On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 12:05 -0400, Immanuel CRC Office wrote: > Michael Momich wrote: > > It has come to my attention that the folks at www.thinkall.com > > <http://www.thinkall.com/> are using the SUN microsystem product > > _OpenOffice_ in a commercial way to either generate revenues directly > > or, to promote the sales of other revenue generating products. I checked > > the SUN microsystem-generated list of authorized CD distributors for > > the OpenOffice product and, the company _ThinkAll _was not included in > > that list. > > > > > > I've attached a pdf copy of the thinkall.com web page showing the > > OpenOffice product being advertised for the benefit of thinkall.com > > customers. You will note that nowhere on the page is any mention made of > > either _SUN microsystems_ or, the_ open-source project_ that is > > responsible for the coding of OpenOffice and, the subsequent free > > downloads of this code from the OpenOffice website! > > > > I just thought that this sort of thing should be well known to SUN > > microsystems. I hope that SUN microsystems is benefitting from Think > > All's use of the OpenOffice product as both a promotional and, > > revenue-generating tool. > > > > Regards, Mike Momich > > > > Mike: > > Thanks for your concern. OpenOffice.org is free, and is free to > distribute, even to charge a fee for cost of distribution. > > I looked on their site, and they are at least still calling it OOo, > which is better than some other distributors that re-name it when the > package it (which is possible since they have access to the source code). > > As far as I can tell, they are not doing anything wrong. Thanks for > letting us know, and if you see another, please do the same, and we will > look at it. > > Crystle >
A quick look at the site suggests that all of the products advertised to look like nice boxed sets are just free software, and the only way to get the software is to have them post the CD to you for free. So, apart from promoting free software, are they just collecting names and addresses? Although they say that they will not sell customer's personal information to any third party, they have the following at the bottom of their Privacy Statement: "Business Transitions In the event Think All goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets, users' personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred. Users will be notified via e-mail and a prominent notice on our site for 30 days prior to a change of ownership or control of their personal information." Usually that means that the new owner is freed from any promises made by the old owner. Ross --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
