On 2012-02-28 12:23 PM, flamin hotdog wrote:
hi, i was wondering where you stand on people selling open office. i know of
somebody who is selling open office on ebay for profit.
thanks andy
As other folks have commented, the Apache License is designed to be
permissive, in that third parties may take code under that license and
use it for all sorts of activities. This includes selling derivative
software products based on our Apache licensed code, as well as charging
a fee for providing CDs, training, consulting, and other activities
based on actual Apache software products.
One of the main restrictions in the Apache License is that it does *not*
grant rights to the trademarks - i.e. the brand names, logos, etc. -
associated with the software products using this license.
Legal issues always depend on all the details around each specific case,
so it's very difficult to provide general advice. But in general third
parties can charge for providing customers with copies of Apache
licensed software products *as long as* they don't attempt to misuse the
trademarks of the original producer of the software product.
----
In general, lengthy discussions of cases of license or trademark abuse
are not helpful unless a (P)PMC can define a *specific* legal question,
which can then be brought to the appropriate officer of the ASF or ASF
counsel for legal advice.
Folks who want to learn more about the ASF's polices are strongly urged
to read the actual license and trademark policies, along with the FAQs
linked from their pages:
http://www.apache.org/licenses/
http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/
- Shane
Apache OpenOffice mentor
