FreeCAD Being Sold for Profit by Microsoft?

[Agnillev]

It is discounted to €4,99 from €9,99 in the Netherlands

It is published by "appsmedia1" so guess FreeCAD can publish FreeCAD for free in the Microsoft store this would render the for profit companies selling FreeCAD without a viable business model.

[JoeKundlak]

But it says you literally "completely hold it in your hand". So you do not need to worry about plagiarism here, this is a physical product

[Agnillev]

But it says you literally "completely hold it in your hand". So you do not need to worry about plagiarism here, this is a physical product

[Agnillev]

They must be reading the forum, they 're all discounted, €19,99 to €1,99

[yorik]

My take on this is that, as @wmayer said, it is legal and authorized by the LGPL license to redistribute and even sell FreeCAD (The license doesn't say this explicitly, but doesn't say anything that prevents selling). However, and I think this is the fundamental point:

The license, same as the original GPL, gives users the famous 4 basic rights defined by the free software foundation: 1) use the software as you wish, 2) look at the code, 3) redistribute, 4) modify. You can do what you want with FreeCAD, but you cannot remove any of these freedoms. That's basically what the license says.

By selling FreeCAD, and - that's the important part - NOT saying that FreeCAD is available for free somewhere else, you are in fact REMOVING part of the first freedom from the user (they don't know they can use FreeCAD without paying. They are being fooled into believing they need to pay. Their freedom to use the software as they wish is being restricted). So the way it is done there is IMHO a violation of the LGPL.

If there was a text saying "FreeCAD can be downloaded for free too" somewhere, then there would be I think no LGPL breach. But of course they won't do that

Note that Krita is on the app store too, placed there by the Krita team themselves. And there too it doesn't say specifically that Krita is available for free elsewhere, and I think it is also a (L)GPL breach.

That said, this is Microsoft. There isn't even a "comments/review" section like any decent store... (The problem would quickly be solved if there was ). We of course won't hire a lawyer to go against Microsoft. The only thing we can do is hit the "report" button, and I suppose with enough reports that will trigger some action there and the software will be removed for deeper investigation... So please, go there and report!

[yorik]

They must be reading the forum, they 're all discounted, €19,99 to €1,99

Even the description text is a copy/paste from the FreeCAD website... How lame

[wmayer]

The license doesn't say this explicitly, but doesn't say anything that prevents selling

But the FAQ about the GPL explicitly mentions it: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.ht ... AllowMoney

[adrianinsaval]

By selling FreeCAD, and - that's the important part - NOT saying that FreeCAD is available for free somewhere else, you are in fact REMOVING part of the first freedom from the user (they don't know they can use FreeCAD without paying. They are being fooled into believing they need to pay. Their freedom to use the software as they wish is being restricted). So the way it is done there is IMHO a violation of the LGPL.

I'm not sure this is true I think it is about the freedom to do whatever you want with it once you have it, not the freedom to get the software however you want it.

[johnwang]

What a shame.

One can sell it, but I don't think one can publish it by himself. Microsoft store's basic requirement is the developer publish his own app. It is not his app. I don't think he is a FreeCAD developer. Even if his is a FreeCAD developer, he can't publish by himself. He has no right to represent all FreeCAD developers.

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[freedman]

yorik wrote
By selling FreeCAD, and - that's the important part - NOT saying that FreeCAD is available for free somewhere else, you are in fact REMOVING part of the first freedom from the user (they don't know they can use FreeCAD without paying. They are being fooled into believing they need to pay. Their freedom to use the software as they wish is being restricted). So the way it is done there is IMHO a violation of the LGPL.

In my legal mind; If they change one line of code then the above would not be true. The user is then buying the vendor version and it is in fact different from what you would get from a free download. It's splitting hairs but that's what a license is all about.