People Buying Open Source Software?

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scottspfd82

scottspfd82

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People are pretty damn gullible. I've known this was going on, but I didn't realize the scale of it.

I was browsing sites for sale on ebay, and saw an auction for a copy of Nvu, with a BIN of close to $8, so I opened it up out of curiosity. The dude has over 400 positive feedback this month, and the items I took the time to look at where all Open Office, Nvu, GIMP, and some other open source software. That's like $3200 this guy has made in a month off of selling this stuff.

Another common one that I see is the "$5 website". It's advertised as special software that allows anyone to easily build a professional website. The customer pays the dude $5, and they have to sign up for hosting through his affiliate link. He then installs Joomla and hands it over to them. If he's got a host with a decent affiliate program that's easily $150+ a pop for every $5 site he sells. I checked his feedback, and he's doing pretty decent volume.

I really can't believe people pay for stuff like this. You'd think that if they where contemplating buying open office, they'd at least google the software to see if it's worth the $7.

Maybe I'll toss up some similar auctions and see how I do.

Nvu auction
$5 website
 


scottspfd82 said:
People are pretty damn gullible. I've known this was going on, but I didn't realize the scale of it.

I was browsing sites for sale on ebay, and saw an auction for a copy of Nvu, with a BIN of close to $8, so I opened it up out of curiosity. The dude has over 400 positive feedback this month, and the items I took the time to look at where all Open Office, Nvu, GIMP, and some other open source software. That's like $3200 this guy has made in a month off of selling this stuff.

Another common one that I see is the "$5 website". It's advertised as special software that allows anyone to easily build a professional website. The customer pays the dude $5, and they have to sign up for hosting through his affiliate link. He then installs Joomla and hands it over to them. If he's got a host with a decent affiliate program that's easily $150+ a pop for every $5 site he sells. I checked his feedback, and he's doing pretty decent volume.

I really can't believe people pay for stuff like this. You'd think that if they where contemplating buying open office, they'd at least google the software to see if it's worth the $7.

Maybe I'll toss up some similar auctions and see how I do.

Nvu auction
$5 website
Click to expand...

Keep us updated. Is it legal to sell open source software?

Seems shady, but if it means fleecing the dumb, I'm all for it.
 
scottspfd82 said:
Yeah, pretty sure it is legal under the GNU license.
Click to expand...

Provocative. Better keep my eye out for top-notch open source apps.

But let me ask another question, because I've seen this happen in the past: If you manipulate the code of an open source program, rebrand it, and then sell it as a closed source software, is THAT legal?

I've seen folks in the OSS community get all angry about people doing that in the past, I just wasn't sure as to the legality.
 
highlifelight said:
But let me ask another question, because I've seen this happen in the past: If you manipulate the code of an open source program, rebrand it, and then sell it as a closed source software, is THAT legal?

I've seen folks in the OSS community get all angry about people doing that in the past, I just wasn't sure as to the legality.
Click to expand...
No, you cannot just rebrand it and sell it as your own. You can't take work that people did for an opensource product and sell it as your own product.
BUT...you can do some things to make money off of opensource software.
-You can make an addon to an OS product that adds features, and sell your addon. (I used to do this for Mambo/Joomla...but most of the time I made them for free)
-You can sell your services installing or setting up this software.
-You can even charge for provding the "download" of the software from your site, as long as there is someplace that states it is open source software. Most people don't even really know what Open Source means.

The rules allow for a lot of creative ways to get around the free part. Essentially, you have to give them the OS software for free and "charge" them for something related...but most users won't realize that they could get it for free, unless they read your fine print.

I don't do this cause I think it is kinda shady, but I did sometimes charge for my coding work making addons and stuff that did actually provide a value and did take my time to create.
 
the $5 website is legit. He's not selling the "software", he's selling the install. Read his copy carefully, he really tiptoes through the details that his service is the installation not the software.

And getting users to signup to his affiliate program. Shady? Yes. Genius? Absoutely!

Think about it. How is this different than arbitrage? You're serving ads to someone who doesn't know better and profiting off the difference. I'm very tempted to duplicate this guys process.
 
I agree that the $5 website guy is legit. He's probably making pretty decent cash off of this.

Hmm... wonder what other affiliate programs could be marketed profitably on ebay?
 
DomainRealty said:
Under GNU (generally), the program/code may NOT be sold.

Jason
Click to expand...

You are right. You can not SELL somebody the software. But, you are more that welcome to charge somebody for installing the software. He makes that perfectly clear that this is free software...

He's likely making more of the hosting affiliate program than he is off the installation... by the time you factor in ebay's listing cost, then end-of-auction cost and then paypal's slice of the pie... But, if he's on some sort of recurring payment system for the hosting affiliate, that could be a nice stead stream of income that requires ZERO effort. That's where the genius part comes in.
 
The way you phrased that, "welcome to charge somebody for installing the software" is objectionable in that the software (OpenOffice, Nvu, et. al.) is not being installed, it is being provided as a download. This violates the GNU agreement for that software. For the Joomla scenario, it may be a different story.

Jason
 
This sounds sort of similar to what the sellers on ebay do with porn off of paysites. They compile a CD full of licensed photos or videos put it on a disc and sell it with a disclaimer saying that they are not selling the contents on the disc, but rather the time it took to put it together. Legal -No... But many of them get past the ebay Police.

-=Chipmunk=-
 
Argh. This is something that really bothers me. Stop spreading misinformation based on what you *think* without doing a little research into if you're correct.

You CAN sell GPL software for any price you like as long as you provide the source code in some fashion. They mean free is in freedom, not as in price. You don't have to do anything sneaky to do it.

Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
 
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