4 ms·

Butterfly Media is also ripping off the popular Scribus layout/publishing program too. The company is reselling Scribus as "Desktop Publishing Studio" (link). T

by trotsky 16y ago

Butterfly Media is also ripping off the popular Scribus layout/publishing program too. The company is reselling Scribus as "Desktop Publishing Studio" (link). They aren't just taking the programs and reselling it, but even their screenshots shown on the Amazon product page are ripped. Silly phoronix. Scribus Copyright 2001-2008 Franz Schmid and rest of the members of the Scribus Team. [...] This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. Brush up on the GPL there lads. You're perfectly welcome to sell a copy of a GPL program as long as you otherwise comply with the license. Perhaps next phoronix will break the story of Redhat charging money for the Linux kernel.

piotrSikora 16y ago
Not all of those programs are released under GPL: Orbit's license explicitly forbids selling it and/or its parts: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/terms.php http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/terms.php
- trotsky 16y ago
  Seeing as that one's not even open source I'm still gonna go with that article could use some fact checking.
bad_user 16y ago
While the code is usually GPL, for games the artwork is many times CC non-commercial (as it happens with "Dangers of the Deep", one of the games mentioned). Trademarks can be involved as well: e.g. you cannot resell Firefox and still call it Firefox. Even the screenshot for Inkscape is a ripoff of a tutorial: http://howto.nicubunu.ro/inkscape_face_draw/ http://howto.nicubunu.ro/inkscape_face_draw/ (and the license is breached because there is no attribution made). So in case you want to sell open-source software, make sure you consult a lawyer ;)
- gst 16y ago
  > Trademarks can be involved as well: e.g. you cannot resell Firefox and still call it Firefox. This shouldn't be an issue here, as they've changed the names. They, e.g., sell Scribus as "Desktop Publishing Studio".
  - bad_user 16y ago
    In case you weren't paying attention, the branding was only changed in the Amazon listing and maybe the physical packaging: I haven't bought any of those, but considering that they just blurred / cut the window names from those screenshots, I assume they didn't do anything else. Branding an application with a different name (i.e. removing all references to the old name from the code-base) takes effort and it's not just a matter of changing the main window title. Just ask the Debian people that rebranded Firefox to IceWeasel.
    - JonnieCache 16y ago
      >Just ask the Debian people that rebranded Firefox to IceWeasel. Or the people who rebrand redhat as centos for that matter. I bet it takes a little more than a find-and-replace-in-project.
      - Herring 16y ago
        If you don't modify anything, you can still sell it, right? Take firefox for example - i thought Mozilla was objecting to the additions & changes.
        bad_user 16y ago
        Depends on the trademark licensing available of course. In case of Firefox: no, you cannot sell it without written permission while branded as "Firefox". From http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html ... You can't put the Mozilla Mark(s) on anything that you produce commercially (whether or not you make a profit) -- at least not without receiving Mozilla's written permission. But what you can do: distribute unchanged Mozilla product(s) (code + config) for each platform downloaded from www.mozilla.com or www.mozilla.org as long as you distribute them without charge And the reasoning for this, as explained: In addition, on an all too frequent basis, we receive reports about websites selling the Mozilla Firefox browser, using the Mozilla Marks to promote other products and services, or using modified versions of the Mozilla Marks. The problem with these activities is that they may be deceptive, harm users, cause consumer confusion, and jeopardize the identity and meaning of the Mozilla Marks. Of course, many open-source projects don't even have registered trademarks, but (I am not a layer so take this as an opinion) ... even unregistered trademarks are protected and I think you can still sue successfully somebody if it brings harm to the project's image.

by trotsky 16y ago

piotrSikora 16y ago

Not all of those programs are released under GPL: Orbit's license explicitly forbids selling it and/or its parts: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/terms.php http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/terms.php

trotsky 16y ago
Seeing as that one's not even open source I'm still gonna go with that article could use some fact checking.

bad_user 16y ago

While the code is usually GPL, for games the artwork is many times CC non-commercial (as it happens with "Dangers of the Deep", one of the games mentioned). Trademarks can be involved as well: e.g. you cannot resell Firefox and still call it Firefox. Even the screenshot for Inkscape is a ripoff of a tutorial: http://howto.nicubunu.ro/inkscape_face_draw/ http://howto.nicubunu.ro/inkscape_face_draw/ (and the license is breached because there is no attribution made). So in case you want to sell open-source software, make sure you consult a lawyer ;)

gst 16y ago
> Trademarks can be involved as well: e.g. you cannot resell Firefox and still call it Firefox. This shouldn't be an issue here, as they've changed the names. They, e.g., sell Scribus as "Desktop Publishing Studio".
- bad_user 16y ago
  In case you weren't paying attention, the branding was only changed in the Amazon listing and maybe the physical packaging: I haven't bought any of those, but considering that they just blurred / cut the window names from those screenshots, I assume they didn't do anything else. Branding an application with a different name (i.e. removing all references to the old name from the code-base) takes effort and it's not just a matter of changing the main window title. Just ask the Debian people that rebranded Firefox to IceWeasel.
  - JonnieCache 16y ago
    >Just ask the Debian people that rebranded Firefox to IceWeasel. Or the people who rebrand redhat as centos for that matter. I bet it takes a little more than a find-and-replace-in-project.
    - Herring 16y ago
      If you don't modify anything, you can still sell it, right? Take firefox for example - i thought Mozilla was objecting to the additions & changes.
      - bad_user 16y ago
        Depends on the trademark licensing available of course. In case of Firefox: no, you cannot sell it without written permission while branded as "Firefox". From http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html ... You can't put the Mozilla Mark(s) on anything that you produce commercially (whether or not you make a profit) -- at least not without receiving Mozilla's written permission. But what you can do: distribute unchanged Mozilla product(s) (code + config) for each platform downloaded from www.mozilla.com or www.mozilla.org as long as you distribute them without charge And the reasoning for this, as explained: In addition, on an all too frequent basis, we receive reports about websites selling the Mozilla Firefox browser, using the Mozilla Marks to promote other products and services, or using modified versions of the Mozilla Marks. The problem with these activities is that they may be deceptive, harm users, cause consumer confusion, and jeopardize the identity and meaning of the Mozilla Marks. Of course, many open-source projects don't even have registered trademarks, but (I am not a layer so take this as an opinion) ... even unregistered trademarks are protected and I think you can still sue successfully somebody if it brings harm to the project's image.