[sword-devel] Re: [sword-support] Important

[DM Smith]

Joseph,
I posted it again to our support group. We get a lot of spam, so I 
imagine it was ignored at first in the form that you sent it. The 
software at CrossWire was written by volunteers from many, many 
countries. It will take time for them to read and respond to the email. 
I will take up this issue on another mailing list:, sword-devel. We will 
discuss what can be done and what we should do.

In the last few days we got quite a few support questions about our 
software and other people's software that came with it. In two different 
instances the user couldn't get the program to work. We found it being 
sold on Ebay (though our authorship was not being hidden). This is 
becoming a problem.

The license we use is written by the Free Software Foundation and is the 
GNU Public License (GPL). It is used by thousands and thousands of 
software products.
The nature of this license is that our software if free in cost and 
freely available as source. It does permit anyone to package the 
software and distribute the software for a cost that covers the 
packaging and distribution.

However, the license also has other requirements, it requires that the 
license not be hidden and that the license is presented to the user as a 
condition of using the software. And it requires making the program's 
source code is also made available and that it is clear to the recipient 
where it is if it is not delivered along side of it.

Was it free Bible software that you were after. If so, we can point you 
to lots of it. (Of course, ours is the best!;)

Thank you so much for your attention to this.
    DM Smith

Joseph John Lagarnia wrote:
> Good Day! Have you sent that email to someone and then forwarded it to me?
>
> */DM Smith <dmsmith555 at yahoo.com>/* wrote:
>
>     I was a bit suspicious of this email, but it is legit. Joseph is
>     concerned that our software is being sold as part of a scam. It
>     does not
>     appear to be an appropriate avenue for the distribution of Sword.
>     Here
>     is his e-mail's attachment. (By the way, I used open office to
>     open it
>     in case it held a macro virus. It didn't though, but it pays to be
>     cautious.)
>     For more detail you can go to:
>     https://www.thinkall.com/product_bible_detail.php
>     *******************************************************************
>     Good day!
>
>     I would like to inquire if you have any knowledge of this piece below
>     about thinkall.com where they sell your FREE software for an 80
>     percent
>     discount. Thanks!
>
>     http://www.thinkall.com
>
>     This site supposedly offers free software and you just need to pay
>     for
>     shipping and handling (4.99 dollars.) They offer you free cd's of
>     your
>     choice for free. But if you didn't have the time to read their
>     terms and
>     conditions (which is hardly noticeable and is in the botton of their
>     home page) you won't notice that you'll actually get billed after 10
>     days if you don't return two of those cd's. You'll be billed 19
>     dollars
>     each for those 2 cd's which they claim is 80% off the retail
>     price. And
>     you'll be caught by surprise as it has never been indicated in the
>     order
>     form. Much more, they send you cd's every month too and you'll get
>     billed if you don't return the cd's within 10 days.
>
>     But what is shocking is that any of their software can actually be
>     downloaded for free if you just know their developer sites.
>
>     Here are the list of their software which they charge for 19 dollars
>     after a supposed 80% discount...
>
>     1. Bible Library and Reference Guide with supposedly a 59.00 dollar
>     retail price is actually the Sword Project which can be downloaded at
>     www.crosswire.org/sword/index.jsp for free
>
>     2. Animation Studio with a supposed retail price of 79.00 dollars is
>     shareware too which can be downloaded at
>     www.blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html
>
>     3. Gimp Photo and Image Studio (a Photoshop clone for free) which
>     they
>     say retails at 69.00 dollars, can be freely downloaded at www.gimp.org
>
>     4. Web Design Studio with a price tag of 69.00 dollars can be
>     downloaded
>     at www.nvu.com for free
>
>     5. Their Word sofware, www.openoffice.org
>
>     6. Antivirus and Firewall, a compilation of shareware from
>     grisoft.com(AVG Anti Virus), zonelabs.com(Zone Alarm Firewall) with
>     bonus free software from lavasoft.com(Adaware),
>     safe-networking.org(Spybot Search and Destroy, and the ever popular
>     Microsoft Anti Spyware which we all know where to download.
>
>     7. 150000 Greatest Clipart,
>     http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us
>
>     8. 4500 Greatest Photos,
>     www.graphicsngraphicdesign.com/freestockphotos-graphicdesigners/
>
>     9. 600 Greatest Fonts, http://www.grsites.net/fonts/
>
>     10. Music Editing Studio, http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
>
>     11. Video Editing Studio, http://www.virtualdub.org
>
>     And a lot more shareware.
>
>
>     Joseph John Lagarnia wrote:
>     > Please open text file attatched coz Yahoo can't use cut and
>     paste feature.
>     >
>     > And hope to receive a response!
>     >
>     >
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     > Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning
>     >
>     > helps detect nasty viruses!
>     >
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     >
>     > _______________________________________________
>     > sword-support mailing list
>     > sword-support at crosswire.org
>     >
>
>
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