I have seen this on forums, blogs, and Yahoo! Answers for too long. People get something as PLR, or downloads it on the Interwebz and says, “but I want to change two lines and charge money for it. Can I do that?
The answer is actually “yes”.
Open source software, licensed in many different ways, all have that sweet freedom of doing whatever you want with it. The only catch is that you have to redistribute it as open source as well once you decide to redistribute it. Notice how I didn’t say you have to give it away. People sell open source software all the time. It is just common to give it away. But that has lead to the misconception that ALL open source software must be free.
Take WordPress, (with a Capital “P” Dang it!). It is available for free to download, edit, and distribute. You can even modify it and label it as your own. The only catch is that when you sell, give away, or otherwise distribute it, you MUST do so with the same license that WordPress gave you.
All plugins that are available on the WordPress plugin directory MUST be licensed GPLv2 or get a door in your face. But anything sold outside of WordPress’s plugin directory can do whatever they want. They can encrypt, forbid sale, yada yada. They may leverage the core, but they are doing things on their own terms, meaning no restrictions. Some say that if it ever uses WordPress, you can distribute it, but you must have an open source license attached to it. Hogwash. I’ve seen completely encrypted code be sold with NO redistribution rights whatsoever. Because that is their RIGHT. Such is the soap opera that is open source, my friends.
Flock was a good example of utilizing open source and making it better for redistribution. Flock built themselves on Firefox’s framework and made a social networking browser. And a damn good one at that.
People just don’t seem to understand the power of open source.
If you had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be this:
“You can do whatever you want with open source software so long as you pass on those rights to others.”
As a final nail in this proverbial coffin, here is where GNU discusses buying software.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney
