Don't download for free, BUY it on eBay!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter JW
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J

JW

Check out this guy, he seems to specialize in auctioning/selling free, open
source software especially The Gimp, Open Office, and PDF Creator.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=great_software

He sells these (or attempts to, not sure what his success rate is) under
different titles but includes all three (plus "royalty free images) for each
listing. $4 starting bid, $5 shipping.

I don't believe that there is any eBay policy violation, but is this allowed
under the GPL?

jon
 
JW said:
I don't believe that there is any eBay policy violation, but is this allowed
under the GPL?
Click to expand...

Yes. The OpenOffice community has this situation with luxuriosity
Office, a rebranded OOo. There is nothing to stop people selling GPL
software for whatever they can con people into paying.
 
JW said:
Check out this guy, he seems to specialize in auctioning/selling free, open
source software especially The Gimp, Open Office, and PDF Creator.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=great_software

He sells these (or attempts to, not sure what his success rate is) under
different titles but includes all three (plus "royalty free images) for each
listing. $4 starting bid, $5 shipping.

I don't believe that there is any eBay policy violation, but is this allowed
under the GPL?

jon
Click to expand...

According to the E-Bay rules, you are not supposed to be selling CD's
that you burn yourself. Unfortunately like a lot of the rules on
E-Bay this one is not enforced.
 
JW said:
Check out this guy, he seems to specialize in auctioning/selling free, open
source software especially The Gimp, Open Office, and PDF Creator.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=great_sof
tware

He sells these (or attempts to, not sure what his success rate is) under
different titles but includes all three (plus "royalty free images) for each
listing. $4 starting bid, $5 shipping.

I don't believe that there is any eBay policy violation, but is this allowed
under the GPL?

jon
Click to expand...



I did a quick search of past auctions and it looks like he sold a dozen or
so, Open Office packages at $8.99 with shipping.

Next, people will start buying water,

Dave H.
 
Yes. The OpenOffice community has this situation with luxuriosity
Office, a rebranded OOo. There is nothing to stop people selling
GPL software for whatever they can con people into paying.
Click to expand...

Yep; the only restriction is that if you are selling (or even
distributing for free) GPL'ed software, you have to either make the
source available, or if no modifications were made to the software
you're shipping from the original source, the location to obtain the
original source. And, if I recall, the vendor can charge for the cost
of getting the source, but can only charge for the cost of
distribution.
 
According to the E-Bay rules, you are not supposed to be selling CD's
that you burn yourself. Unfortunately like a lot of the rules on
E-Bay this one is not enforced.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it does seem to fall under this prohibition:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/recordable.html

As far as enforcement, eBay generally relies on its users to report listing
violations. Folks get away with all kinds of stuff (like selling feedback, CD-Rs
of clearly copyrighted stuff, etc.)

jon
 
"dkg_ctc" <[email protected]> and Max Quordlepleen <[email protected]>
wrote

(confirming that someone can indeed sell GPL software on eBay.)

A while back, folks were selling the graphics to the Iraq most-wanted card deck
on eBay. In response, some kind soul then created a 1 cent auction (and said in
the auction please don't bid) that was essentially just a link to a government
site where the graphics could be downloaded for free. I guess that's one way to
combat scammers like this. If I had a throwaway eBay account, I'd probably do
this but I can't take the chance of pissing anyone off with my regular sellers
account...

jon
 
Check out this guy, he seems to specialize in auctioning/selling free,
open source software especially The Gimp, Open Office, and PDF
Creator.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=grea
t_software

He sells these (or attempts to, not sure what his success rate is)
under different titles but includes all three (plus "royalty free
images) for each listing. $4 starting bid, $5 shipping.

I don't believe that there is any eBay policy violation, but is this
allowed under the GPL?

jon
Click to expand...

