[coreboot] Commerical support for Linux BIOS

[Phani Babu Giddi]

Hello All,

Thanks for your response. Yes I am aware of GPL and I would assume the
commerical Linux BIOS distribution would submit the code back to the repo
for any fixes/enhancements.

Regards,
Phani

On Jan 14, 2008 7:48 PM, Peter Stuge <peter at stuge.se> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 09:26:27PM -0500, Ward Vandewege wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 02:58:07AM +0100, Peter Stuge wrote:
> > > Note that it's not really legally possible to sell you a firmware
> > > based on coreboot
> >
> > That's not correct. It's perfectly possible and allowed. It's just
> > that the source also needs be provided (as per the requirements of
> > the GPL), and that nobody can stop you - the customer - from
> > redistributing that source code under the GPL.
>
> Thanks for the correction!
>
>
> > So what Peter is saying here, I think, is that it is difficult to
> > charge for software under the GPL because your price point can be
> > undercut quite easily.
>
> Well, no, but that is a good point.
>
> I should have been more clear - what I tried (but failed) to explain
> is that it's not possible to sell a coreboot firmware under any terms
> like those that traditional BIOS vendors use since their source code
> uses a different license.
>
> I also meant to say that the practical way to "purchase" a coreboot
> firmware is to hire someone to write the neccessary code, and that
> code will most likely automatically be GPL and so it should be
> contributed back into the project repository - meaning that the
> paying customer will not get much exclusive in the purchase, except
> of course bragging rights and whatever customization benefits that
> come from running coreboot on the particular hardware platform.
>
>
> > > - since coreboot is GPL you are always entitled
> > > to receive the source code free of charge.
> >
> > That is actually not 100% correct - see section 6 of the GPL
>
> Again - thanks for correcting! I only think online distribution and
> shall go and sleep now. :)
>
>
> //Peter
>
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