Rules for reselling OSCommerce

[sonicman]

Hello I was wondering what the rules are for selling oscommerce products, the main site said something about you can but I would like feedback from the oscommerce team.

 

Thanks

[Guest]

Dan,

 

OSC is released under a GPL and therefore is FREE to anyone to use as long as the GPL is respected. However, some people (like myself) sell OSC with contributions installed or templates added. This value is based on the work done on the base OSC code. This is how people can charge for OSC.

 

 

 

Chris

[sonicman]

Dan,

 

OSC is released under a GPL and therefore is FREE to anyone to use as long as the GPL is respected. However, some people (like myself) sell OSC with contributions installed or templates added. This value is based on the work done on the base OSC code. This is how people can charge for OSC.

 

 

 

Chris

 

but you can sell it without adding anything to it right

[MrPhil]

but you can sell it without adding anything to it right

If you're charging for your time and effort of installing and configuring it, no problem. People do get a bit annoyed if you actually merely sell the osC product itself, but as long as it's a fair price for value-add (install, configure) no one will complain. Now, what's legal, per the license, is not clear to me (and evidently not to a lot of other people, who keep asking this question). The code is copyrighted and belongs to some entity, so I suppose they can bar you from merely selling it (and making money off it for no effort). However, the free software economy is built on ancillary services related to free products, and some people are probably more creative at bending reality around what's a service and what isn't...

 

I would say, "add something to it", and charge what's fair -- changing the background color doesn't justify charging $79.95, while pre-loading all sorts of fixes and popular add-ons might well rate such a price.

[Guest]

I agree with Phil

 

 

 

 

Chris

[♥toyicebear]

As other have said...

 

You can make a custom version and sell it based on "extra value" added.

 

You can make some nice designs/templates and sell those.

 

You can sell install and configuration services.

 

 

But to sell an unchanged oscommerce version , while its not directly "illegal" its a highly suspect business practice. It will also net you alot of unsatisfied customers when they find out it can be had for free leading to payment disputes and chargebacks galore....

[burt]

Not only is it not illegal to download osCommerce and sell it, you are encouraged to do so per GNU.

 

Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can.

 

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

 

The word “free” has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of “free software”, we're talking about freedom, not price. (Think of “free speech”, not “free beer”.) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.