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All GNU Distributions are open source, because that is what GNU has declared as is purpose. Promoting and distributing open source software.

Not all open source is GNU, if you yourself create a truly new piece of software and patent it you can simply declare that it is open source, create you own version of open source license to distribute with the software and wallah it is. That after all is what freeware and shareware are! The reason GNU is such a presence is that many of the early UNIX developers believed in GNU so much that they gave their patents to GNU. So now GNU owns and has declared open source some very important software. Any time you develop software based on something owned by GNU you must accept that those parts of it are legally free and can be altered and distributed by anybody. Those parts, not the whole program. This is especially important because some very important pieces of most of the UNIX basic kernal are owned by GNU.

Not however BSD based UNIX, that is all under its own open source license.

[quote][cite] WinLinMac01:[/cite]All Linux Distributions that are Open-source are by law Free by GNU License. If Kernal is Open-source, should be free as well as everything is voluntary.