particular question? I think it
should be fine license-wise, except if they've included any
"non-commercial" hoohaw from non-free.

Probably the only potential sticking point is making source code
available, for those packages that have licenses that require source
code availability at no cost. I think that if you don't have to pay an
additional fee, on top of the first donation, to get the source code,
they should probably be in the clear.

Are there any such?

The GPL allows for a "reasonable charge" to access the source once you have the binary, and if the fee is for "maintaining the server" I don't see how it can be deemed unreasonable.

Indeed, such a requirement to distribute source at no cost could well be deemed "unfree" :-)

Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - anthony@thewolery.demon.co.uk



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