Charging ($20) for GPL source?

[Robert Brockway]

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Omar Kaminski wrote:

> Ok, I agree. But it is a difficult for any who lives in another country, for 
> example.
>
> So it's almost simililar to not making the source-code avaliable.

IANAL.  Now I've got that out of the way...

As others have stated what the company is doing (as described) is 
permissible within the GPL.  Remember though that the GPL permits you (or 
me, or everyone) to put the binary and source on a web site and offer it 
for download at no cost.

But don't take my word for it:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLRequireAvailabilityToPublic

This has always struck me as one of the most important defences for 
keeping software free (as in beer).  In essence it only takes a minority 
of people to want to give away software at no cost for the effective 
market cost (in money) of the software to be zero or near zero.

Cheers,

Rob

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