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The Almighty Buck Software

Software w/ Source for Sale? 73

Posted by Cliff from the one-step-away-from-open-source dept.
frambooz asks: "As the GNU public license (amongst others) describes, you can make software that is free (as in freedom), but you don't have to make it *free* (as in free beer). I'm wondering if industry officials are aware of this fact, however. Do you know of any software packages that are Open Source, but still require you to purchase them? Did you ever work on such a project as a programmer yourself? If so, how did the development differ from a free(dom)/free(beer) Open Source application?"
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Software w/ Source for Sale? More

Software w/ Source for Sale?

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  • Quake 2, the Marathon series etc etc. Game companies seem to understand it. Of course Linux, but I don't think it counts.

    • Re:Some.. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @06:26PM (#10182958) Homepage Journal
      Have any games companies released a game that used the GPL version of the Quake 2 engine? It would seem to me that it's a pretty good deal: just stick a tar of the source on the CD and you've forefilled the requirements of the GPL. Of course, your content need not be distributed under the GPL.

      • Re:Some.. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Cryogenes ( 324121 )
        Surely, a game using the Quake 2 engine is a derived work of that engine. So if you want to release such a game you either do it under the GPL or you pay id for a commercial license of the engine.

        BTW, that is the same trick that Borland used for Kylix. You can use the free version of Kylix, but if you do, you can only distribute your programs under the GPL. If you pay for Kylix, you can distribute your programs any way you like.

        • a program written in the language of a compiler isn't a derivative work of that compiler just as much as game-data is derivative to the game-engine. It's a whole new level, a personal interpretation of a world that can take shape. Nothing derived.

          The Kylix trick is inherently flawed and probably contradicts the GPL IMHO.

          • Re:nononono (Score:3, Informative)

            by swillden ( 191260 ) *

            The Kylix trick is inherently flawed and probably contradicts the GPL IMHO.

            No, there's nothing wrong with it. You can't really build a Kylix app without using Borland libraries, so your app will include Borland code, making your code a derived work of theirs. If you don't have a license to distribute their code you can't distribute your app. Since they release their libraries under the GPL, you can release your app under the GPL, if you like. If you want to release under some other license, you have

        • Although I see your point, it would be very difficult to argue that a model file or a wall texture is somehow derived from the Quake 2 source code. If you made any changes to the engine you'd have to release those changes when you distributed the engine, but your artwork could legally be distributed with any license.
        • There is nothing in the GPL that prevents you from charging for your files.

          The GPLed version of Q2 does not include textures, wads, maps, etc... Give away the engine for free under the GPL and charge for your content. After all of this time, I'm not sure how good your sales are going to be.

          LK

    • Re:Some.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by drsmithy ( 35869 ) <drsmithy&gmail,com> on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @06:48PM (#10183201)
      Game companies seem to understand it.

      Game companies have the luxury of a significant part of their product being covered by the 'non free' license of copyright - textures, level maps, music, etc. Unlike most software, a great deal of the value in a game is *not* in the source code.

      It's substantially harder to sell "free as in freedom" (how I hate that term) software when the only real component of value in it *is* the source code, because your first customer can then turn around and give away (or even resell) your product.

      As an aside, I expect to see more companies starting to use a tactic like this to create products using "free as in freedom" software without having to give away a fully functional version in source form by integrating non-source-code "stuff" that isn't covered by the GPL. Theo's copyright on the OpenBSD CD structure is a primitive example. Copyrighted filenames (if possible ?) would probably also be a similar way of stopping someone else just grabbing your source code, recompiling it and on-selling your product without having to expend time themselves renaming all the source files.

  • Redhat EL 3? (Score:3, Informative)

    by QuantumRiff ( 120817 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @05:34PM (#10182417)
    You must buy the enterprise versions of Redhat, and you get the source, but not the source to some of their proprietary stuff.. ..

    • Re:Redhat EL 3? (Score:4, Informative)

      by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @06:56PM (#10183295) Journal
      You can rebuild a complete RHEL3 (minus the few bits of proprietary stuff I haven't noticed yet) from the public source, so long as you change the name and remove any Red Hat trademarks.

