What is the policy regarding for-pay free software in the software center?

[Allison Randal]

On 11/10/2011 11:53 AM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote:
> Hello everyone.
> 
> I've been thinking about myapps and selling software in the software
> center. A thought occurred to me, that if I sell an app that is GPLed,
> then other people would have a legal right to change its name and resell
> it. How is that handled by Canonical? Could someone purchase my app,
> rename it, upload it to the myapps portal and set a lower price, for
> instance? Because that would be destructive.
> 
> I couldn't see anything in the agreement about that. Actually, I think
> we could use some more information about how selling free software
> works. It would be nice to be able to sell software, but that doesn't
> mean I'm willing to go proprietary.

Legally, someone could fork/modify/resell your GPL software, that's one
of the fundamental freedoms of FLOSS licenses (that is, it's a good
thing that it's possible).

But, even though it's legally possible, it may not always be polite or
friendly. So, we have a general policy that the developer of the app has
priority:

- We encourage developers to only submit their own software for sale.
(There are some exceptions, but it's a general guideline.)

- If you sell your own software, and someone else submits the same
software, we won't accept it. (Still working on policy details here. The
general principle is easy, but there are edge cases.)

- If someone submits software that's already in main or universe, we
won't accept it. (This is in the policy docs now, at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ExtensionRepositoryPolicy.)


For more general guidance on what it means to sell free software, I
recommend the FSF document:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Allison