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Free42 for sale at eBay? - Printable Version

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Free42 for sale at eBay? - Gerson W. Barbosa - 08-12-2005

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-42S-calculator_W0QQitemZ7175779549QQcategoryZ182QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


Re: Free42 for sale at eBay? - Howard Owen - 08-12-2005

Interesting. It's not against the GPL to charge for distributing software. The source needs to come with, or be otherwise accessible from the distributed package.

There's not much "value-add" that I can see in that offer, however. And with the software's name prominently displayed, I doubt he gets any bids.


Re: Free42 for sale at eBay? - Gerson W. Barbosa - 08-12-2005

We could suggest the seller to add a link to Free42 so that potential buyers have a little more information about 'his' product... :-)


Re: However - Mike - 08-13-2005

It is against eBay rules, if there is any shareware aspect to this calculator. I mean if he has any features that require a fee to access, it's an illegal auction.


Re: However - Howard Owen - 08-13-2005

That's interesting, I didn't know that.

GPL software isn't shareware, its free (like in freedom) software. The license states that you can charge for distribution of GPLd software if you like. That's what all the major Linux vendors do, for example. Is that different from selling your software for a fee, where "selling" means "selling the media and a right to use license?" I don't know.

Come to think, you can buy plain proprietary software on eBay. It even has a rather extensive category. So the difference must be the delayed payment in shareware. You "try before you buy" then eBay doesn't get a cut when you eventually pay. I'll bet that's it. So then the GPL software wouldn't differ from proprietary in that respect, since all the money is transferred up front where eBay can tax it.


Re: Free42 for sale at eBay? - Namir - 08-14-2005

I wrote Thomas Okken about this auction and provided him with the seller's email address.

Namir


Re: Free42 for sale at eBay? - Gerson W. Barbosa - 08-14-2005

Quote:
... I doubt he gets any bids.

I doubted it too but he's got two bids so far... Five hours to end and the price has reached 12 Euro.


Re: Free42 for sale at eBay? - Thomas Okken - 08-15-2005

I don't think this auction is against eBay's rules -- Free42 is not shareware; there are no optional features that require extra payment to unlock etc. As long as the seller is selling a version that has my copyright, my web site URL, and my email address, I don't see anything wrong with this... Woe to the suckers who don't Google "Free42" before making a bid.

Hmmm, maybe I should contact the winning bidder and ask them if the software they receive has been tampered with.