DOSBox being sold online \ VOGONS

DOSBox being sold online

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First post, by SoulSkorpion

Posted on 2007-08-04, 07:31

SoulSkorpion Offline

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I apologise beforehand if this is the wrong place/covered already; I did a search and found nothing, but:

I thought I should mention that I've just discovered DOSBox being sold by online vendor Starvector.com, as some kind of special deal that pops up during the checkout process. My understanding is that DOSBox is free software, and that these guys are effectively ripping people off by selling it. Am I completely off base here?

For that matter, I was considering buying something from these guys, but the fact that they're trying to rip off their clients by selling them free software bothers me. Has anyone dealt with these guys before and has any feedback about them?

Reply 1 of 3, by gulikoza

Posted on 2007-08-04, 07:43

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GPL does not prevent people from selling software. Everybody is free to charge whatever they want for dosbox, but the buyer gets all the rights the seller has (including selling the software further or giving the copies away for free...and of course the exact source the seller used to create the binaries)

http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza

Reply 2 of 3, by red_avatar

Posted on 2007-08-04, 07:50

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It's amazing how low some people go.

DOSBox - A new utility that allows you to run all your old classic DOS games under Windows 98 and XP! A true "Must-Have" program for any serious gamer. $1.99

Reply 3 of 3, by MiniMax

Posted on 2007-08-04, 10:14

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gulikoza wrote:
<snip> the buyer gets all the rights the seller has (including selling the software further or giving the copies away for free...and of course the exact source the seller used to create the binaries)

And source thing is where the sellers/redistributors are most likely to break the GPL. It is not enough to the put a link to dosbox.sourceforge.net - the distributor has to provide the source (or the means to get it) on their own. Either on the CD, or a website, or to print it out and mail it on request, or whatever.

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