G. Roderick Singleton wrote:
And they are allowed to charge for the privilege.
Strawman. Okay I'll bite.
$30 + shipping is hardly reasonable for a product of which we know
nothing.
Actually, since by your own admission, you know nothing about it, you have no way of knowing whether $30 is too much, too little, or just right. Is any product or service of which you know nothing valueless, a priori?
Do you ask every user you help where they got the software or if they have donated time or money to OOo?
No, only those who wish to profit by others work without recompense.
So let's say someone is using OOo productively in their business. Not selling or distributing the software itself, but just using it. Let's get even more direct... the user is a professional writer who charges for his work. Do you discriminate against them as well? After all, wouldn't that be "giving away [your] efforts to [a] for profit enterprize for no pay"?
THey have an obligation to go to their distributor to get support.
Exactly my point. You apparently didn't understand the scenario I proposed. So let's try again:
I am the CIO or CTO of a large corporation. I have determined that I can replace 50,000 seat licenses of MSO with OpenOffice.org, thereby saving my company on the order of $3,000,000 annually (totally fictional numbers). I download OOo from the website and my technical staff deploys the product. I decline to contribute to the project with either money or developer effort.
If I write the list with a question, properly identifying the release, will you answer the question? Am I one of the "scum sucking bottom feeders who think they can exploit this list and me to feather their own nest"? Or is that appelation reserved for some slob with a CD duplicator that manages to make a few thousand a year from distributing the program in a fashion you find objectionable?
Considering there are many cd distributors listed who do not re-label and do support the project by providing cds near cost there is no reason for anyone to get a cd that is re-labeled.
But it's allowed by the license.
Your problem seems to be that I must do what you do. Sorry that is not an option I would consider viable. I want to have the right to choose what actions I take. You, in turn, are also allowed to do that. Or are you saying that only you and others like you can make these descisions and the rest of us must do what you want us to? I hope not.
Absolutely not, I'm merely probing the basis for your moral outrage -- attempting to delineate the borders of what you find upstanding, moral, and right vs. scum-sucking, evil, and nasty.
Now as to users who buy form Cosmi or any other such company, then they
should take their problems to their vendor. They paid their money and
took their chances and have to take responsibility for their own
actions.
You are acting like they made a conscious choice to purchase PerfectOffice over downloading OpenOffice.org for free. It's much more likely that they had never heard of OOo. Prior to January, 2004, I was completely unaware of OpenOffice.org.
So what about the version that Redhat supplies with Fedora? I'm using 1.1.3 from their repository, and I can see where they have made a few changes. They appear to be minor, but it is still modified. Can *I* ask you questions?
I do not support it. It is not OpenOffice.org.
Sure it is; it says so. They list OOo as part of their distro on the website. The title bar says OpenOffice.org 1.1.3. They haven't renamed it FedoraOfficePro or anything.
Are you equally pissed off at RedHat?
By refusing to answer the OP's question, which you probably could easily do by making the reasonable assumption that the product is actually OOo 1.1.2, what exactly have you accomplished? Have you furthered the cause of OpenOffice.org? Have you slapped Cosmi's ass? Or have you just aggravated a new user of OpenOffice.org? Someone who is now likely to badmouth not only Cosmi, who may well deserve it, but also OpenOffice.org?
Is it really worth it?
Rod
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