Stellarium

software for sale on ebay

Asked by Alec Bordacs

i would like to bring to your attention that stellarium is being sold on ebay for £2.
it is not being advertised as "stellarium" but as "astronomy and planetarium software"
i am a huge fan of stellarium and use it daily, in my opinion it is the best astronomy software on the web that is on a free download,so when i purchased this astronomy disk off ebay i was amazed and disgusted that that someone would take credit for your brilliant work and have the nerve to charge cash for it.there was no where in the advert on ebay that said it was open source and could be downloaded from your website(not even a link to you)!

            keep up the great work and i am always happy to make a donation towards your efforts.
                 regards Alec.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Stellarium Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Matthew Gates
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Theodotos Andreou (theodotos) said : 		#1

Actually it is not illegal to sell Free and Open Source software. It depends on the license but he should mention the name of the software and give the credit to the original authors and include the source code with it.

Revision history for this message
Best Matthew Gates (matthew-porpoisehead) said : 		#2

The GPL allows for changing a reasonable distribution fee, so as long as the seller is not breaching any of the terms of the GPL is this probably legal. If the seller made any changes to the source they must make those changes available to you on request.
If you bought this disk then you are entitled to request the seller provide you will source code. If they do not, they are in breach of the license.

If they modified any copyright messages, they are in breach of the license.

What they distribute must be under the GPL as well, else they are in breach of the license.

Personally I find these sellers to be an annoyance, because they omit the information that this software is freely available elsewhere and omit the title to prevent people from googling it.

Your best recourse is to complain to ebay that the seller is misleading you. Leave bad feedback. Find other users they've ripped off and coordinate your complaints. If you live in a country with an advertising standards agency, make a complaint about misleading advertising.

Revision history for this message
Alec Bordacs (alec-69-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#3

Thanks Matthew Gates, that solved my question.