Is Linux free?

toyotacelicagt4 · 12 Oct 2008 at 17:25

As above. Do you have to purchase a licence like Windows?

Thanks

Pilky01 · 12 Oct 2008 at 17:27

It is free.

pingwing · 12 Oct 2008 at 17:50

Very free

Unless you want redhat support....

/hides

MotherMayI · 12 Oct 2008 at 18:00

Could a 2 second Google not of answered this for you?

psd99 · 12 Oct 2008 at 18:44

Well yes and that is why the majority of big companies like Cisco use Linux on their networking devices. In fact a lot of high profile companies favour Linux over any MS software purely because it won't cost them.

It is freeware and can be modified to suit your needs something that can kick MS in the whatsits very hard for ever.

psd99 · 12 Oct 2008 at 18:45

MotherMayI said:
Could a 2 second Google not of answered this for you?

sometimes I consider this site a 1 second google

Craig321 · 12 Oct 2008 at 18:47

psd99 said:
In fact a lot of high profile companies favour Linux over any MS software purely because it won't cost them.

I really don't think the main reason why they all use Linux is because it's free, it's more the fact that it can be modified as much as needed.

paradigm · 12 Oct 2008 at 19:09

psd99 said:
Well yes and that is why the majority of big companies like Cisco use Linux on their networking devices.

O RLY?

deadite66 · 12 Oct 2008 at 19:10

MotherMayI said:
Could a 2 second Google not of answered this for you?

don't join #ubuntu on freenode then, 99.9% of questions could be solved with a quick google.
awful channel.

bigredshark · 12 Oct 2008 at 20:06

psd99 said:
Well yes and that is why the majority of big companies like Cisco use Linux on their networking devices. In fact a lot of high profile companies favour Linux over any MS software purely because it won't cost them.

It is freeware and can be modified to suit your needs something that can kick MS in the whatsits very hard for ever.

Actually it's been fairly conclusively proven that Windows and Linux are completely cost comparable in a business environment. Any series business is going to pay for support from whatever they use so that cancels out the low (or non existent) initial cost. Other costs are staff training (Linux certified engineers generally cost more and training is more important as far less people have familiarity compared to Windows.

Linux is used where it's appropriate, Windows is used where it's appropriate.

Cisco only use Linux for the UCM platform, the actual networking kit is nothing to do with it. The only major player who uses anything like that is juniper, JUNOS is unix underpinned but it's BSD not linux.

Monkeynut · 12 Oct 2008 at 20:39

Linux is free without support in most cases, as it's perfectly legal to charge for it, of course.

Usually what you pay for is tech support, but then there's forums for most distros.

Trifid · 12 Oct 2008 at 20:57

Monkeynut said:
Linux is free without support in most cases, as it's perfectly legal to charge for it, of course.

Usually what you pay for is tech support, but then there's forums for most distros.

Doesn't GNU GPL mean that you can't make money from it?

GarethDW · 12 Oct 2008 at 21:04

They make their money from providing support for the OS, not from charging for the OS itself... if that makes any sense.

Monkeynut · 12 Oct 2008 at 21:18

Trifid said:
Doesn't GNU GPL mean that you can't make money from it?

No, it means you can charge for GNU GPL software but must provide source code on request. That's an approximation, I'm not sure whether pointing to the official website counts as "providing the source code"

apeZ · 12 Oct 2008 at 22:43

Yes its free.

No, you can't make money from it if the source code is not licensed to you (I think...)

Garp · 13 Oct 2008 at 00:21

psd99 said:
Well yes and that is why the majority of big companies like Cisco use Linux on their networking devices.

Cisco's IOS is a completely proprietary OS, it's nothing to do with Linux.

You're more likely to see derivatives of BSD on embedded devices in my experience (e.g. Citrix NetScalers) possibly due to the Licence it's provided under.

freebooter · 13 Oct 2008 at 00:50

Linux is only free if your time has no value

growse · 13 Oct 2008 at 11:53

apeZ said:
Yes its free.

No, you can't make money from it if the source code is not licensed to you (I think...)

Except that GPL software is licensed to you. Under the GPL.

Don't think there's any restriction in the GPL about not making money from GPL software, you just have to allow anyone who you distribute the binary to to also have access to the source and they're then free to do what they want with the source, also within the confines of the GPL.

yashiro · 14 Oct 2008 at 16:37

Linux is only free if your time has no value

Heh. Indeed.

Linux is very good but still requires too much research to get it working at a level that today's users are accustomed to.

Will this ever change? No.

There's not enough money, and people, involved for hardware and software companies to jump on the Linux bus with both feet.

The 'community', while having many helpful people is in general self destructive. Bickering over distributions, how to do things, who knows best etc.
Conflicting ideologies and advice are often as useless as no help at all.

Garp · 14 Oct 2008 at 16:58

yashiro said:
There's not enough money, and people, involved for hardware and software companies to jump on the Linux bus with both feet.

That's just not true with the amount of money IBM, RedHat, Canonical, Novell, HP, Dell and so on are pumping into it.

As for Linux only being free if you don't value your time, exactly the same is true for Windows. Both operating systems require time to learn and use effectively, both take time to administer and tweak to satisfaction. OS X knocks both into a hat for ease of setup, but then it's aided by a very narrow hardware set.