Charging ($20) for GPL source?

[Karel Kulhavy]

On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 01:10:25AM -0500, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
> Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
> > As for charging, if the actual cost to the company of preparing and
> > shipping the source code on CD ROM is $20 then there is nothing wrong in
> > charging $20
> 
> I actually think that's highly unlikely.  The cost of a CD-R is $.16 .
> Media rate is $1.59.  A CD-R drive with shipping is $13.  Minimum wage
> is $5.15/h.  That gives us $19.90.  They're still ripping people off if

They have a high-quality very expensive drive to ensure you will be able to
read it and use highly skilled personnel (=expensive work) in the burning
process for additional quality and satisfaction.

Sounds like somewhat a loophole in the GPL. We'll sell the source for $300 and
make sure we manufacture them so crazily inefficiently that we can actually
prove in a court they cost $300 to make. And then we found a nice loophole to
prevent access to our valuable Intellectual (R) Property (TM).

CL<

> they have to get CD-Rs in packs of 50, it takes an hour for them to burn
> a CD, and their CD-R drive breaks after every burn.
> 
> Nevertheless, I don't think this price is actionable.  I hope someone
> does go after one of those $100/source CD vendors, but it probably won't
> happen.
> 
> Matthew Flaschen
>