Hello, I am starting a web-based computer retail store, selling computer systems that have Linux pre-configured. I want to offer Fedora 10 (eventually 11), Ubuntu LTS and possibly a couple more distros to choose from. The website is www.stitzcomputers.com and I need to ask a couple of legal questions.
Does Fedora accept donations, and if so, where can I find a URL to put on my site for this? Also, I will donate a part of every system sale ($10 USD) to the distro that the customer chooses to be installed on his/her system.
Can I use the Fedora logo on my website for the purpose of promoting my product and linking back to Fedora websites?
Although I am not charging for Linux directly, one could argue that I will profit from each distro offered because it essentially becomes part of the product that I am selling for a profit. Do I need permission from Fedora before I can offer Fedora to be pre-installed on my computer systems?
What level of support for the distro do I need to offer? Can I count on the Fedora Forums to offer the support my customers will undoubtedly need?
I am going to need to take advantage of any exposure my company can get, so with this in mind, is there any means of advertising on your sites or getting mentioned (and linked) here as a provider of Fedora-based systems?
Can I offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well, and what would be the benefits to my customers?
Thanks in advance for your time and attention devoted to this matter, I'll look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely, Richard Stitz richard@stitzweb.com www.stitzcomputers.com
Hi Richard, thanks for your email. I'll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.
On 05/17/2009 10:16 AM, Richard Stitz wrote:
Does Fedora accept donations, and if so, where can I find a URL to put on my site for this? Also, I will donate a part of every system sale ($10 USD) to the distro that the customer chooses to be installed on his/her system.
We're looking into whether this is possible or not.
Can I use the Fedora logo on my website for the purpose of promoting my product and linking back to Fedora websites?
The answer here is yes, provided that you follow the Fedora Trademark guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines#Business_web_sites
Although I am not charging for Linux directly, one could argue that I will profit from each distro offered because it essentially becomes part of the product that I am selling for a profit. Do I need permission from Fedora before I can offer Fedora to be pre-installed on my computer systems?
You do not need permission, as long as you are in compliance with the Fedora trademark guidelines (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines).
What level of support for the distro do I need to offer? Can I count on the Fedora Forums to offer the support my customers will undoubtedly need?
This is up to you. Fedora does not "sell" any levels of support for our distribution releases. Assistance is provided to Fedora users via a number of official and unofficial websites: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate
However, none of them guarantee any sort of resolution to issues, so I am not sure that you can "count" on these mechanisms to resolve all possible issues that your customers might face.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (an offering from Red Hat) does have varying levels of support with proper SLAs.
I am going to need to take advantage of any exposure my company can get, so with this in mind, is there any means of advertising on your sites or getting mentioned (and linked) here as a provider of Fedora-based systems?
We have not traditionally done this, but as far as I know, you are the first person to ask for something like this. I've raised the issue internally and will let you know what I find out.
Can I offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well, and what would be the benefits to my customers?
You'd need to talk to someone else at Red Hat about that: http://www.redhat.com/partners/helpdesk/
Once I have answers for the questions I was unable to immediately answer, I will write you again.
Hope that helps,
Tom Callaway, Fedora Legal
On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 05:23:14PM -0400, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
Hi Richard, thanks for your email. I'll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.
Spot answered almost exactly as I would have, but I'll add a couple things below in the hopes of helping.
On 05/17/2009 10:16 AM, Richard Stitz wrote:
Does Fedora accept donations, and if so, where can I find a URL to put on my site for this? Also, I will donate a part of every system sale ($10 USD) to the distro that the customer chooses to be installed on his/her system.
We're looking into whether this is possible or not.
It's not easy for us to accept money for a number of reasons, even though we appreciate the gesture. I would offer that even if we can't take these donations, there are plenty of upstream projects that could benefit from them, such as the GNOME Foundation and the Free Software Foundation. (I think those are fully tax-deductible as well, for what it's worth, but you should consult your tax professional since I'm not one.)
Although I am not charging for Linux directly, one could argue that I will profit from each distro offered because it essentially becomes part of the product that I am selling for a profit. Do I need permission from Fedora before I can offer Fedora to be pre-installed on my computer systems?
You do not need permission, as long as you are in compliance with the Fedora trademark guidelines (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines).
We are working on some updates to the guidelines to make this clearer in the case of OEM pre-loads, as in your case.
I am going to need to take advantage of any exposure my company can get, so with this in mind, is there any means of advertising on your sites or getting mentioned (and linked) here as a provider of Fedora-based systems?
We have not traditionally done this, but as far as I know, you are the first person to ask for something like this. I've raised the issue internally and will let you know what I find out.
We have wiki pages on our site that list vendors who offer sponsored media -- that is, Fedora for sale, where part of the proceeds goes to fund free media for people in low-bandwidth areas who want Fedora media.
I think it might be possible to have a page listing vendors who offer Fedora pre-loaded on systems, but it would need to be abundantly clear that the Fedora Project is not endorsing any vendors labeled on that page. It would be virtually impossible for us to conduct any sort of rigorous quality testing on the products offered by vendors on that page.
We still have to do some digging, but hopefully the information you from him will get you started, and I hope I've added something useful too.
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Paul W. Frields -
Richard Stitz -
Tom Callaway