At 11:58 04/06/2008 +0100, Mike Scott wrote:
I'm sure I've seen mention of these people before - they seem to offer OOo but need some sort of login, for which I assume you pay. The problem is, a contributor to a private newsgroup says they're part of the OOo project. I'm 99.999% sure they're not - but can't point to any evidence.
One clue is the avoidance of any reference to the ".org" part of the name of OpenOffice.org anywhere on the site (except in the domain name itself, that is). Indeed, someone appears to have removed the ".org" carelessly - leaving an extra blank in its place for each occurrence. In particular, this has created the nonsensical statement "The project and software are informally referred to as OpenOffice, but this term is a trademark held by another party requiring the project to adopt OpenOffice as its formal name."
Another hint is the way that the site describes the product as "free software", but doesn't say anywhere obvious that the download will actually be free of charge. The fact that the "Download Now" button does not in fact lead to any download but instead to a piecemeal registration process adds to the idea that one is going to be asked for payment. Oh, and the "Support" page offers help if you have "questions about your billing" for this supposedly free product.
Is the newsgroup contributor in the pay of this outfit? If I were inclined to run an outfit trying to sell a free product (which I'm not, of course), I should certainly be writing to newsgroups masquerading as an ordinary user and telling people that my site was official!
I trust this helps. Brian Barker --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