      Some RHEL3 based distributions:
      http://www.centos.org/ [centos.org]
      http://whiteboxlinux.org/ [whiteboxlinux.org]
      http://taolinux.org/ [taolinux.org]
    • The binary distribution of RHEL is not free, but you can get the SRPMs off RedHat's FTP server (that there is not 1 mention of on their web site). There are a few projects like Whitebox Enterprise Linux [whitebox.org] that simple take Red Hat's SRPMs, rebuild them, package it in an ISO and upload it to the net. Some of RedHats proprietary stuff isn't open source, I see the point. I hate companies that claim they are dedicated to open source, but then decide to start releasing closed-source stuff.
      • Do you happen to know off hand (or have a URL) of what RedHat doesnt release as OSS? I would suspect that most, if not all, of the RH stuff that isnt OSS was stuff they got through aquisitions, rather then stuff they built inhouse.

  • How about Qt? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swillden ( 191260 ) * <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @05:34PM (#10182420) Journal

    Do you know of any software packages that are Open Source, but still require you to purchase them?

    How about Trolltech's Qt for Windows? It's strictly commercial, but comes with source code. Actually lots of commercial development tools and libraries fit this model, probably because programmers find tools that provide source code to be much more useful. It's also quite common among certain software packages used by big business: packages that have to be heavily customized. Every large-scale point-of-sale software package (e.g. the software that runs the checkout lanes at the grocery store) comes with a source license, or makes one available for a reasonable fee (which everyone buys as a matter of course).

    Binary-only software is a very new thing, historically. It was really quite uncommon prior to the rise of microcomputers, probably because the people who ran and managed the workstations, minis and mainframes were largely programmers and they found that software with source was more useful (who'da thunkit?).

    If you're referring to software that is licensed under an open source license that allows redistribution, then no, I don't think you'll find too many packages that fit the model, and I don't think authors who try to do that will be immensely successful at selling software. But selling software with source works just fine, thanks to the power of copyright law. And selling services and support around truly Free Software works pretty well also.

    Actually, I think that people who expect copyright protection for binary-only software are abusing copyright. The purpose of the law is to promote the growth of science and useful arts by encouraging publication, so that other people can learn from the ideas to create even more stuff. But these days we allow people to eat their cake and have it too; they can both obtain society's help in protecting their source code from illicit copying *and* they can also keep it secret to prevent people from learning their ideas. IMO, if you don't want to publish source code, you shouldn't get copyright protection for your source code. Use trade secret law to protect it. That's not as good, because under trade secret law if someone leaks it you can only go after the leaker, not anyone else who distributed the now-public information, but that's the tradeoff you should have to make: If I publish my ideas so others can build on them, then society will help me make sure no one copies my code, or creats unauthorized derivative works. If I keep my ideas secret, then I have to protect my code myself (I can still get copyright protection on the published binaries, however).

    Unfortunately, old copyright law never foresaw that it might be possible to publish your work while simultaneously keeping it secret, and new copyright law has forgotten all about the need to balance private vs. public good.

    • Qt for Windows isn't Free Software.

    • Binary-only software is a very new thing, historically. It was really quite uncommon prior to the rise of microcomputers...

      Are you living in the 80s? Because binary-only software became pretty prevalent in the mid-1970s, which is some 30 years ago. That might be recent in terms of, say, the history of humans, but is not particularly recent in terms of the history of programmable computers. It happened at about the halfway mark, in today's terms, which isn't exactly recent.
      • > Because binary-only software became pretty prevalent in the mid-1970s, which is some 30 years ago.

        About the time of the "rise of microcomputers", as he said.
    • The purpose of the law [copyright] is to promote the growth of science and useful arts by encouraging publication...

      I think that you may mean patents here. But I agree with your sentiment

      • Re:How about Qt? (Score:3, Informative)

        by swillden ( 191260 ) *

        I think that you may mean patents here.

        Patents and copyrights both arise from this same underlying theory, and the same bit of the US Constitution. There are differences in the legal implementation because it makes sense to strike a different balance between the public and private interests for mechanisms than it does for expressions.

        The reason copyright law has never explicitly required publication (unlike patents) is that without publication there was no way the author could commercially exploit his

        • > Patents and copyrights both arise from this same underlying theory, and the same bit of the US Constitution.

