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Mplayer Charges License Violation
Several people have submitted stories about the author of Mplayer accusing Warpvision of, err, "borrowing" their code for Warpvision's OS/2 player. I have two reactions - one, someone still uses OS/2? And two, something about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery...Update from CD: Hold on there, everyone. I downloaded the WarpVision source and lo and behold the GPL is there in all its free software glory. I think Mplayer spoke too soon, too rashly, or alternatively, WarpVision was just too slow to update thier site. I'd love to hear both sides of this before we all freak out. Further Info: It was pointed out to me (CD) that the MPlayer program itself is not Open Source software (it calls itself Basically GPL, which, BTW, hasn't been approved by the OSI), so in the end this might just be proprietary software piracy. (Yawn)
Michael, please click the link to Mplayer's site. They took the entirety of the mplayer source, changed the output plugin for OS/2, and released it as binary-only. It appears that source has now been released and the issue has been resolved, but at least read the article before letting them off light. They tried to pull a fast one on Mplayer using very little or no code of their own. I don't know if you call that imitation, I call it stealing.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Who knows the truth? I don't, but if they did "borrow" the code, at least they 'fessed up pretty quick. Perhaps we should of asked first what was happening?
My division of Prudential Insurance (Can't say where, sorry) uses OS/2 on all its desktops here, that's 3,000 machines. Nifty OS!
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
...
so yeah, it looks like they *did* steal some source code from mplayer. "but now they've released source, its ok," you say. no it isn't. apparently, they now claim that warpvision is/was GPL software. well, mplayer is released under a couple of licenses... its not all GPL, so that does not allow redistribution completely under GPL for derived works. (does that make sense to antybody else?) hmmm...
i do have to say, however, that i'm a bit disappointed in Arpad's rather immature reaction.
Arpad! you listening? rabit, knee-jerk reactions like this make us look bad. i have a lot of respect for you as a programmer, but your reaction is way out of line.
"They will die a dog's death for sure I swear!" its SOFTWARE, for god's sake. lighten up.
The update to this story mentions that everything's ok because the WarpVision code has the GPL, but the Mplayer author contends that Mplayer is not GPL, hence the following quote from the Mplayer homepage:
They also claim to be GPL. They aren't because MPlayer that they modified, also isn't GPL. It has its own license. So that's another lie.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
They stole, but this is not what they stole. Using someone else's code is not stealing, since the party whose code is used does not lose their code. Under the GPL, this sort of using is encouraged. After all, this is one of the things Free Software is truly about. So they did not "take" Mplayer's code, or "steal" Mplayer's code, they used it, and that's fine.
But then, they stole. (If indeed this is what happened... that's what is claimed, and seems to be resolved, and we will for discussion assume it is the case.) They stole from the community the right and ability to reuse and modify the code. This is what the GPL is designed to protect. And this is where we must be careful.
Code cannot be stolen. No form of "intellectual property" can be stolen by being copied and used. This is not stealing, there is no loss. The loss and theft occurs when the right and ability to modify and use or reuse is taken away. This right is the only thing that can truly be taken away by theft. Let us all beware of such things.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
OS/2 is still widely used in banking, as the underlying OS for ATM machines and elsewhere whenever uptime and reliability are of utmost importance. Personally, I haven't used it in five years, just thought I'd let you know.
I remember seeing a Meridian phone system (the hub that all the phone lines go into) and it was running OS/2! I was really surprised and my first thought was, "That's fuckin' cool!"
You just plugged a keyboard and mouse into the inside of it, and if you had the right boot disk, you could load up the software and change stuff. OS/2 was the heart of the phone system.
I just thought it was really cool that you could change mailboxes and stuff without using a phone, but a real keyboard.
I have no signature
How does that work?
Alas the WarpVision mailing list isn't archived anywhere that I know of, but I'll do my best to sumarise:
Someone noticed that WarpVision had changed a lot between two versions, doing some things better but some no longer. Someone else then noticed that the debug output was much like that of MPlayer
At that point, the MPlayer guys were alearted, and decided that it was very likely that WarpVision was an uncredited port of MPlater to OS/2, and also a closed source one. They mailed the WarpVision Developers, and asked what was up.
The WarpVision guys initially played dum, then said they had only used a tiny bit of code and would release the source later.
Tempers flared, and a lot of discussion went on between the WarpVision guys and the MPlayer guys. In the end, the WarpVision developers credited MPlayer, and released the source.
Now, the flame is over who was in the wrong, who needs to apologise, and if the projects should remain seperate, or if the WarpVision changes should go into the offical MPlayer tree. The issue isn't resolved, but the GPL violation is
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
MPlayer:
1) contains GPL'ed code.
2) Says they have a license that doesn't allow binary distribution. At no point is that license documented anywhere, nor is it listed on which files it applies to.
3) MPlayer has beefs with _anyone_ distributing binary packages, including distributions, such as Mandrake and Debian. No wonder I didn't know they existed.
Primarily it seems that their beef is with having to support other people's compiles. Of course, they are perfectly allowed to selectively apply support, and to even put restrictions on re-distribution of the code that they wrote. Of course, that does mean that they will need to specifically _list_ the restricted code, which they haven't done.
Personally, I think MPlayer is just bitching because they are getting newbie questions on the mailing list. I think they've got a crap architecture (since it requires compile-time selection of platform). I also think that it would be very nice for someone to take the code, replace the non-GPL bits, and allow people to get on with their lives.
Jason Pollock
From the MPlayer home page, it seems the MPlayer authors are mostly concerned about WarpVision stealing credit. They make a good case for that having happened.
:-).
Their claims about license violations seems confused at best. They claim MPlayer is released under its own license, but I found no such license in the source code for MPlayer 0.5. The closest I found is the following quote in the documentation:
MPlayer would be distributable under the terms of the
GNU GPL, but distributing binary packages is forbidden
Of course, the GPL forbids imposing such conditions on redistribution, so one must interpret this as saying that MPlayer is not distributable under the GPL, and since there is no other license supplied, must one understand MPlayer is not distributable at all?
Additionally, MPlayer uses code that is under the GPL, notably the MGA video drivers and some of the monitor frequency synchronization drivers. Thus either MPlayer is GPL or MPlayer violates the GPL or copyright laws.
Given MPlayer's licensing confusion, I'm not surprised WarpVision treated it as GPL. IMHO, that's the most reasonable interpretation that can be made of the situation. Regardless of licensing, of course, WarpVision should have more accurately and prominently advertised the debt it owed to MPlayer.
By the way, the vitriolic and childish attitude of the MPlayer author on this issue is yet another reminder of why it's a good idea to only use and contribute to really free software (which MPlayer apparently isn't)... I would hate to subject my use of a piece of software to the whims of such an apparently confused and aggressive person. And of course, I would hate to have such a person use code I wrote to impose their whims on others, which is why I use the GPL