Re: [LUG] linux history questions

[Matthew Browning <mb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roland Tarver wrote:
> Just a few questions on linux background and history..
>
> If people have answered these thousands of times already, then apologies.
>
> Commercial linux:
>          I'm still struggling with understanding why we pay for distro's of linux
> off the shelf in a computer shop.  I thought linux was a free OS. Free as in
> £0 and source-included. Do we simply pay for the production cost, disks
> manuals etc. Or do we also pay for the convenience of have a kernel with
> tons of other packages and programs bundled with it - ready to be _easily_
> installed (ie by a non-expert user, that can follow, for eg, the suse YAST)

Consider this analogy (recalled from some GNU FAQ or other):

You live in a town full of self-employed builders who desperately need 
supplies of sand for their individual projects.  As it happens, your 
back yard is absolutely full of construction-grade sand in supplies 
which far exceed usefulness to yourself personally.  You have no 
particular problem with anyone in the neighbourhood coming round in a 
van and taking as much as they need, indeed, you wish them well with it. 
 If, however, these people began to exploit you as a resource, offend 
your privacy or, worse still, expect *you* to pay for delivery of the 
sand to *their* premises that would be a different matter, would it not?

The sand is software, the over-supplied back-yard is the FSF, you are 
the self-employed builder - get the picture?

When we talk about free software we mean `free to do what you want 
with', not `free inside Shreddies'.  A huge amount of amazing work goes 
into producing Linux distributions - you are paying for that work, for 
support, for packaging and for the assurance that it will work. 
Amazingly, you are free to bypass this and just download whatever you 
want yourself - but you have to be pretty sure you know what you are 
doing ;)


> Source:
>         Is the source from all major distro's included on the disks we get?

If you buy a boxed set from, say, RedHat - yeah, you get the source.  It 
is a condition of the GPL that source be available if required.


> Promotion:
>         Is there an organisation "Linux International" still in existance?

No idea.



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