Can you sell open source apps?

[dukebound85]

This seems kinda unethical as they are free. Or maybe I am missing something completely. What do you think?

http://bsdmall.com/officeapps2.html

 

[Super Macho Man]

This seems kinda unethical as they are free. Or maybe I am missing something completely. What do you think?

http://bsdmall.com/officeapps2.html

It depends on the license. Generally it's fine to sell open-source apps (GPL - the most common license) as long as you include the source code. If the software is under a less restrictive license like the BSD license, you don't even have to include the source. I don't see anything wrong with what this merchant is doing. The challenge must be finding suckers to pay $39 for what they can download for free.

 

[therevolution]

It's not illegal or unethical, but it is kind of sad. You have to wonder how many copies they've sold.

 

[Mernak]

AFAIK you can't not charge for the apps themselves but you can charge for the boxing, cd, tech help, etc. But these guys are selling them for much more than they should be allowed to. OS Disc sells entire Operating systems for much less than anything on that website.

 

[therevolution]

AFAIK you can't not charge for the apps themselves but you can charge for the boxing, cd, tech help, etc.

Not true. You most certainly can sell the programs themselves. What you can't do is make changes to the app and sell that while refusing to release the source code for your changes. But as long as you comply with the license, it's fine.

But these guys are selling them for much more than they should be allowed to.

They can sell it for whatever they want. If people are willing to pay $40 for a box, then let them. What difference does it make?