Hola Tom !   you are correct, techs are alloed to charge for service,* their
time*, to repair software problems.
Notice that Canonical , see: http://webapps.ubuntu.com/partners/
does have paid support and you can become a partner.

Canonical, Ubuntu the connection !!

Allengg

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Tom <email address hidden> wrote:

> With regards to non-free technical support it must be worth reading
> through the GPL and other licensing agreements to clarify that this is
> not against the agreement.
>
> There is a question about whether it is desirable for The Linux
> Communities or right (as in the balance of good and evil in the world)
> and my personal feeling is that it is.  People like paying for support,
> maybe they feel the question gets answered faster/better/more
> professionally - who knows?
>
> There is a lot of easily accessible free support out there and as long
> as us tech-support types make people aware of that then surely we can
> charge what we want?  Perhaps the more the better as people clearly seem
> scared by the prospect of something being free (and therefore see as
> worthless rather than realising it is priceless).  Perhaps we should
> charge a set fee for call-out-charge and mileage but then charge more
> hourly for Linux/free-software problems rather than Windows problems?
> Lol, that would make sense to most consumers and presumably end up
> costing them about the same as Windows problems tend to take longer,
> especially if you need to defrag before starting.
>
> With regards to the agreement i'm pretty sure that we are allowed to
> charge - i haven't started doing so yet but hope to start soon.  I've
> only read through the agreement a couple of times , once when i first
> started using Linux and once trying to translate the US version into
> English (doing so helped me stay awake(ish)  while reading the legal
> document.)
>
> --
> Microsoft has a majority market share
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Club Distro: Confirmed
> Status in Computer Science Ubuntu: Confirmed
> Status in Ichthux - Linux for Christians: Confirmed
> Status in JAK LINUX: Confirmed
> Status in The OpenOffice.org Suite: Invalid
> Status in Launchpad Translations: Invalid
> Status in Tabuntu: Confirmed
> Status in Ubuntu: In Progress
> Status in "bum" source package in Ubuntu: Invalid
> Status in "casper" source package in Ubuntu: Invalid
> Status in "djplay" source package in Ubuntu: Invalid
> Status in "firefox" source package in Ubuntu: Invalid
> Status in "ubuntu-express" source package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
> Status in The Breezy Badger: Invalid
> Status in The Dapper Drake: Invalid
> Status in Baltix GNU/Linux: Confirmed
> Status in "linux" source package in Debian: Confirmed
> Status in Fluxbuntu: The Lightweight, Productive, Agile OS: Confirmed
> Status in Tilix Linux: New
>
> Bug description:
> Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
> This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.
>
> Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry,
> restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and
> limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential,
> globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.
>
> Steps to repeat:
>
> 1. Visit a local PC store.
>
> What happens:
> 2. Observe that a majority of PCs for sale have non-free software
> pre-installed.
> 3. Observe very few PCs with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed.
>
> What should happen:
> 1. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like
> Ubuntu.
> 2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and
> benefits would be apparent and known by all.
> 3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.
>