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UK Government Confiscates Firefox CDs
Alsee writes "The idea that Free Software can be sold has some government officials perplexed. Times Online has the story. A UK Trading Standards officer contacted the Mozilla Foundation to report catching a business selling copies of Firefox. The organization confiscated the CDs with the intent to prosecute said business. When informed that such distribution was authorized, the officer first expressed disbelief that Free Software could be sold then said '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'."
Where's the (-1, Too Stupid to Correctly make a <)?
My GOD ! They're giving it away ! How can we control this !
... you're going to put us out of our jobs, I mean, who would we prosecute then??!?!"
Someone should take this guy to the bar and explain it to him over a 'free beer'.....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Thise word..."Free Software"...I do not think it means what you think it means.
The laws of probability forbid it!
The UK goverment should consider an import blockade on banana's.
Does this mean the DTI is going to try and confiscate all boxed copies of Linux for sale in the UK?
Jonathan Beckett http://www.pluggedout.com
Junior ministers have already been deployed to find out what the government should do about free software...
"It goes against the grain to have this sort of thing going on in Great Britain. We've partially dismantled free speech and the freedom of movement. We will need to review what can be done to combat this new threat." (quote was made up).
Government official: Must... apply... thought... to... job..... Must... think... *ugh* outside... of... the... box... *gah*.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
In that case... what a cute bum.
space is pretty cool.
upon uncountering the "suspicious" distributor, he first contacted the copyright owner
RTFA yourself:
A little while ago, I received an e-mail from a lady in the Trading Standards department of a large northern town
Litter is British slang for prostitutes.
Free as in speech, not as in beer. You CAN sell "free software" Look at the packaged linux distros. English cops=n00bs. RTFM bobbies.
I hate sigs.
first we get a computer that runs without running, now we get people selling free software, for money.
Hehe,
Everyone who buys it is reducing load on the download servers and mirrors
I download one copy for every copy i burn.
Those who actually offer some added value will sell better. This encourages Firefox development (in the same way that Red Hat, Mantiva, Novell, IBM and many others have contributed to Linux).
I only sell it to Microsoft employees who promise to burn every copy.
In many places, offering a product for sale implies a certain amount of warantee which cannot be disclaimed, on the part of the seller (lemon laws, etc). This gives consumers leverage by which to demand things like security updates, which further incents distributors to participate in Firefox development.
I tell them the security update warnings are spammers, and that I won't update it for them.
Many people in the world with very slow, noisy connections to the Internet cannot reasonably download something as large as Firefox.
I give them Opera.
For every dollar (or Euro or Pound) spent on Firefox CDs, there is more measurable sale of open source software.
Sales are unregistered with tax, etc, authorities.
Overseas sales will encourage better regionalization enhancements.
If someone from overseas orders a copy, I send them an empty box.
Since you can download it for free, those purchasing it are likely people who would NOT have used Firefox otherwise (perhaps they just don't trust free software, or perhaps they would not have come acorss it other than on a shelf).
To encourage sales, I have a large advert in my shop window stating that the MD5 sums on Mozilla's website are incorrect because Mozilla is an increasing target of hackers and they regularly hack the site and put malicious copies in the place of genuine copies. Only I have genuine copies, only I, only for $50.99.
I have too much time on mu hands, you insensitive clod!
Man, there's a particularly unfortunate abbreviation.
antipaucity
"It goes against the grain to have this sort of thing going on in Great Britain. We've partially dismantled free speech and the freedom of movement. We will need to review what can be done to combat this new threat."
Do you want to explain to them what a "lay by" is, as well? ;-)
Unfortunately awesome, maybe.
Maybe, they should have explained as shareware, but you only have to pay $0 to register it ;-]
(and you don't have to register it )
Nah,
Validation Department. Now there's an unfortunate abbreviation.
We changed our name to Design Validation Lab shortly after.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
The big law firm of Morrison & Foerster..."Over one thousand lawyers worldwide"
That's a lot of mo fos
Morrison & Foerster.
Attorney A "Who are we up against?"
Attorney B "It's the MoFo's."
Attorney A "That just great!"
I guess if you need an attorney, you'll want one that's a real MoFo.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It's not enough. Apparently, you also need a paperclip.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
If I read a story about something interesting on, say, the BBC's technology pages, I know it'll probably hit /. in a few hours, or at worst a couple of days, and once it does there'll be Interesting Discussion.
And more often than not it will hit slashdot again a week later too.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Also, "picking up" is British slang for buggering.
In related news: Morrison & Foerster : Legal Updates & News : Press Releases : MoFo One of 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers
Support SETI@home
Hell of a lot of good Firefox is going to do them in that case!
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
And with a bit of luck, people that missed the discussion on slashdot the first time still get the change to read a similar discussion when the dupe is posted a few days later ;)
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
The proper response to her "virtually impossible" comment would be "Ummm, and as copyright holders that's our problem how again?". :)