Re: Use of Debian Linux 7.5 in a commercially sold appliance box
Hi Clemens,
[Cc to debian-legal added, which may be a better forum for this type of
question]
On Mon, Jun 02, 2014 at 12:21:49PM +0000, Renner, Clemens wrote:
> Hello,
>
>
> we are currently working on building an appliance-like box for our
> customers in a “vertical market”. In doing so, we identified Debian
> GNU/Linux 7.5 as the prime candidate for the underlying OS.
>
>
> We appreciate the effort invested by the Debian community in building
> and maintaining the Debian distribution. As a consequence, we would
> like to make sure that we do not violate any terms of use or license
> terms with our planned product.
>
>
> Judging from the FAQ available at
> [1]http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-redistrib.en.html:
>
> It seems that no special terms need to be observed when building a
> commercial product based on Debian GNU/Linux, i.e. the Linux kernel
> itself and packages installed from the “main” (as in “main contrib
> non-free”) collection of packages.
>
>
> Could you please confirm that our understanding is correct or – if this
> is not the case – refer us to the specific license terms for our
> application?
That understanding is mostly correct, yes. You can use Debian GNU/Linux
in a commercial product without any obligations to the Debian project.
However, please note that many software packages in Debian are released
under the GNU GPL and similar licenses, which require that binary (i.e.,
compiled) versions of software is accompanied either with the source
(i.e., non-compiled) versions of the same software, or with an offer for
providing the required source on request, at "no more than your cost of
physically performing source distribution" (the GPL has a third
alternative to pass on such an offer, but that is not valid for
commercial distribution)
The easiest way to satisfy this requirement is to offer the source
packages (i.e., what you get if you run "apt-get -d source
<packagename>") of the software you install on your product (plus any
changes you may have made to those packages) either physically on the
device in a way that your customers can access them, or on a website
that you maintain yourself and to which you link in the documentation.
You (or your lawyer ;-) can find more information in the text of the
GPL, which is available on Debian systems in
/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL (and .../GPL-2 for the older version 2 of
the same license, which is still very much in use).
Kind regards,
--
It is easy to love a country that is famous for chocolate and beer
-- Barack Obama, speaking in Brussels, Belgium, 2014-03-26
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