[sword-devel] Maybe OT, but perhaps relevant

[Jeff Needle]

Hmmm, more to think about.

Thanks for it.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jónatas Ferreira" <jonatas at gmail.com>
To: "SWORD Developers' Collaboration Forum" <sword-devel at crosswire.org>
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 11:59 PM
Subject: Re: [sword-devel] Maybe OT, but perhaps relevant


> Hi Jeff,
>
> Here's what I think about this subject.
>
> Being open source software doesn't say a thing about the possibility  of 
> charging for it. That kind of thing is ruled by the license  agreement. 
> (The same procedure as for proprietary software.) As far  as I know, 
> Sword's license is "GPL" with some libraries in "Lesser  GPL". These 
> licenses are designed to allow you to do whatever you  want, except 
> transforming open source projects into proprietary  software. So you 
> always have to provide the source code and allow  everyone the same 
> license you were given. You can charge for it, if  you want. Many 
> companies charge for Linux, for instance, of for  OpenOffice. This is 
> legal.
>
> That being said, I think that company may be crossing the line anyway 
> because some of the modules used for sword have special licenses due  to 
> the authorization given by copyright holder that restricts the use  of 
> those libraries to the sword project and forbids anyone from  charging for 
> those libraries. If they are doing so, then crosswire  should contact them 
> and ask them to remove such libraries from their  CDs. If some of the 
> companies that are allowing the use of their work  comes to the knowledge 
> of this practice, they may require the removal  of the libraries from 
> crosswire too. And this would be a huge problem.
>
> Greetings,
> Jónatas
>
> Em 2006/05/27, às 05:38, Jeff Needle escreveu:
>
>> Sword is open source software.  Theoretically you can't charge for it.
>>
>> I got hoodwinked with a software company called Think Well (they're  on 
>> the web).  They offer 4 cd's for the cost of shipping.  Buried  in the 
>> end user agreement, as far out of sight as they can make it,  they 
>> indicate that only two of the CD's are really free.  If you  don't return 
>> the other two in 30 days, they ding you twenty five  bucks for each CD!
>>
>> One of the CD's was Sword.  In effect, these guys are selling Sword  for 
>> twenty five bucks.  They're doing the same thing with Open Office.
>>
>> Isn't this against the rules?  Can something be done to stop them?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
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>
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