Hi, I am an enthusiastic Linux convert, but I am ashamed to say that I earn my living teaching people how to use Microsoft software at a leading educational institution in the UK! The college can't see the merits of Linux because they don't see how it can bring in any income and I am trying to convince them that we should offer Linux workshops/training to individuals/institutions who would like to know about open source software and operating systems initially, and in the long run perhaps offer installation/network support to interested parties. My question is this...

Does the GPL allow us to charge people/institutions for training using established Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, SUSE and Fedora etc and provide them with copies of the software for free at the end of the day? And are we allowed to offer technical support with the installation and running of these systems afterwards? Or would we need to remove all the branding etc and produce our own distro etc?

Any advice on this would be gratefully accepted as I do not want to get this process underway only to find that there are legal restrictions on doing this.

drbongo

Hi, I am an enthusiastic Linux convert, but I am ashamed to say that I earn my living teaching people how to use Microsoft software at a leading educational institution in the UK! The college can't see the merits of Linux because they don't see how it can bring in any income and I am trying to convince them that we should offer Linux workshops/training to individuals/institutions who would like to know about open source software and operating systems initially, and in the long run perhaps offer installation/network support to interested parties. My question is this...

Does the GPL allow us to charge people/institutions for training using established Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, SUSE and Fedora etc and provide them with copies of the software for free at the end of the day? And are we allowed to offer technical support with the installation and running of these systems afterwards? Or would we need to remove all the branding etc and produce our own distro etc?

Any advice on this would be gratefully accepted as I do not want to get this process underway only to find that there are legal restrictions on doing this.

drbongo

I have not read all the words, but I don't think there would be an issue. The GPL is mostly about keeping the SW open. Before embarking on any business venture, suggest you read all applicable docs--incuding the GPL.

oh absolutely. this is one of the underlying cornerstones (cliched expression i know...) of how something like Linux becomes part of the mainstream. for businesses it's how to make money out of a free product, and it's by adding that value and support around it. there's a middle ground between scary and free and friendly and expensive, which is different for a lot of different people.

the training angle is just about *THE* simplest angle to go at, and i can't see how your college can possibly have the view that it does. i can see how companies don't understand using GPL code to develop their product on, but if someone needs to understand anything, then professional training is absolutely one of the best angles.

distro vendors won't "allow" to do any of that, they'll beg you to... you can burn a million copies of ubuntu with a nice big smile on your face...

i'm not that up on the ins and outs of it, but if you did want to look towards provided a course in your syllabus, then i'd imagine the best possible thing you'd do is partner with an existing certification. most blatant one of those would be the redhat program, which has courses and programs predefined at a number of levels. obviously you (well.. i assume it's obvious...) require certification and formal endorsing from redhat to be officially allowed to do that with their actual course numbers etc... but even if you didn't you can build your own classes around the published contents to get towards a cert. also check out LPI and linux+ among others.

The GPL applies to source code only, and that based on it. Training and such is outside of its scope, as such, you can do whatever you want in that regard. Im not a lawyer, but i have never heard of any laws that prevent anyone from teaching people how to use something. Distributing free copies is usually not a problem, however, if there are branding issues with the distro, then there could be a problem. I think this is why RHEL is not freely distributed. If in doubt, send the disto a email asking for clarification, Ubuntu and Fedora shouldn't have a problem, im not sure about SUSE. You shouldn't need to produce your own distro, even if there are branding issues, im sure one of them would allow you to use theirs, or, in a extreme case, you will simply need to compile a existing distribution, after removing branding (this is used by CentOS to freely distribute RHEL), the GPL essentially mandates that the source codes be provided, so there is nothing stopping you from going this extreme route.

I have merged the 2 identical threads as both had answers