Mozilla on CD?

chrisgeleven · Post by **chrisgeleven** » July 25th, 2003, 7:09 pm

The other day when I looked it was $12.99. Seems like the guy is lowering the price thanks to the publicity.

Radiowriter · Post by **Radiowriter** » July 25th, 2003, 7:12 pm

Book 'im, Danno!

quanta · Post by **quanta** » July 26th, 2003, 4:03 pm

It would be a nice idea, if the guy threw in the language packs and region packs and maybe extensions. It would be tricky getting all the permissions, but hey.

Tak · Post by **Tak** » July 26th, 2003, 5:51 pm

That's something I won't be buying soon. I need some new underwear. I'll buy that instead. :lol:

I like to take the free way when possible. When I build my own PC, I plan to put Mandrake Linux on there and never pay for any software. $\:D/$ I might buy a game or two for this Windows machine though. I think I could be very happy using only free software. I hope I can anyway... :lol:

I don't mean "free" as in pirated by the way.... :lol:

It takes me quite some time to download Mozilla on this dial-up (soon to be broadband I hope $\:D/$ ), but that's better than paying! ](*,)

CyberSlug · Post by **CyberSlug** » July 26th, 2003, 6:19 pm

Take a look at the last paragraph <a href="http://www.mozillaoncd.com/">at the site</a>:

<i>... A portion of the profits will go to fund the direct software development by <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/credits/">individual contributors</a> on the Mozilla project for future releases....</i>

If I could be certain this was backed by mozilla.org, I'd be all for it.

Relativity_17 · Post by **Relativity_17** » July 26th, 2003, 6:30 pm

:-/

Maybe...

But if that's a lie, they should be shut down... Ripping off consumers is something that should not be allowed to happen. Besides, the people who buy these CDs may find out that Moz is free, and think that we ripped them off...

DamianMoran · Post by **DamianMoran** » July 26th, 2003, 6:40 pm

CyberSlug wrote:Take a look at the last paragraph <a href="http://www.mozillaoncd.com/">at the site</a>:

<i>... A portion of the profits will go to fund the direct software development by <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/credits/">individual contributors</a> on the Mozilla project for future releases....</i>

If I could be certain this was backed by mozilla.org, I'd be all for it.

Well AFAICS this is pretty simple, you can't sell GPL'd sofware for a profit. So if this group is making one = DIE if, not = detail as to how funding is being put back.

chrisgeleven · Post by **chrisgeleven** » July 26th, 2003, 8:33 pm

DamianMoran wrote:
Well AFAICS this is pretty simple, you can't sell GPL'd sofware for a profit. So if this group is making one = DIE if, not = detail as to how funding is being put back.

Wrong, if you can't sell GPL software for a profit then Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, etc. are in deep trouble.

DamianMoran · Post by **DamianMoran** » July 26th, 2003, 9:11 pm

chrisgeleven wrote:
DamianMoran wrote:
Well AFAICS this is pretty simple, you can't sell GPL'd sofware for a profit. So if this group is making one = DIE if, not = detail as to how funding is being put back.

Wrong, if you can't sell GPL software for a profit then Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, etc. are in deep trouble.

Indeed. But the SP you mentioned have additional licenses apart from GPL, and let us not forget MPL. I suppose if this group were offering any changes they made to code it would be legal.. but it still sounds dubious.

MORA · Post by **MORA** » July 30th, 2003, 7:49 am

DamianMoran wrote:
chrisgeleven wrote:
DamianMoran wrote:
Well AFAICS this is pretty simple, you can't sell GPL'd sofware for a profit. So if this group is making one = DIE if, not = detail as to how funding is being put back.

Wrong, if you can't sell GPL software for a profit then Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, etc. are in deep trouble.

Indeed. But the SP you mentioned have additional licenses apart from GPL, and let us not forget MPL. I suppose if this group were offering any changes they made to code it would be legal.. but it still sounds dubious.

It is legal; neither the GPL, nor the MPL forbids commercial re-distribution of the software. The additional licensing from RedHat and others is not required for them to comply to the terms of the GPL.

The same is true for any open source license that is in agreement with the Open Source Definition by the OSI. First article from this definition:

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

Rationale: By constraining the license to require free redistribution, we eliminate the temptation to throw away many long-term gains in order to make a few short-term sales dollars. If we didn't do this, there would be lots of pressure for cooperators to defect.

MPL and GPL are both OSI-approved licenses. Please read the licenses first, before implying that selling Mozilla on a CD is 'legally dubious'.

(I'm not talking about morality here; from a moral standpoint, I think anyone selling Mozilla should somehow also contribute to the project itself. However, the open source community is strong enough to expose scammers publicly - perhaps that will even help to educate the general public a little about software licensing.)