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Paint.NET used to be open source until a bunch of scammers started selling "relabeled" versions of it, misleading users.
by zxspectrum1982 3y ago
Paint.NET used to be open source until a bunch of scammers started selling "relabeled" versions of it, misleading users.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoSo its devs decided to join the trend? I'm not sure how that's better.
- dotancohen 3y agoOpen Office and Libre Office both have been suffering from this problem for years. They remain open source. More than a decade ago I discussed this with RMS. His position is that these scammers are not a problem, rather they are helping to distribute FOSS software. And in fact, they do provide the source code when requested, I requested and got the code. So, as is usually the case, RMS is technically right even if it is difficult to see. I feel that reputational damage is significant, RMS feels that these scammers are not damaging the reputation of the FOSS software so long as they are not using any of the copyrighted components, such as the name.