          So you think Patents and copyrights are USA inventions then? Bloody arrogant yanks. From the constitution !!??? arrrgh!

          • Re:How about Qt? (Score:3, Informative)

            by swillden ( 191260 ) *

            So you think Patents and copyrights are USA inventions then? Bloody arrogant yanks. From the constitution !!??? arrrgh!

            Of course not. But I was talking about US law. Sorry for the America-centrism, but slashdot *is* an unabashedly American web site, even if there are visitors from all over.

            But, to give credit where credit is due, copyrights were actually invented by the British primarily as a means of censorship. This type of copyright started out as sort of an agreement about publisher's rights (pu

  • Dont confuse GPL and open source (Score:3, Insightful)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @05:37PM (#10182448) Homepage Journal
    Well, that's how the things usually work in the embedded world from the startof the industry. In the embedded programming you do need to customize the purchased packages occasionally, as you switch to different architectures, different chips within the same architectures and so on.

    So you buy a software product (TCP/IP stack, or some drivers), and they usually come with the royalty-free source. You cannot resell the product, but you can embed the product in your own system and resell that. The source belongs to the original manufacturer and is free for you to tinker with.

    That's kinda the way the things always were in the embedded world, too many people are confusing the GPL and GNU ideology with the concept of having sources on additional CD with the product you purchased.
    • Yeah, I think the poster of the original article is not clear on the term "open source" that he uses. He indicates this in wondering if "industry officials" are aware that they can charge for open source stuff per the GPL. He is probably thinking of what I would call "source included". That would not be under an open redistribution license, as the GPL is. Most companies would not go for that because there's no way to make people buy it anymore.

  • selling a product vs. download (Score:3, Insightful)

    by urdine ( 775754 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @05:39PM (#10182474)

    The Internet lays bare an interesting human trait - that people are willing to pay for a product in a physical form that they could grasp from the ether for free.

    Examples: People who bought RedHat in the store for the box, the manual, and the CD, rather than downloading it. Same thing when people buy the PDF version of an online article so they can print it out or just "keep" it - people do this more than you would think.

    I think there is real value added by having a physical product, and some of the bigger open source software projects should do this if possible. Not only is it another way to get funding for the project, but it's actually something a lot of people want. Wouldn't you like to have Wikipedia 1.0 sitting over your desk?

    • The examples you gave are fairly... poor... Do I print copies of stuff available online? Sure, it's easier to read on paper than on my monitor. Would I buy a copy of Redhat in stores? If I were a Redhat user, sure. It comes with a warranty, plus I get a printed manual (again, easier to read), and CDs (saves on download time), plus usually some extras (e.g., a program disk). On the other hand, there are some things I'd rather have in a digital version than a physical version. I'd much rather use dictionary.c
    • Wouldn't you like to have Wikipedia 1.0 sitting over your desk?

      I woudn't even want Wikipedia 1.0 hanging on a nail in the shithouse.

      • Of course not. (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by leonbrooks ( 8043 )
        You wouldn't be able to squeeze past the Wikipedia to use the facility, and finding a nail that big would be interesting. Finding a piece of the shithouse structure that would take a nail that big would be even more interesting.

        Besides which, it's dynamic. Pretty soon you wouldn't be able to find the shithouse under all of the updates.
    • Actually some of us bought RedHat at the store after downloading it. It turned out that the only way to give them money was by doing that. Yes, I emailled the sales department asking if I could pay for a copy and there was no need to actually send me anything. They insisted I could only buy it from them with some exorbitant shipping fee or at my local store. Not that it matters any more since they decided they no longer wanted my money.
  • I don't think you'll find anyone selling software with the source available under the GPL. Instead, they usually use a slightly more compatible liscence that doesn't translate into competitors starting up on sourceforge, or a dual liscencing scheme. If the GPL and money matters that much to you, typically you come up with a different revenue approach. The FSF sells manuals, T Shirts and accepts donations. Some people sell contracting services or hardware. ESR wrote one of those faux authortarian articles on
    • Wouldn't work anymore. As another poster pointed out, EMACS was once sold that way. That said, I don't think it would work anymore. If it's under the GPL, people can redistribute it. So anyone could buy it, and then once they got their hands on the source, publish it to the web for everyone else for free. Now there is no point is selling the source with it anymore. While it may have once worked (and I don't know about that), it wouldn't work anymore unless EVERY SINGLE USER kept the source to themselves. I
  • Perhaps I am missing something here, maybe someone can enlighten me.

