545
I thought donations were optional
(lemy.lol)
Donationware: you must donate to use it. Not like regular optional donates.
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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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It's free software. You can charge money for distribution of free software but if the user does then he has the right to have acces to the source code forever no restrictions. And that user is free to distribute copies of the software as he wishes.
You can change for software distribution (binaries).Directly from gpl site...:
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney)
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my distribution site? (#DoesTheGPLAllowDownloadFee)
Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. Under GPLv2, if you distribute binaries by download, you must provide “equivalent access” to download the source—therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary. If the binaries being distributed are licensed under the GPLv3, then you must offer equivalent access to the source code in the same way through the same place at no further charge.
That's the same I'm saying. What you quoted just says that you can charge for distributing free software but you cannot force other holders of the software to distribute it asking for a charge.
You as a distributor can charge for what you distribute, that's it. And it has been done with a lot of free software, like with Linux. That's why basically Linus changed his License from explicitly free in money to only free as in freedom.
The thing is that free software allows to have a paywall if the distributor wants it. Which has a lot of sense. But does not allow to enforce it to other distributors.
Richard Stallman distributed GNU tools by a price. HIS distribution of GNU tools. At the same time you can also get the GNU tools from idk Debian mirrors (for free).
Free software isn't free as in money. That's the whole point. The adoption of Open Source by the "cool" companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.) has tainted the original meaning of free software.
GPL is free (or libre) software. FOSS is a modern term adopted by companies.
So would that mean that torrenting parted magic is legal?
Yes? You can also torrent your favourite Linux distros. Torrenting is not illegal; distributing pirated content is
My bad, got it mixed up with gPartEd
If the source code is free software you are free to share it if you have a copy of it.