i'm curious about this ....
open-source apps, e.g. Chrome, Firefox, etc. are free.
as a user, can i repackage and distribute them into thinstall/PAF-format?
is there any legal issues doing this?
reference: http://portableapps.com/
thanks!
Are portable open-source apps legal?
No, it's perfectly legal:
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html
http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html
http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html
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usualy free apps are provided as-is and the GPL liscence asks you to distribute the source untouched.some times this can even extend to the package it self.
XP theme source patcher
patches/overwrites ure default xp visual resources
patches/overwrites ure default xp visual resources
Each individual app can have its own license with varying levels of restrictiveness. For example, MIT and BSD licenses are generally a lot less restrictive than copyleft licenses like GPL. You should review each one, instead of assuming that it's all GPL (one common mistake is for people to equate GPL to open source because of the publicity that GPL gets).
For example, Chromium uses a BSD license, which just requires that you include the original copyright notice and not use Google's name in promoting your package. Which brings us to the biggest concern: for stuff like Chrome (which is the branded/trademarked version of Chromium) and Firefox (which is the branded/trademarked version of Minefield/Shiretoko), the main thing to watch out for is the use of the trademark, which are separate from the software license.
For the most part, as long as you don't do anything obviously wrong, it's pretty easy to stay within the bounds of open source licenses.
For example, Chromium uses a BSD license, which just requires that you include the original copyright notice and not use Google's name in promoting your package. Which brings us to the biggest concern: for stuff like Chrome (which is the branded/trademarked version of Chromium) and Firefox (which is the branded/trademarked version of Minefield/Shiretoko), the main thing to watch out for is the use of the trademark, which are separate from the software license.
For the most part, as long as you don't do anything obviously wrong, it's pretty easy to stay within the bounds of open source licenses.