Linux is FREE. Not free from cost. Lots of Linux developers actually do get paid for doing it. Linus is a multimillionare for being in charge of developement of the kernel. IBM, Sun, and a whole host of other companies have full time linux developers on their staff and companies like Redhat and SuSe make a profit from selling Linux.
What you buy when you buy a product from SuSE is their technical support. They will help you install the software and troubleshoot problems. It's not their job to make sure that you get a install CD in the format you wish for a free install.
All that is required to fufill the GPL liscence is to provide the source code, plus any modifications, of any product they sell or distribute. They can even charge you for to covert the cost of the medium. Like if you want it on a CDROM they can charge you for labor and the cost of the manufacture of that CD, but they can't technicly profit from it.
Distros that provide ISO's for install CD's do it at a large cost in bandwidth and server space. Just think, they have to provide 3 copies of each, the source code, the pre-compiled binaries, AND the ISO's. Then they have to do it for each version of OS they sell, plus for each platform. For SuSE you have 8.0, 8.1, 8.3. They also have for each version a different copy for each platform they provide for, x390 IBM's, PowerPC's, i386, Althon 64, Intel 64bit.
So for each and every peice of software they would have to provide at least 45 copies of the software AT THEIR COST. They don't want to provide free ISO's to download, they only have to provide 30 copies of it.
They are only obligated to provide 1 copy of each software and that's in it's source code form.
So instead of providing ISO's to download they provide 1 14 meg CD image. You download that, burn it, and then tell it to get the software off of a mirror close to you. (It's faster then downloading it from ftp.suse.com, which is located in Germany).
You still get to install for free, and they save money and more mirrors are able to support SuSE to make it quicker and easier for you to use their software with out having to pay for it.