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Advice: Selling Linux Solutions


ianw1974
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Just a quick question. I'm looking to sell solutions that run on Linux, such as email services, etc, etc. Is this possible? Will I be contravening anything?

 

My main reason is that people might not have the resources to learn and understand Linux and be able to achieve the results. Second, they may not even have the money to implement a system such as Microsoft Exchange, or anything such similar. This is just one example of such solution.

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I'll actually be supplying the solutions on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with me being a business parter of theirs now.

 

I'm under the impression that I can't physically sell the products as such, since they are open-source, I'm just using them as a part of my solutions. Or am I wrong, and misunderstanding what I'm able to do?

 

I was kind of thinking that all I can do is sell my service for knowing Linux and providing the knowledge to put the system together for them, so consultancy service if you like.

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Making money out of support/selling Linux solutions is not wrong. One thing I would be a bit cautious about is deploying RHEL for this task. I don't know/never read all the terms and agreements implemented in using RHEL, but if you decide to use RHEL, it might be possible that it will be an expensive thing for both, your customers and you, as you might need to purchase several copies of RHEL. Dunno exactly. Study the stuff thoroughly! Maybe CentOS or Whitebox are a better alternative. 100% GPL'd RHEL clones without licensing/support costs involved.

 

As far as your service goes: You simply do the RedHat / Novell /Mandriva Corporate thing on your own in a smaller scale. This should not be legally doubtful, as selling services is a product like any other, too, but I agree with devries and highly recommend consulting a lawyer that is specialized in IT business.

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You can sell services based off of a Linux distribution, i.e. installation/configuration/training, things of that sort. You aren't selling the item itself but rather the service. As far as selling RHEL on a disc, there are some ethical questions raised, but legally you should be in the clear. The GPL only covers the code and the program itself, not services based off said program. You are free to provide consultancy services for any software, GPL or otherwise.

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The way we've done so far, is the client purchases Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription, which covers them for updates, support, or whatever else it offers. We then complete the installation with whatever is required on the server plus the operating system itself.

 

In terms of what to use, the company I work for set to a standard of Red Hat, because of the fact that in the event of issues, there is the support from Red Hat, and the clients feel safe because of this, because then they are not relying on me, or anyone else here to support and fix the problems.

 

With Red Hat though, the support comes through me first anyway, and if I can't fix it, it gets escalated to local partners or to Red Hat directly after that, if the local partner/distributor doesn't know.

 

I personally would use another distro for it, but I unfortunately didn't win the argument :P

 

Technically, Red Hat don't actually sell their version of Linux, you only pay for receiving updates and support, or at least that's how it looks as part of their subscriptions.

 

Many thanks for all the input, at least I feel a bit more safe, that we're selling the consultancy side of things, and not the product itself.

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The way you describe the service you provide I believe you are clear of any legal issues. Consulting a lawyer about IT stuff can often be more of a hastle than a solution, at least in my experience, as most lawyers may understand law but rarely have a reasonable grasp on technology - and thereby any combination of the two.

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The GPL afaik doesn't stop you selling anything - but you have to make the source code available...

aye, but he's not even writing any source code so the GPL isn't really a part of this discussion ;)

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It's not a question of writing code; it's a question of distributing products containing GPL'd code and that he is surely doing. Nothing prohibits you from selling products containing GPL'd code. People do it every day and they don't have to do some little dance about just selling services not the software. The issue is since it is GPL'd, that practically limits your ability to charge and arm and a leg for the product itself since anyone can reproduce the product as the code is freely available. But that's an economic, not a legal, impediment. That's why companies try to differentiate themselves based on the value added services they can provide.

The kicker here is you are selling a product (coupled with a service) containing GPL'd code with Red Hat's trademark and tradename plastered all over it and that they can stop you from doing, i.e. they have a right to protect their tradename and trademark. You can't go around passing yourself off as an authorized RH rep distributing RH GPL'd software without RH's consent. To allow such a situation would be to allow others to profit off of, and potentially ruin, RH's reputation.

That's where Centos comes in; they take all of RH's trademarks and references to RH out of RHEL and freely distribute it and there's not a thing RH can do about it. They can even charge as much money for the product as the market will bear and there's nothing RH can do about it. It' perfectly legal under the GPL.

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as he described he's not selling the GPL'd product himself, it is being purchased directly from red hat:

The way we've done so far, is the client purchases Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription, which covers them for updates, support, or whatever else it offers. We then complete the installation with whatever is required on the server plus the operating system itself.
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Actually, I just found out, this is what happens.

 

We are a Red Hat Business Partner, more info here:

 

https://www.redhat.com/solutions/partners/business/

 

and we do actually purchase on behalf of the client from the distributor. We then sell this to the client, plus an additional fee if you will to cover our costs for the order process, paperwork, etc, etc.

 

Then, we offer our services to install, configure and prepare the system based on their requirements. Eg: they want a mail server, or proxy server, and so on.

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