Martin wrote:

snip

I paid EUR100 for a copy of SuSE Linux, somebody is posting that that is
free too.

No, I bought it before Novell got their hands on it.

Ok, two things.

1] When SuSE made the product (before Novell bought them) it wasn't free (As
in given away). The only way you could get it (initially) was to *buy* it
from them or a distributor. I bought most releases from 5.0 to 9.4. After
that, Novell bought the company SuSE GmbH & allowed you to download a
release from their ftp site, or mirror.

2] Once you'd bought it, the SuSE Linux OS was *yours* (Unlike windows which
is only *licenced* to you, it still belongs to MS).
SuSE was/is *free* for you to do what *you* want with it. You could install
it on as many PCs as you like, with NO licence restrictions.
Heck, you could even make copies & give them away to friends & family if you
wished! :-)

In the context of opensource software, "free" doesn't necessarily mean it's
free as in "no charge" (though a lot of applications are free). What it
means is that once you have it, you are free to do what *you* want with it.

I hope that answers your question more clearly. :-)