this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
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Is that legal?
Yes. LibreOffice is licensed under the MPL, which permits redistribution. Assuming that they noted it contains LibreOffice and where to get the source, anyway.
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that MPL is weak copyleft, so libreoffice can be distributed alongside proprietary software as long as they make the source of their libreoffice build available.
The duality of Lem
Hey he said binaries only, not the licence and source reference 😢
No! Will there be consequences?
Libreoffice is MPL, which allows distribution alongside proprietary software.
That's interesting and distressing.
On what basis did you proclaim "No! Not legal!" if you're now surprised by the license? Misunderstanding of the license?
Why? The authors of the software have specifically allowed it to be used in ways like this.
I didn't think they were distributing it correctly, no mention of the licence or source attribution
It's the whole issue with copyleft licences.
EDIT: non-copyleft
What issue are you talking about?
BSD licenses, the MIT one and such allow proprietary redistribution, which I find repugnant.
Also yeah I wrote this in sleep-deprivation, I should have written "non-copyleft"...
No! Anymore questions?
Yes, are you including extrajudicial consequences in your answer?
No, do you think guillotines, or is that too old school?
Maybe, I think guillotines can be impersonal, which might not elicit an appropriate level of emotional investment into any acts that are intended to be carried out.
Edit I broke the line of questions I'm so sorry
No forgiveness.