MindMaster: Freemind rip off?
Posted by stephenz
on 5/10/2005
stephenz
5/10/2005 11:51 am
Alexander, et. al.
I just found a program I hadn't heard of before called MindMaster. I haven't downloaded it yet, but from the screen shot on their web site, this program looks suspiciously like Freemind.
http://www.gigastorm.com/mindmaster/index.html
Do you know anything about this? If it is a ripoff of Freemind, who do we contact? For those of you who don't know, Freemind is an open source, free program.
Steve Z.
I just found a program I hadn't heard of before called MindMaster. I haven't downloaded it yet, but from the screen shot on their web site, this program looks suspiciously like Freemind.
http://www.gigastorm.com/mindmaster/index.html
Do you know anything about this? If it is a ripoff of Freemind, who do we contact? For those of you who don't know, Freemind is an open source, free program.
Steve Z.
stephenz
5/10/2005 1:01 pm
Follow-up: so I downloaded and installed Mindmaster. It found my Freemind files and listed them in the recent files listing and I was able to open them without a problem. In fact, Mindmaster is identical to Freemind, except that they are charging $29 for it.
Steve Z.
Steve Z.
sub
5/10/2005 1:03 pm
Steve,
I just posted a note at the Freemind Open Discussion forum linking to the Mindmaster website and to your original tip here.
alx
I just posted a note at the Freemind Open Discussion forum linking to the Mindmaster website and to your original tip here.
alx
sub
5/11/2005 8:48 am
FYI, I am copying Daniel Polansky's answer from the Freemind forum.
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1281686&forum_id=22101
"After considering the issue, my suggestion is to do nothing. In principle, they have right to sell FreeMind for whatever price they want. That they claim copyright to the product and to the product description texts is certainly against law and moral. Nevertheless, there is no much we can do to prevent them from doing that, unless we would want to sue them. That would cost us scarce resources like money, time and concentration. It is easy for anyone too see that the product description texts and the product are taken directly from FreeMind. Also, they cannot expect to get anything like positive review of what they sell. Thus only someone not very smart or unlucky would pay them for the renamed FreeMind, unless he would want to get the support that they seem to offer."
alx
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1281686&forum_id=22101
"After considering the issue, my suggestion is to do nothing. In principle, they have right to sell FreeMind for whatever price they want. That they claim copyright to the product and to the product description texts is certainly against law and moral. Nevertheless, there is no much we can do to prevent them from doing that, unless we would want to sue them. That would cost us scarce resources like money, time and concentration. It is easy for anyone too see that the product description texts and the product are taken directly from FreeMind. Also, they cannot expect to get anything like positive review of what they sell. Thus only someone not very smart or unlucky would pay them for the renamed FreeMind, unless he would want to get the support that they seem to offer."
alx