Controversy Arises Over SPI Project, Fighting With Elementary OS

[belal1]

Elementary advertises itself as 100% free and called those who downloaded it without paying as cheaters.....

Let's be fair for a minute. They have the RIGHT to say whatever they want. They DO work hard (and it shows) in creating a pleasant distro. So the fact that they ask for donation in return is just fine. The fact that they call their non-paying users cheaters is on them but they DO have the RIGHT to speak their mind. Personally I don't use their distro.

[SystemCrasher]

Really? They ask for money for their product? How dare they to do something that is explicitly allowed by the license and its main proponent? How scammy and fraud-like they are. What comes next, calling Red Hat a fraud for charging you for updates?

First of all, it's not THEIR product. If you want something to be YOURS - go write it from scratch! Then copyright laws are pretty clear: your code is yours. If you took someone's else code, it's not yours. You've got certain license on certain terms to use that code - that's all. In some cases it could allow you to share and modify it, etc. Yet it does not makes you full owner of whole code, no matter what you mumble.

These nuts are not authors of most of code. So stating it's "their product" is a misnomer, to begin with. If you changed wallpaper and couple of strings it's way too loud to call self a new product and pretend it completely created by you. Also, pretending to be 100% free but then blaming those who haven't paid is something really close to fraud and sounds like very questionable practice. You better to make terms clear or you'll be known as fraudulent cheater. Most open licenses, even GPL, are not against of commerce. However this particular method is questionable to say the least.

So IMO SPI should stay miles away from these fraudulent nuts. The only thing they can achieve by getting such entities on their side is damage to SPI reputation.

[MoonMoon]

Elementary advertises itself as 100% free and called those who downloaded it without paying as cheaters.....

So what? That is neither a scam nor a fraud, they just have the opinion that you should pay, but give you their product anyway, though they are actually not required to do so.

[ObiWan]

Really? They ask for money for their product? How dare they to do something that is explicitly allowed by the license and its main proponent? How scammy and fraud-like they are. What comes next, calling Red Hat a fraud for charging you for updates?

Elementary advertises itself as 100% free and called those who downloaded it without paying as cheaters.....

[stiiixy]

Sounds like a guy called up and rather than having a conversation, tried to sell something. Except, Elementary already know the 'sales' game because they do 'advertise' a 'donate xx' above the free download and have their own legal set up anyway.

A booboo on Party 1's side, and now trying to recover his standing with legalise (just suck it up say you fucked up and move on because now it's a us v them thing which no one will benefit from) And now it's blown out of proportion?

Either way, official statements seem to be non-existant, and mostly opinionated. I'm putting it down to a minor interwebs hiccough!

[MoonMoon]

Elementary OS is known for fraud-like requests to pay for OS in download dialog. It looks for user like if it is unconditional payment, even though smartass can enter 0 and continue free of charge. Then they also seem to consider free downloaders like thieves. Yet, granted they mostly base on projects from other people it is very quistionable attitude, to say the least. So I think it's not a big loss for SPI at all. And in SPI shoes I would not want some scam-like projects under their umbrella.

Really? They ask for money for their product? How dare they to do something that is explicitly allowed by the license and its main proponent? How scammy and fraud-like they are. What comes next, calling Red Hat a fraud for charging you for updates?

[SystemCrasher]

Elementary OS is known for fraud-like requests to pay for OS in download dialog. It looks for user like if it is unconditional payment, even though smartass can enter 0 and continue free of charge. Then they also seem to consider free downloaders like thieves. Yet, granted they mostly base on projects from other people it is very quistionable attitude, to say the least. So I think it's not a big loss for SPI at all. And in SPI shoes I would not want some scam-like projects under their umbrella.

[cb88]

http://www.spi-inc.org/ is a non profit.

Extorsion: the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

... Except SPI isn't in it for the money and already have enough money to run thier various projects. So anything Elemantary OS guys say about extorsion is just bunk. If anything it looks like the negative comments were based on ideological differences.

Streisand effect anyone? If the Elementary OS guys are in it for proffit and had a negative interaction with SPI there is absolutely nothing wrong with SPI talking about it publicly. If anything it is a healthy thing.

[cocklover]

No matter how the Elementary OS team responded, extortion is not condoned and makes you lose your credibility as an organization. He should have simply accepted a "no".

Well yes, extortion is condemed by law. If they really extortioned Eos then they(eos) should go to the law.

[cb88]

No matter how the Elementary OS team responded, extortion is not condoned and makes you lose your credibility as an organization. He should have simply accepted a "no".

This is hardly extortion.... this is the internet and the signal to noise ratio is already rediculous and noone cares.

If people want to read about how bad Elementary OS or thier policies are they'll red that blog otherwise they'll just read the Elementary OS blog and become fanboys or maybe like me they'll just ignore the whole lot and post on phoronix.