    How can you give away the source for free, yet also charge for the software? What stops people just downloading the source and compiling it, without paying? Or do you just rely on people/companies being good enough to CHOOSE to pay for it, when then don't actually have to?

    Thanks in advance to anyone who has a better understanding of the GPL than I and can give a simple explanation!
    • The poster was saying that once you buy a license for the product (usually flat rate), you will get the source code included with the release.

      I've seen quite a few smaller java libraries released like this. It makes sense when you're dealing with small software component developers. If for some reason they go belly up or disappear (which happens often with little guys), you aren't forced to rip out the code and throw it away.

      I can't say that this type of distribution would work well for many different sof

    • Re:Forgive my ignorance, but how? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by (H)elix1 ( 231155 ) <slashdot.helix@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @05:55PM (#10182637) Homepage Journal
      How can you give away the source for free, yet also charge for the software? What stops people just downloading the source and compiling it, without paying?

      The build process for some things is not trivial... Some of the big distros - SuSE and Redhad enterprise versions don't (and I could be wrong, but bare with me) have the source code available. Reproducing those distros in the binary bootable iso format is not for the faint of heart. Look at the elbow grease it took to get White Box Linux - compiled from the source of RHEL - up and running. In corporate, it is often easier to buy open source kit than get it running yourself. As a bonus, you get someone else to take care of the maintenance....
      • It's "bear with me", not "bare with me".

        P.S. I put the punctuation outside the quotations intentionally.
      • The build process for some things is not trivial... Some of the big distros - SuSE and Redhad enterprise versions don't (and I could be wrong, but bare with me) have the source code available. Reproducing those distros in the binary bootable iso format is not for the faint of heart. Look at the elbow grease it took to get White Box Linux - compiled from the source of RHEL - up and running. In corporate, it is often easier to buy open source kit than get it running yourself. As a bonus, you get someone else
    • Um, free software is not about price. You can quite easily sell a GPL product and give the source code to the people who PAY you for it.

      You can't stop them giving your GPL program away though, however you could only give away new versions of the source to people who've paid you, or you could use a license key and web activation for the binaries.

      You could even make a license key style system for your compile job, or tie your product to a hardware dongle.

      All ways that could be expanded on.
    • You don't have to supply the software for download... It is permissible to *sell* GPL programs, and only make the source available to people who bought it from you.

      You can charge as much as you like for the software. If it is required for someones business, and they buy it, there is pressure for *them* to not redistribute (and lose competitive advantage).

      If *you* actually have a contribution, it is reasonable for "people/companies" to pay you. Otherwise, they lose your contribution. Call it a "support mod
      • Okay, to take this a little further...

        I go to Company A, buy the binary and they give me the source code under GPL. Unbeknownst to Company A, my real intent is to recompile the code, and then sell the SAME product as A, but now undercut them. I sell the binaries and distribute the source code under the GPL, just like A.

        From what I understand of the GPL, there is no way A can prohibit me from doing this - they are not allowed to add any more restrictive terms to the license. How does A protect themselve
        • Sure, sell it and undercut the original vendor...

          If *you* can do a better job supporting the product, go right ahead. Just remember, you are going against the expert.

          If no support is needed, or customization, its probably horizontal. Sure, GPL, because that software should be "in the commons". If its vertical, it needs support/customization.

          Ratboy

    • How can you give away the source for free, yet also charge for the software? What stops people just downloading the source and compiling it, without paying? Or do you just rely on people/companies being good enough to CHOOSE to pay for it, when then don't actually have to?

      If you're distributing an end-user product targeted towards non-techies, many of them simply don't want to be bothered with having to compile and set-up everything. They don't want to have to ensure they have a compiler installed (reme

      • Ok, but what is to stop someone from seeing that you are charging $100 for software X and then DLing your source, compiling it and selling it themselves for $50? Then the next guy for $10?

