Feb 23

What, you let people sell your free software?

English Copyright, English, free software, Funny, IP, Law, Mozilla Add Comment (0)

The Times Online has an article about how some kind of British anti-piracy officials wanted to stop a business that was selling Mozilla Firefox CDs.

A little while ago, I received an e-mail from a lady in the Trading Standards department of a large northern town. They had encountered businesses which were selling copies of Firefox, and wanted to confirm that this was in violation of our licence agreements before taking action against them.

And now for the really funny part:

“I can’t believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?” she asked.

“If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted.”

Tough luck!

thru Frimedia, also on Slashdot.