Firstly thank you for your time to notice and read this. I have a very
newbie question about the rules of using a distribution of Linux in a
product. I am in no way planning to do so but is a question I've often
pondered in my head whilst I've been learning how to use Linux for the
BeagleBoard. My only experience with Linux is Angstrom and Ubuntu,
since I've only touched Linux due to my purchase of the BeagleBoard.
Can one legally distribute (sell) hardware such as the BeagleBoard
that is running say for example Angstrom linux or one of the other
distributions currently available? If one made his own application to
run on the two platforms without modification to those platforms and
sell it is that legal?
So far I've only stumbled across license types called GNU General
Public License and is there a GNU GPL version 2 also? I have not read
great amounts into these. Some web pages about them go on and on and
on :).
Thank you for your time and I will be intrigued to hear your
responses.
Firstly thank you for your time to notice and read this. I have a very
newbie question about the rules of using a distribution of Linux in a
product. I am in no way planning to do so but is a question I've often
pondered in my head whilst I've been learning how to use Linux for the
BeagleBoard. My only experience with Linux is Angstrom and Ubuntu,
since I've only touched Linux due to my purchase of the BeagleBoard.
Can one legally distribute (sell) hardware such as the BeagleBoard
that is running say for example Angstrom linux or one of the other
distributions currently available?
Almost certainly. You'll need to comply with the licenses of all the
software components that you utilize in your product. Many of those
require you to redistribute the source that you used to build the
software for your product. Building up the list of software
components and their license restrictions can be a cumbersome process,
but you have to weigh that against the fact that they are generally
free and save you a lot of work in development. I recommend you
Google information on each of the licenses for the projects used by
Angstrom or Ubuntu, but there is plenty of information to be found out
there about how other products comply with open source licenses.
http://www.opensource.org/ is a tad bit controversial, but might have
some things that will get you a bit of guidance.
If one made his own application to
run on the two platforms without modification to those platforms and
sell it is that legal?
It depends what libraries you utilize and if your work could be
considered a derived work. In most cases, you shouldn't have a
problem.