wordpress blogs

here is a conversation i am having with word press right now
-----Original Message-----
From: James - WordPress.com
Sent: 3/29/2011 8:05:49 AM
To: me
Subject: [WordPress #######]: TOS & Copyright - selling of your services
> Was just wondering if your product is a free to the public to use in
> any way they wish. Specifically questioning your intellectual property
> rights. There is 2 companies that charge for the use of your blog on
> their websites.
> The first company I am going to list is a well known web design
> company called Hit Web Design
> http://www.hitenhancements.com/blog.shtml
> They say they recently went out of business but all the did was move
> out of the building that they were in, and moved to another city as
> well as changed their company name. They are now known as ISOWEBWORKS
> http://demoblog.isowebworks.com/blog/
> http://isowebworks.com/

Hi,

WordPress is a free open-source blogging platform. Fortunately, and sometimes unfortunately, folks are free to do just about anything with it.

Kind regards,

James | WordPress.com and IntenseDebate

this was my response.
I was under the understanding that with it being free ware another entity could not charge for it or profit from it, but they can make changes to it but then had to make those changes available to every one else using gnu software. Case in point gimp free ware image manipulation program like photoshop Sent from my HTC Touch Pro2 on the Now Network from Sprint®.

this was his response
Hi,

It seems like what they're doing is offering a webdesign service built around WordPress as a base, which is pretty much within the realm of the GPL.

They aren't exactly charging for WordPress, they're charging for their design tools and services.

Regardless, I have passed this on to our legal team.

Thank you,

James | WordPress.com and IntenseDebate

this is my response
No they are charging for your product I use to be a designer for this company. The price management wanted us to charge to add a blog to the customers site was 300.00. That was in addition to the design tools and services. Thank you for sending this up to your legal department. I left this company due to the unethical business practices they conducted as well as not paying me for my wages, as well as hundreds of other employees. Just google hitwebdesign and isowebworks this should bring a little more light to the subject. What else makes it frustrating they tell the client they built the blog but when the client wants to know how to use it or has problems they dont support it with their tech service department. Thanks again for your time.