Butterfly Media is also ripping off the popular Scribus layout/publishing program too. The company is reselling Scribus as "Desktop Publishing Studio" (link). They aren't just taking the programs and reselling it, but even their screenshots shown on the Amazon product page are ripped.
Silly phoronix.
Scribus Copyright 2001-2008 Franz Schmid and rest of the members of the Scribus Team. [...] This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Brush up on the GPL there lads. You're perfectly welcome to sell a copy of a GPL program as long as you otherwise comply with the license.
Perhaps next phoronix will break the story of Redhat charging money for the Linux kernel.
While the code is usually GPL, for games the artwork is many times CC non-commercial (as it happens with "Dangers of the Deep", one of the games mentioned).
Trademarks can be involved as well: e.g. you cannot resell Firefox and still call it Firefox.
In case you weren't paying attention, the branding was only changed in the Amazon listing and maybe the physical packaging: I haven't bought any of those, but considering that they just blurred / cut the window names from those screenshots, I assume they didn't do anything else.
Branding an application with a different name (i.e. removing all references to the old name from the code-base) takes effort and it's not just a matter of changing the main window title. Just ask the Debian people that rebranded Firefox to IceWeasel.
You can't put the Mozilla Mark(s) on anything that you
produce commercially (whether or not you make a profit) --
at least not without receiving Mozilla's written permission.
But what you can do:
distribute unchanged Mozilla product(s) (code + config) for
each platform downloaded from www.mozilla.com
or www.mozilla.org as long as you distribute them
without charge
And the reasoning for this, as explained:
In addition, on an all too frequent basis, we receive
reports about websites selling the Mozilla Firefox browser,
using the Mozilla Marks to promote other products and
services, or using modified versions of the Mozilla Marks.
The problem with these activities is that they may be
deceptive, harm users, cause consumer confusion, and
jeopardize the identity and meaning of the Mozilla Marks.
Of course, many open-source projects don't even have registered trademarks, but (I am not a layer so take this as an opinion) ... even unregistered trademarks are protected and I think you can still sue successfully somebody if it brings harm to the project's image.
And innocent phrases are getting ripped on Phoronix: such as the words "free software", which on mouse over produce a popup that asks me to "Earn Cash Completing Surveys".
More on topic, to the people who are saying that GPL users had it coming: offering the binaries without the source code is a violation of the license (GPLv3 section 6, GPLv2 section 3). And even if they would somehow sneakily satisfy that clause, you've got to admit that renaming the software and selling it without so much as a nod to the original developers is sleazy to say the least.
Technically, it's not illegal to sell a GPLed application. The GPL attempts to confer true freedom to whoever has the code. They may do anything with it... except one thing: they can't make it (or any derivative version of it) non GPL and take away the freedom from whoever else gets the code.
The question is, should people be prevented from charging money for something that is GPLed and someone else can get it for free? I guess the answer is no. After all, if these guys aren't violating the GPL, anyone can download the program and then offer it on Amazon for a dollar, undercutting them.
The real question is, can you make restrictive trademarks etc. around a fork of a GPLed product? I think you are legally allowed to. In this case, you can actually go after people who try to undercut you, on trademark grounds. And if that is the case, you will get a bunch of people who don't realize that there is a free version called something else. Business opportunity for unscrupulous people right there! Heh... they can claim to give "support" for their trademarked version of the program.
Of course, if the original software is licensed under MIT, BSD or something that doesn't enforce propagation of the license, then the person selling a fork of the program can do whatever they want. This happens all the time.
For GPL code, as long as they provide the modified and complete source code along with their own versions, everything should be fine.
Artwork and other works not govered by GPL is of course another issue, however I believe that in most cases those are often licensed similarly to GPL (GNU Free Documentation License?).
Of course, it might be that they didn't include the source code or forgot to attribute the original authors. At least that would constitute ripping.
Incredibly poor article from a journalistic perspective; it leaves me wondering if the author actually understands the topic for which he is commenting.
However, there is substance to this and almost certainly violations taking place. The community is all the better to know about.
The remarks about commercial distribution of the Danger from the Deep CC By-Nc-Nd assets do make me wonder if the Non-Commercial clause can stand up in court.
Consider, by analogy, that I produce a product FOO, which I sell for $1 as a download. It includes a license prohibiting commercial distribution, but this license is not visible to the consumer before purchase and download. Supposing the purchaser simply stores the software, but does not run it nor agree to the terms of the license. They burn it to a CD, delete the original copy, and sell it for $10. They have never been exposed to the license, so Vernor v. Autodesk does not apply, and their redistribution is protected by the first sale doctrine.
Suppose instead that I distribute BAR freely under the same license and conditions. The reseller, having lawfully downloaded a copy of the work, burned it to CD, deleted the original work, but having never been exposed to the license, will also argue that they have a protected right to resell the work, under the first sale doctrine.
The question: Does the First Sale Doctrine distinguish between works that are sold, and those that are distributed freely?
I guess the answer is basically this: under case law and statutory law, the person can resell one copy of it for any price if they have never been exposed to the license. However, the judge/jury may not believe that is likely. They may invoke some tort or delict saying that you should at least look at a work's license before selling it to someone else.
In any case, you cannot make a copy of the product and must resell the original product which you bought, due to copyright law. Personally, I don't think copyright models reality really well, so there will be lots of these problems.
Shockingly, you don't have to be part of some secret free software in-group to write an article for your blog. So the "GPL advocates" that you "keep hearing from" may be different people than the person who wrote this particular article.
Not that I defend the GPL, I simply don't care about which license a project have but Phoronix is not the league of GPL advocates as far as I understand...
What the original devs need to do is put up their own Amazon listings, which they can legitimately label as "official." That way the "you get what you pay for" types can feel good about spending money, and the cash goes to the developers.
It does make it harder to make money from your work, and it's the closest you can get to that while still using a (well-known) open source license. I have no doubt that lots of people are indeed using the GPL for that purpose; look at pretty much any GPL-vs-BSD debate for further proof.
That said, yes, the GPL doesn't actually make it impossible to turn a profit.
Not really. MySQL was multi-licensed and MySQL AB, Sun and now Oracle can re-license it under any license their clients want, provided they pay the price.
MySQL AB was sold for about a billion dollars, proving you can make a whole lot of money while still writing software that can be obtained through a license that respect the rights of the users.
Silly phoronix.
Scribus Copyright 2001-2008 Franz Schmid and rest of the members of the Scribus Team. [...] This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Brush up on the GPL there lads. You're perfectly welcome to sell a copy of a GPL program as long as you otherwise comply with the license.
Perhaps next phoronix will break the story of Redhat charging money for the Linux kernel.