On 11/26/05, Ciaran Farrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Just to make the list a little bit longer, here's another OOo clone > > packaged with manuals and sold: > > > > http://www.comparesoft.com/compareoffice.html > > > If it is based on the OpenOffice.org 2.0 source code then it is under > the > >LGPL. It is interesting to see if they have the right license for the > >suite. > > >The most enjoyable greetings > > I had a quick look at the comparesoft website - while there is no > indication > anywhere on the website, that the products being sold are actually open > source, or that the source code is available, I found this in the "Terms > of > Use" - note that reproduction and dissemination rights are restricted > unless > "expressly stated in CompareSoft products licensed under the GPL or MPL". > It > might be splitting straws, but as far as I know OOo is neither under the > GPL > nor is it under the MPL - which means that, theoretically, one needs > CompareSoft permission to redistrubate it.
no, OOo is under the LGPL which means any derivitive product can be released under the GPL or the LGPL. NeoOffice (http://www.neooffice.org/) which is a derivitive product of OOo for the Mac OS X, is GPL, and it's linked from the Mac OS X download page of OpenOffice.org. THey are one of the few derivitive products that works closely with OOo and submits patches, etc. back to the orginial project. So, if they left OOo under the LGPL, they need to update their Terms of Use. But if they released CompareOffice under the GPL, then they are okay. And, AFAICT, the LGPL is a derivitive or form-of the GPL, so it's probably spliting hairs anyway. I'm not sure if they ship a copy of the LGPL with their software, but on the > website, it sure isn't easy to find reference to it, or a copy of it I think it's a part of the OOo installer package, so unless they actually removed it from their copy of the installer, it's probably there. -- - Chad Smith http://www.gimpshop.net/ Because everyone loves free software!