        I think the fact that there are precious few people actually making more than "pizza money" on GPLed projects (Where a piece of proprietary hardware was not also required) pretty much makes the case that though it may be technically possible, practically, it is nearly impossible to do.

        • Ok, but what is to stop someone from seeing that you are charging $100 for software X and then DLing your source, compiling it and selling it themselves for $50? Then the next guy for $10?

          Absolutely nothing. But would you want to buy the software from the people who know the code inside-out, or from someone who just slaps code on a CD?

          Regardless, I'd be happy if I could just make enough money for a pizza a week and to pay for my domain name and some of the hosting services I pay for out of my own pock

  • Mysql under certain circumsances.

  • GNU Emacs (Score:3, Informative)

    by gorre ( 519164 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @05:44PM (#10182515) Homepage
    The earliest example of selling free software is probably RMS selling tapes of GNU Emacs for $150 a tape. He says he sold 8-10 tapes a month which generated enough cash for him to live off.
    • thers one BUT, that Emacs he sold .. it wasnt exactly a GNU one, but someones else property. He simply stole that code. RMS is a very BAD mofo.

  • Did you ever work on such a project as a programmer yourself?

    At my workplace, typical work is customizing already free-as-both-beer-and-speech existing programs (skins, terminology, add a function here and there). So, take GPL, give GPL.

    If so, how did the development differ from a free(dom)/free(beer) Open Source application?

    Somebody gets paid!

    Feel ready to own one or many Tux Stickers [ptaff.ca]?

  • JClass [quest.com] from Quest Software (formerly Sitraka) is a package of Java classes to create charts. You had the option to pay extra to get the source code.

    This was a couple of years ago. I'm not sure if they will have the same licensing terms.
  • Many people think that the GPL implies free (beer) software. It doesn't. Software can completely be sold under the GPL, and this is something people aren't aware enough of. Here are some examples I know of:

    Lsongs [linspire.com] (and other Linspire things)

    Dansguardian [dansguardian.org] - This is a particularly wacky one. If one downloads the source code, isn't he then able to use it however he wants? Or distribute it?

    CMSimple [cmsimple.dk]

    An interesting consequence of the GPL is that even though software is sold under the GPL, it may then be red

    • The author of Dansguardian states first that his software is not free for commercial purposes, but then says it is licensed under the GPL. This is a contradiction.

      The GPL does not explicitly stipulate commercial or non-commercial use. Its only requirement is that source is distributed with binaries, and that all subsequent derivative works are also licensed under the GPL. If this guy wants to make his software non-free for commercial use, he should write his own license.

  • I'm considering doing just this with my jSyncManager Project [jsyncmanager.org], which is licensed under the GPL/LGPL (the API is LGPL'ed, the applications built on top of it are GPL'ed).

    While I already provide the source for free online, along with binaries, it's a Java application, and it requires several pre-requisites which are platform-specific (like the Java Communications API, and/or the Java USB API). Users can go out and get all of the parts that are specific to their platform, but many of them find this too much o

  • .. so does that count? Its not GPL, but if anyone wants to buy it and link against it / compile it they can. They just cant sell it.
  • is an example. They just released a new version. AXIOM is also worth checking out. It is free as in freedom and free as in free beer.
  • Many linux distros sell their product.

    But any customer can copy GPL software that he purchases, which removes the artificial monopoly that lets most software be profitable.

    A better way to build a business around free software is to charge for the thing that's actually hard to do, which is making and supporting the software. Neither of those can be duplicated for free, like software can.
    • An even better way would be to make rubbish software that requires loads of support cause it keeps crashing...AND charging people for it.

      Hold on a minute...no wonder Microsoft are so successful ;-)

  • rogue wave (Score:3, Informative)

    by rmull ( 26174 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @08:33PM (#10184445) Homepage
    Rogue Wave Software [rougewave.com] always used to ship source. I assume they still do.
  • A fee gives you access to the CVS repository for 1 year. The software is GPL'ed (not LGPL), and forkable under those rules. To produce a closed source application requires additional $$. Since their target market probably prefers other OSs than Linux, this is where they would get a bunch of $$ from.

