[Gnu-arch-users] licensing question

[Thomas Lord]

I would like to solicit the community's opinion about a new commercial
service I am considering offering.  Specifically, does my service
conform to the requirements of the GPL and does it conform to the
spirit of the GPL.   Here is a description of the service:

My service will give Enterprises an opportunity to use the program
"GNU hello".  I am offering distributions, upgrades, and support.

A plain language version of the essence of the support contract is as
follows:


  You will pay me $5,000/yr for every CPU on which your installation
  of a GNU Hello binary, compiled from the sources I provide, is
  runnable.  For this purpose, multi-core chips count as a single CPU.

  In return I will provide support.  Because the GNU hello program
  is a joke, support consists of emailing you a joke once per quarter.
  For obvious reasons, I can not promise that you will find the joke
  funny.

  I reserve the right to come and inspect your facilities and records,
  twice per year, during business hours, to ensure compliance.  If I
  discover that you have made a binary derived from the sources I
  provide runnable on more CPUs than you have paid for, you will owe
  me $5,000 per additional CPU, plus 4% interest compounded monthly --
  because presumptively, that means you are using my support services
  to a greater degree than you've paid for.

  It therefore follows that you are not free to copy and use my
  version of GNU Hello without additional restriction.

  Of course, this contract doesn't override the GPL.   Far from it.
  It's just that if you exercise your GPL rights in certain ways
  you will owe me more money.

Pretty winning, eh?  It's not an original idea, of course.   I got
the idea from this:

    http://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us_3.html

So what do you think?  The GPL allows this, right?

-t