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Xoj on 08 July 2009
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That Guy said:
WereKitten said:
SamuelRSmith said:
If it's Linux-based, then doesn't that mean that it must remain free? Which means that Google will try and get the revenues elsewhere?

But where?

Since you're speaking of revenues, I assume you meant free as "at no cost", not free as in "free speech". That said, you can sell Linux and derived software for money according to its license. But you're obligated by the same license to also release the source code to any buyer.

An always online OS will likely gather revenue through the ads placed in the web applications, though.

 

Right. Imagine Linux as Lemonade. As far as I know, Lemonade is open source, as you can sell it without having to pay liscense fees to anyone. Everyone knows the ingredients, and if anybody wanted to, they can make their own lemonade themselves and sell it on their own. You really can't patent lemonade and say its your invention.

Microsoft is more like coke or pepsi, who have a product, a cola, but they will never release their "secret ingredient" and will sue other companies for trying to find out the secret formula.

Anyways, google can legally charge for their OS; and since they are using linux as a base, its sort of just like Google Lemonade. They can't copyright or patent any of the guts inside of Linux, but they can add a little spin to it to make it tastier than their competitors; i.e. adding cherries or strawberries or something.

 

Now don't think that Google is simply doing this out of charity. With more people online, that means that they will use the internet more, and google hopes that they will spend more time using google apps (laden with ads), such as gmail, google news, or simply using google to search for something.

with GNU, they can if they add anything to it, but not any software that already is open.

they can license open source code.