<!-- retain these comments for translator revision tracking -->
<!-- Original version: $Revision: 1.7 $ -->
<chapt id="redistrib">Redistributing &debian; in a commercial product

<sect id="sellcds">Can I make and sell Debian CDs?

<p>Go ahead. You do not need permission to distribute anything we have
<em>released</em>, so that you can master your CD as soon as the beta-test
ends. You do not have to pay us anything. Of course, all CD manufacturers
must honor the licenses of the programs in Debian. For example, many of the
programs are licensed under the GPL, which requires you to distribute their
source code.

<p>Also, we will publish a list of CD manufacturers who donate money,
software, and time to the Debian project, and we will encourage users to buy
from manufacturers who donate, so it is good advertising to make donations.

<sect id="packagednonfree">Can Debian be packaged with non-free software?

<p>Yes. While all the main components of Debian are free software, we
provide a non-free directory for programs that are not freely
redistributable.

<p>CD manufacturers <em>may</em> be able to distribute the programs we
have placed in that directory, depending on the license terms or their
private arrangements with the authors of those software packages.
CD manufacturers can also distribute the non-free software they get from
other sources on the same CD. This is nothing new: free and commercial
software are distributed on the same CD by many manufacturers now.
Of course we still encourage software authors to release the programs
they write as free software.

<sect id="childistro">I am making a special Linux distribution for
  a "vertical market". Can I use &debian; for the guts of a Linux system
  and add my own applications on top of it?

<p>Yes. Debian-derived distributions are being created both in close
cooperation with the Debian project itself and by external parties.  One can
use the <url id="http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/" name="Custom Debian
Distributions"> framework to work together with Debian; <url
id="http://www.skolelinux.org/" name="Skolelinux"> is one such project.

<p>There are several other Debian-derived distributions already on the market,
such as Progeny Debian, Linspire, Knoppix and Ubuntu, that are targeted at a
different kind of audience than the original &debian; is, but use most of our
components in their product.

<p>Debian also provides a mechanism to allow developers and system
administrators to install local versions of selected files in such a way
that they will not be overwritten when other packages are upgraded.
This is discussed further in the question on <ref id="divert">.

<sect id="commercialdebs">Can I put my commercial program in a Debian
  "package" so that it installs effortlessly on any Debian system?

<p>Go right ahead. The package tool is free software; the packages may or
may not be free software, it can install them all.

<!--
We should probably recommend here to follow debian-policy,
so that the commercial package fits with the rest of the system.
Or recommend LSB-compliancy.
-->
