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On Friday 26 October 2007 15:28, Art Alexion wrote:
> On Thursday 25 October 2007 11:12:17 Sean C. Sheridan wrote:
> > Many people may not understand that you may charge for your software and
> > still have it fall under the category of "free software"
>
> I'm not sure I understand how that coexists with "The freedom to
> redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)."
>
> While a scenario may exist where entity A sells
> program-which-is-open-source, but allows others to distribute it for free
> (or for a charge), that doesn't seem like a real world scenario.
xt:commerce is a real-world example of this in action. It is a PHP e-commerce
shopping cart:
http://www.xtcommerce.us/
To download their source you must first pay a steep cost (about as much as an
OEM XP license) for a support agreement, but after that you can launch the
software on as many domains as you want; there is no license key or
activation. You may change the source to your liking without breaking the
license (which they say is GPL v2).
I have not been able to find anywhere to download it without paying for the
support. I have not even been able to find third-party sites which give away
the source. Additionally, if you happen upon the source code and try to fork
it, you might not get far - the FAQ states that they don't want you to remove
the copyright in the page footer. I suppose this falls under the definition
of "brandware"?
The footer of their FAQ page also says "It's not allowed to use any materials
of this site without written permission". (oops?)
One final note is that there used to be a paragraph explaining why the source
must be paid for, and it said in part (paraphrasing) that "open source
software can not be developed without funding". I can not find the exact
paragraph anywhere on their site but if I happen across it I will post it
verbatim.
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