Some people do not have the luxury of broadband, and do not want to spend
several days downloading images. Selling this stuff (and linux distro's)
burnt on cd's, is very useful to us people stuck on dial up.

cheers (and merry xmas)

JB
 
Some people do not have the luxury of broadband, and do not want to spend
several days downloading images. Selling this stuff (and linux distro's)
burnt on cd's, is very useful to us people stuck on dial up.
Click to expand...
This is true.
On my dialup connection here I manage about 1Mb per five minutes on
average - so downloading a full cd's worth ( say 640Mb ) is going to
take around 53 hours.
Even with 'flat fee' dialup, that represents a third of the monthly
total of hours - or a third of the fee ( say a fiver ).

My only other source of large open-source files is magazine cover
discs - and when you consider that I paid about six quid for a single
cover-disc distro of Slackware ( i.e. without the bells and
whistles...looks promising too... ), paying a nominal cost for someone
to send me the complete distro by post begins to look attractive.

I noticed the other day that a chap in Wales was selling 3-disc
Mandrake 9.2 distros on ebay, for about £2.50, including postage.
There was even one seller offering 7 days support with his auctions.

And let's face it - most folk into the open-source stuff are likely to
be savvy about what's available, and where...so I think it unlikely
that these vendors are going to be able to make much more than beer
money - and certainly a lot less than the magazine vendors.

Regards,
 
JW said:
Yeah, it does seem to fall under this prohibition:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/recordable.html

As far as enforcement, eBay generally relies on its users to report listing
violations. Folks get away with all kinds of stuff (like selling feedback, CD-Rs
of clearly copyrighted stuff, etc.)

jon
Click to expand...

The problem with this is they don't make a mechanism for reporting
violations readily available. I managed to find it once, but at a
later date was unable to locate the URL. It's almost as though they
don't want anyone bothering them. I'm certain it's there, somewhere.
It just takes a great deal of spelunking to find it and most people
aren't that motivated.

Chris
 
Check out this guy, he seems to specialize in auctioning/selling free,
open source software especially The Gimp, Open Office, and PDF Creator.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=great_software

He sells these (or attempts to, not sure what his success rate is) under
different titles but includes all three (plus "royalty free images) for
each listing. $4 starting bid, $5 shipping.
Click to expand...

From that URL:

"Sound to good to be true? This package is only available
due to the thousands of software writers who have spent
years creating Open Source software that can replace the
traditional programs most people are used to. You are
free to distribute this software any way you like! Copy
it to the kids computer, give it to a friend or install it
on every computer in the office. Perfectly legal and
ethical! Try out this wonderful package for yourself! I
can guarantee that you will not be disappointed!"

Personally I think he should advise people that they can download the
software for free from other sources. However he's not doing anything
illegal by charging for the software. Also his prices are in line with
popular sites that sell CD's of large open-source applications and
packages to dial-up users. If I need more than about 30 megabytes of
something it's well worth $10 to me to have someone else do the
downloading.
I don't believe that there is any eBay policy violation, but is this
allowed under the GPL?
Click to expand...

Of course it is. There's not any difference between this and the way
RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc. and websites like cheapbytes.com operate.
 
Some people do not have the luxury of broadband, and do not want to spend
several days downloading images. Selling this stuff (and linux distro's)
burnt on cd's, is very useful to us people stuck on dial up.
Click to expand...

Indeed it is. I'm still stuck on a 48k dial-up and I'm happy just to
get a dial tone.
 
techie said:
Personally I think he should advise people that they can download the
software for free from other sources. However he's not doing anything
illegal by charging for the software. Also his prices are in line with
popular sites that sell CD's of large open-source applications and
packages to dial-up users. If I need more than about 30 megabytes of
something it's well worth $10 to me to have someone else do the
downloading.
Click to expand...

I agree. $10 for a CD is little more than the cost of labor and material.
 
(e-mail address removed) (Chris Dubea) wrote in
The problem with this is they don't make a mechanism for reporting
violations readily available. I managed to find it once, but at a
later date was unable to locate the URL. It's almost as though they
don't want anyone bothering them. I'm certain it's there, somewhere.
It just takes a great deal of spelunking to find it and most people
aren't that motivated.

Chris
Click to expand...

I think they have stopped enforcing violations all together. I just tried
to find out where to file a complaint and was directed to The Internet
Fraud Complaint Center which is not a part of ebay.
 
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