Dear OpenOffice.org community, For the love of Tux! Can we PLEASE do something to stop all this BS noise about "Somebody's selling Open Office! WE MUST STOP THEM!"
From the LGPL (which, in case you didn't know, is what OpenOffice.org is
liscenced under - NOT the GPL) http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/lgpl_license.html
From the Preamble:
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of use, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish); that you receive source code or can get it if you want it; that you can change the software and use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you are informed that you can do these things.
From the TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library. You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee And, there is even a page on the Official OpenOffice.org website that promotes places that sell OpenOffice.org - http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/index.html#cdrom In fact, the same verbage is found in the GPL, so even if OpenOffice.org was released under the GPL - it could still be sold.
From the Preamble < http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html#TOC2 >:
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
From the TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION <
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html#TOC3 >: *1.* You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
From the GNU website's FAQ on the GPL <
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney >: * Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCDoesTheGPLAllowMoney> * Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html> is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.) * Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCDoesTheGPLAllowDownloadFee> * Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide "equivalent access" to download the source--therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary. So PLEASE, PLEASE, P L E A S E - STOP SENDING THIS CRAP TO EVERY OOo LIST! It is OK to sell OpenOffice.org. There is NOT A D*** THING WRONG WITH IT. You could charge $5, $0.50, $50, $500.... Whatever the market will bear. It is legal, moral, okay, fine, right, good, smart, wise, prudent, lawful, not-shady, not-wrong, not-illegal, not-amoral, upstanding, in-good-favor, alright, cool, kosher, legitimate, OK, not-sinful, and GOOD FOR THE PROJECT for people to sell copies of OpenOffice.org on CD, on DVD, as a part of Linux distro, pre-installed on computers, on ebay, on their own website, as a download, with support, without support, with the source code, without the source code, with documentation, without documentation (as long as the LGPL is intact), with templates, without templates, under the name OpenOffice.org, under the name Open Office, under some completely different name like Perfect Office or Luxourisiticatious Office or Closed Office.com or anything else, with giving credit to the OpenOffice.org project, and/or without giving credit to the OpenOffice.org project. If I see one more of this moronic letters I'm going to scream, throw up, and throw something. Please, stop, it. And if a n00b sends it, someone with authority correct the idiot. Quickly. And shut up the morons on the list who should know better before they encourage it. Thanks. -- - Chad Smith http://www.chadwsmith.com/
