Re: Red Hat Linux

[Pieter Nagel <pieter.nagel@epiuse.co.za>]

  On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, claribba wrote:
  
  > I have just received a new catalog that sells Red Hat Linux for $49.00
  > [approx].  Is it now a proprietary OS that some company owns?
  
  Linux is a free OS; it is required that if you distribute it, you
  must do so for free and provide source code; else you are in breach
  of it's copyright.
  
  The $49 you pay for Red Hat pays for the convenience of receiving
  Linux on CDROM instead of downloading it, it pays for technical
  support, it pays them for scouring the 'net for cool and useful linux
  apps to bundle with the OS, it pays them for doing QA on software
  they did not develop, it pays them for packaging all in a
  easy-to-administer framework, and pays for one or two non-free
  commercial applications they include in the box. 
  
  All in all, good value for money.
  
  Strange new world, where a free OS can be sold, and people prefer to
  pay than getting it for free.
  
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