Reditributing OS

[Peter Roozemaal]

Puneet Goel wrote:
> 1. I have a device on which I have installed CentOS 5.2 as an 
> operating system. Now I want to sell this device. Will there be any 
> issue ?

All Open Source licenses allow you to make and sell copies of the
software, however there may be some conditions attached.

> a. There are no changes in OS. (it is just a stripped down image of
> original OS)

For GPL code, you are still required to provide (a written offer for)
the source code. There is some code in CentOS under a BSD license that
does not have this requirement, but it will be much faster for you to
collect all source rpms than sorting the license issues out.
Note that some non-GPL code comes with explicit ATTRIBUTION requirements.

> b. I have installed few generic user space applications of my own 
> installed in that OS.

If these applications can be easily separated from the "CentOS code" on
the box they will be seen as "separate works". You will have to check
what conditions apply to you when you distribute them; for example if
you link with LGPL libraries there are very specific instructions to
follow, linking with GPL libraries brings the entire application under
the GPL.

Greetings,
	Peter.