I don't see dosbox mentioned there but in general it is legal if it's an unmodified official installation (see the GPL terms).

wd wrote:

I don't see dosbox mentioned there but in general it is legal if it's an unmodified official installation (see the GPL terms).

Yeah, but I seriously doubt it is costing the seller anywhere close to $10 to put a copy of DOSBox on a CD. It probably wouldn't cost more than $3-$4 to ship, even less at media mail rates, so he's basically getting paid $6-$7 for each copy that probably takes no time at all to make and probably well under $1 for the blank CD. So he's getting rich off of DOSBox while the devs who did all the real work are getting nothing.

People do the same with Amazon and Wikipedia.

Print out Wikipedia articles as books and sell them on Amazon.

Does ebay have a rating system for sellers?

So he's getting rich off of DOSBox while the devs who did all the real work are getting nothing.

I don't think he'll get rich, but yes, that's how it is since the license that was chosen is GPL.

This part caught my attention.

Condition:
Brand New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages.

Looks like he mostly sells repair manuals for vehicles. Hardly anything else computer related.

DosFreak wrote:

Does ebay have a rating system for sellers?

The seller has a rating of 98.3% Positive feedback.

$10 just seems a bit much for something you can download yourself for free and only comes on one CD. I can see wanting a little to compensate for your time and expense of making the CD,because PD librarians used to do that kind of thing all the time, but $10 seems excessive to me. For $10 I'd want a lot more than just a copy of DOSBox or whatever emulator he's selling on that disc.

It also doesn't seem right to me that someone can sell software that belongs to someone else and make a profit when the author of the software isn't getting a cent for his trouble.

sliderider wrote:

It also doesn't seem right to me that someone can sell software that belongs to someone else and make a profit when the author of the software isn't getting a cent for his trouble.

Since the author(s) apparently used a licence permitting that, they created the potential for this situation, and from upthread, appear comfortable with the situation. If they decide that they want to use a different licencing scheme, they are free to do so.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

If they decide that they want to use a different licencing scheme, they are free to do so.

No you can't.

wd wrote:

If they decide that they want to use a different licencing scheme, they are free to do so.

No you can't.

You have misread me. Restoring the context:

"Since the author(s) apparently used a licence permitting that, they created the potential for this situation, and from upthread, appear comfortable with the situation. If they decide that they want to use a different licencing scheme, they are free to do so."

The antecedents for the occurrences of "they" in the second sentence are the author(s) [of DOSBox]. NOT the people selling copies of it.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Yes I read that correctly, the problem is that "the authors" are many people who contribute.

Actually, you could probably get away with license changes without the express agreement of all contributors if the terms of the change would not "materially affect" them.

Of course it'd still be unethical, even if a judge's ruling would end up being "no big deal, stop bothering me about it".

wd wrote:

Yes I read that correctly, the problem is that "the authors" are many people who contribute.

Thank you for the correction.

I thought it might be that the rights belonged to only a few. In that case, it would be fairly easy to modify the licence. With a large number, little chance.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Gez wrote:

Actually, you could probably get away with license changes without the express agreement of all contributors if the terms of the change would not "materially affect" them.

Of course it'd still be unethical, even if a judge's ruling would end up being "no big deal, stop bothering me about it".

It does depend on the terms of the contribution. If the contributor had to give up all rights for a contribution to be accepted, then they would have no say. I am very unlikely to ever agree to such a thing, but some might.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

If the contributor had to give up all rights for a contribution to be accepted, then they would have no say.

That's hard to prove before court though.