Questions on GPL

[mij]

Last week I talked on GPL to a friend who's working at a free software corp as a programmer. I'm new to FS and didn't read the GPL in depth, but there is one question I still don't agree with:
In his opinion, you can always modify and distribute software under GPL for free, but if you charge a fee for doing it, you might have to pay a fee to the copyright owner of the software as well.
Am I right, or should I improve my English skills to understand the GPL (and my friend) better?

[bidi]

As far as I understand it, the GPL says you can charge a fee for YOUR changes. That is, no, you do not have to pay a fee to the copyright owner because you're the copyright owner of a particular part of the code. You can also charge a fee to distribute the software in either binary or source form as long as you ditribute the source no matter what with your distribution.

Most people do not charge a fee for their changes, that's why GPL code is usually also free as in no cost.

[mij]

Well, in fact the GPL says you can charge a fee even if you make no change:

GPL Quote:
"1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, (...)
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."

The particular case we talked about was EzPublish. There is a propietary version and a GPL version. My friend said you can only use GPL version if you don't charge any fee for the work. If you wanted to do so, you have to pay a fee to EzPublish (or use the propietary version) , he said.
Isn't that against the above said?

[bidi]

The particular case we talked about was EzPublish. There is a propietary version and a GPL version. My friend said you can only use GPL version if you don't charge any fee for the work. If you wanted to do so, you have to pay a fee to EzPublish, he said.
Isn't that against the above said?

Sounds like that program is under a dual-license, which changes things a bit. Either way, the GPL specifically allows you to charge a fee to distribute a copy of the software, as I said before. The point of the GPL is to allow free, as in freedom, distribution of software code. As long as you abide by it when distributing GPLed code there's nothing anyone can do.

If EzPublish says you can't charge to distribute it's GPLed software, they have never read the license.

[mij]

Thank you very much for you answer!

[jens]

Well, in fact the GPL says you can charge a fee even if you make no change:

GPL Quote:
"1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, (...)
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."

The particular case we talked about was EzPublish. There is a propietary version and a GPL version. My friend said you can only use GPL version if you don't charge any fee for the work. If you wanted to do so, you have to pay a fee to EzPublish (or use the propietary version) , he said.
Isn't that against the above said?

The GPL is not as "FSF-only" as some OSS people(including ... well you all know who I mean) claim it to be.
The above example is possible since their software isn't a derivative work from an existing GPL project.

If you chose to place your software uder the GPL, you're indeed still allowed to use different licenses(while not recommended) for it as well. These are mostly GPL based licenses using very simular terms(but almost never GPL compatible).
From the GPL faq:

Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license?
You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license
provided that you call your license by another name and do not
include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the
instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly
different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual
procedure you describe may be similar).

If you want to use our preamble in a modified license, please
write to <licensing@gnu.org> for permission. For this purpose we
would want to check the actual license requirements to see if we
approve of them.

Although we will not raise legal objections to your making a
modified license in this way, we hope you will think twice and not
do it. Such a modified license is almost certainly incompatible
with the GNU GPL, and that incompatibility blocks useful
combinations of modules. The mere proliferation of different free
software licenses is a burden in and of itself.

For simular reasons, some prefer the LGPL here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html

You can also add some extra terms (still using GPL) by adding a "rider"(as done with the Linux kernel).
This is only allowed if your extra terms don't add any further restrictions.

Any software derived from an existing GPL project, will allways remain GPL (both source and binary). As bidi mentionned, you are indeed allowed to add a fee for it. Hower, this is only under the terms of the GPL, meaning free sources need to be available as well.

A downside of all this are the many gray zones this created (as abused by Novell and others).
Most of that should be fixed in the much easier to understand(making it more usefull in court as well) upcomming GPL version 3:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl-draft-2006-07-27.html