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It is legal to charge for installing Ubuntu to another person?

Manuel Rodríguez
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    Yes it is, because you are charging for your time not the Ubuntu itself and as I know you can even sell a copy of any free software ... – Ravexina May 28 '18 at 21:04
  • If it's a business, like a repair shop, it's perfectly OK. Installing Ubuntu can be considered a service. I'm not a lawyer, though, and this site is for technical advice only, not legal advice, so I'd say take advice with a grain of salt. – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 28 '18 at 21:04
  • Yes. If they don't want to pay for your service they can do it for themselves – Panther May 28 '18 at 21:06
  • @Ravexina Well, selling a copy depends on license terms,too. If I recall correctly, GPL and MIT allow that. Apache license has patent clause, if I'm not mistaken, so selling that type of software might have legal implications – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 28 '18 at 21:06
  • @SergiyKolodyazhnyy That might be true, but as I recall for a license to be compatible with FSF licenses it should have all those 4 freedoms which one lets you to sell a copy. I might be wrong... – Ravexina May 28 '18 at 21:13
  • @Ravexina Yep, but as you said, it has to be one of the licenses compatible with FSF. So still depends on the licensing terms. – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 28 '18 at 21:16

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Yes. You're not selling the software. You're selling the act of installing the software. They're two distinct things. It's perfectly okay to sell an act of installation or maintenance of FOSS. I morally wouldn't sell FOSS itself, but some licenses allow it. Either way, selling the act of installing or repairing is always OK. The act of selling FOSS may not be depending on license and modifications. (US)

RobotHumans
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  • Thank you very much for the answer, Greetings from Argentina – Manuel Rodríguez May 30 '18 at 12:35
  • Be warned that legal questions are technically out of bounds here. I only answered, because I think it's not really a legal question. It's the same as asking "Is it legal to use traceroute while I troubleshoot a network problem and charge for network diagnostic services". I only really answered the no-brainer part. – RobotHumans May 30 '18 at 19:33