Is this legitimate? Does the GNU license allow for resale of OpenOffice like this?

Question

I just saw the following website:

http://www.openoffice2007.com

Can this guy get away with charging for something like this? I know that Linux distributions do the same, but they generally contribute to the community...

Just curious. I use MS Office most of the time, but I've been a fan of OpenOffice since its StarOffice/StarWriter days, and I still rely on it on one of my computers.

Answer 1

From the website:

"The product offered here is fully licensed & legal for me to distribute under the Open Office GNU/LGPL license (GNU Lesser General Public License). Under that license I am fully authorized to, quote "charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy " ... of this software."

Now in contrast from the OpenOffice.org website's FAQ:

" 9. Does the OpenOffice.org open source license give me the right to modify and distribute any version of StarOffice?

No. The OpenOffice.org source license does not allow anyone to modify, repackage, or redistribute any version of StarOffice, or any other commercial version of the OpenOffice.org source code without an assignment from the vendor. For StarOffice the vendor is Sun Microsystems. Additionally, the source code in the OpenOffice.org project is the development project for future releases of StarOffice, starting with StarOffice 6.0. StarOffice 5.2 code is not part of the OpenOffice.org project. "

Basically it looks like the operator of openoffice2007.com is violating the agreement. The operator is claiming that they are charging for the right to download the media, but why would anyone do that if they can go directly to the OpenOffice website.



If you are looking to report the site, I was able to find the following information:

Registrant:
AdminMonkey
P.O. Box 370275
West Hartford, CT 06137-0275
US
[phone]


Domain Name: OPENOFFICE2007.COM

Administrative Contact:
Monkey, Admin [e-mail]
P.O. Box 370275
West Hartford, CT 06137-0275
US
[phone]


Technical Contact:
Monkey, Admin [e-mail]
P.O. Box 370275
West Hartford, CT 06137-0275
US
[phone]

Answer 2

The layout of the website looks crap, the writing is amateur and not very well-laid out, his "happy customers" sound like him with tags, the quote near the bottom of the page is from an older, deprecated version of the LGPL, and he claims to champion open source and free software and then turns around and threatens prosecution with the DMCA for using "this copyright text or images without the express permission of the owner".

I don't see how he can make much money from it, since it appears he's not actually made any alterations to the program worth paying for, or provide other services (ie warranty protection) worth paying for. If anything, people will wonder if he's made alterations to the program that gives it malicious tasks to conduct on your computer, and instead go with the original free distribution out of openoffice.org.