    Since they require $$ before letting people see the code, it does limit the number of developers on the project. However, they seem to be making money at it. :)

    http://www.openss7.com/
    http://www.openss7.org /

  • Bad Assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @09:24PM (#10184864) Homepage Journal
    You're making erroneous assumptions, but don't feel bad, because GNU makes the same ones. The first bad assumption is that the reality follows theory. The second is that you're selling software.

    The theory is that you can put a price tag on Free Software. The reality is that you're going to find precious few customers for it. Free Software is like a gate without a fence. You can charge all you want to use the gate, but without a fence you won't find too many people paying you for that privilege. You're going to sell to the first customer, and maybe to the second, but by the time you get to the fifth or sixth you'll find your earlier customers have become your competitors and driven down the market price to zero dollars.

    There are no publicly available Free Software packages with a market price greater than zero. Take the GCC toolkit for example. GNU theoretically "sells" it for $45, but in reality everyone gets it for free. I know that I have several copies laying around, and I didn't pay for a one of them.

    Which leads to the second bad assumption. When you find people "buying" Free Software, they aren't really buying the software. When you buy a boxed set of SuSE or Redhat you are not buying the software, you are buying the box, manuals, service and support, and the convenience of not having to download and burn your own CDs and DVDs. The software itself is free (as in french fries). Or take the "Deluxe GNU Distribution" which GNU sells for $5000. Do you really think people are buying GNU software for that kind of money? Of course not! They're buying a combination of custom prebuilt binaries and the warm fuzzy feeling a generous charitable donation gives.

    Some people will be fooled, however. Some people will buy SuSE and Redhat not knowing that they can get it for no cost. What they're buying in this instance is an education. One notable commercial Open Source figure once admitted to me that he was in the business of taxing ignorance.

    Please stop spreading this myth that you can sell the software. You can't. You can certainly sell a convenience, a support contract, or even warm fuzzies, but you cannot sell practically sell the software. The realities of economics won't let you.

    • You're making erroneous assumptions, but don't feel bad, because GNU makes the same ones. The first bad assumption is that the reality follows theory. The second is that you're selling software.

      You are flatly wrong. Please read what the FSF actually says [gnu.org] on the topic before you comment on what they think again.

      Here are some things that the FSF actually says on the topic (emphasis in italics is mine):

      Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or

      can.

      Wi

      • I realize that's what GNU says. But they also say otherwise. Simply refer to Free Software, especially Free Software from GNU, as "noncommercial", and you will find representatives from GNU telling you otherwise. If you're a reporter and asserted this publicly, be prepared to receive an email from RMS himself correcting you.

        GNU is correct that you can create a commercial endeavor using Free Software, but you cannot in practice make the software itself commercial.

        p.s. I'm using the word "GNU" to refer to T
        • I don't think they correct the use of noncommercial for non-proprietary because they think that Free Software can be sold the way propritary software is, in direct contridiction of what they say. I think that they make this correction because they belive that this misuse of the word noncommercial creates the impression that it is not suitable for commerical use, or not licensed for commerical use.

          -Peter
  • I can take free GPL code, make a change and then resell it for $500,000?

    Isn't this just another way of keeping the source closed?
    • I can take free GPL code, make a change and then resell it for $500,000?

      Yes. But you're required to include the source code, and your customer may then redistribute it at whatever price they see fit. You'll only get that $500,000 once, and that only if your one change is good enough to justify your price.

      • Actually, what I was getting at is that the binary is part of my system (for example, an mp3 player).

        Then, when the competition wants to get access to my mp3 code (which started out as GPL), then I tell them that I would be happy to give them access to it for $9999999999999999999999999.99

        Effectively, I've closed open-source allowing me to make improvements that don't get back into the community.
        • No... you can't do that. You've already distributed your modified code when you sold the mp3 player; you have to provide the source to all the people to whom you distribute the modified code, i.e. everyone who's bought that mp3 player.

          You can charge what you like for that mp3 player, though. And you don't have to make the code available to the world at large - just to the people who've bought the mp3 player. Of course, then they can distribute the code freely to the world if they like.

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