15 Nov
2011
15 Nov
'11
5:20 p.m.
On Tuesday, November 15, 2011 11:14:21 AM Harry van Haaren did opine:
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:19 AM, Tristan Matthews
<le.businessman(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
The GPL still has teeth. However if this reseller is using the profits to
fund improvements and/or bug fixing, AND those patches are being
contributed back, then I have no huge moral problems with it. It may
resemble a wine vs crossover thing, if you want the latest, buy crossover.
If wine will run your app, that is ok too.
Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>
You can't go home again, unless you set $HOME.
FYI, you're well within your rights to
"earn money" from GPL software,
see: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
Although you are right in the technical sense, I don't agree profiting
from other peoples work on moral grounds.
For example: http://www.illusionmage.com/ is a site that will sell you a
copy of Blender, with a rebranded logo. Because Blender is GPL, any
modifications must also be GPL. So the author of "Illusionmage" created
a patch (available http://www.illusionmage.com/disclaimer.htm) and now
sells the whole package for 47$ a pop.
Although this technically complies with the GPL, I find it abusive of
the GPL on moral grounds. I must agree with you that indeed selling GPL
is allowed in the technical sense though. -H