Slashdot Mirror
MusicCity's Morpheus violating GPL
dotslash writes "The new Morpheus Preview Edition client [download.com] is actually just a fork of Gnucleus an open source GPLd Gnutella client. Upon installation Morpheus PE displays the GPL and asks the user to accept. It is currently being distributed without source in violation of article 3 of the GPL. Gnucleus developers are not too happy about this.
This Morpheus client is being downloaded by thousands of frustrated Morpheus users who have been cutoff the FastTrack/Kazaa network and are now migrating to Gnutella. The violation of the GPL is blatant and will also be the first glimpse of the GPL for many of these new users. It seems like the executives at MusicCity have decided that they prefer free 'as in beer' not 'as in speech.'" Update: 03/03 05:10 GMT by T : It looks like the source is available now, gpl.txt and all.
Just what do you expect from a service that caters to freeloaders?
wholeheartedly
Music thieves stealing code too. Who'da thunk it?
They don't have to post the source..They just have to make it available.. GPL does not require source to be distributed at the same time as binary (although you invoke the third party rule if it is not)
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
Ok, they violated the GPL. What happens? Will they be forced to distribute the source code? Will they be fined? Will they be "asked" to move off of the Gnutella network? What kind of reprocussions will they face?
I'm a repairman in an imperfect world.
Makes you wonder how such an intelligently run business could have possibly been forced to switch protocols. Makes you wonder how intentional this protocol switch is at all.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
Actually, the source for Morpheous is available. If you just look down at the bottom of the menu on the left you see a link called "Source Code." If you click on that link it lets you download the source.
I downloaded the Morpheus client just after the previous story about it changing to the gnutella network and there was a link on the front page to the source code for the new client. I currently have a file "mpesrc1.zip" sitting on my desktop which contains source code. Admittedly the zip file then contains a folder called gnucleus1 so it may be the original, unmodified code rather than the morpheus code. Anyone else see this link or have the ability to analyse the code?
in the story about the new Morpheus release: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/02/141025 9
There is a difference between pirating music, and repackaging software and passing it off as your own.
It's one thing to download windows, it's another entirely to change all of the BMPs and icon files to some theme and then redistribute it as your own.
A quick download and scan of the readme.txt file shows that it is indeed Gnucleus source. The GPL violation here is merely in the advertizement -- the source is quite throughly public; I'm sure the flaw will be corrected soon.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Front page of their site. Didn't notice it earlier today when taking a look at the client though.
You have to make the source available upon request, not distribute it.
I've checked the links, and it isn't clear if it is available or not.
Writeups like these do not exactly make me want to reach into my wallet and pay for this site.
Sad to see someone taking advantage of/violating the GPL, especially in a project with such high visibility. NOT the exposure open source software needs at this point in its life.
Morpheus programmers, show some decency and give credit, or write your own code - don't go messing around with code someone else wrote for everyone's benefit.
Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.
SUE THEM!!!
The GPL was made for a reason. What better reason than making easy money off lawsuits, no?
"Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code"
Or:
"Accompany it with a written offer" for the source code at the cost of sending rhe souce code only
Or:
"Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code"
Basically, under the GNU Public Licence (GPL), Article 3, as long as they offer the source code in the licence, in the readme file or in the program itself, they are complying with the GPL. I wonder if they're doing this, though.
There is a file in the install directory that tells you where you can get the source! Check your facts Ed!
Sounds like someone was a lil pre-emptive and forgot to check that you can download the source.
i hate pansy republicans
Source is available directly off the musiccity homepage..
;o)
MusicCity
Yeah, yeah, I didn't post a directly link. Didn't seem like the right thing to do
I'm looking at the source now
I now see the light.
I didn't give a damn before about music companys getting cheated, but now that this freeloading is hurting an opensource company.......I'm changing my ways. I will now go out and legally purchase the latest by N'SYNC
They probably won't be too happy about getting Slashdotted either.
(they being whoever is using the product).
The install puts a legal.txt file in the install directory. Contents:
You may receive a machine readable copy of the source code for this software from http://www.musiccity.com/ . This offer is valid for three years after the date on which you downloaded the binary version of this software.
So maybe the GPL isn't being violated after all, and there's a bit of gun-jumping going on.
Not a violation. Just because most people include source doesn't mean it's a requirement.
Its ok to have software designed to "share" possibly copyrighted music, but God forbid they mess with the GPL copyright...
Not condemning, just seems amusingly ironic.
PLEASE can we get some even borderline fact checking. The GPL -DOES NOT- require source code to be distributed, merely available, which it seems to be.
STOP with this rediculous everything is a GPL violation if you havn't actually read the gpl.
Actually, I'm NOT paying for this. :P
/. wants people to pay for it, there needs to be some serious checking of stories before posting. The Internet may have partially obsoleted deadtree papers, but it hasn't obsoleted the concept of journalistic integrity - and integrity is what separates a legitmate newspaper from a tabloid.
In all seriousness, if
Did anyone download the binaries and ask for a copy of the source before they started screaming?
I couldn't have set it better myself -- I, for one, would definately pay for several thousand slashdot page views (I'm sure I view that many pages in a year) but I, like you, want to make sure that I'm getting reliable reporting.
Hm...
:)
:)
They don't care about the Music industries Intellectual Property... why should they care for the Open Source communities IP?
After all we have a lot less money to sue them.
I think we should create a paypal account where we can take donations to buy our own Senator so that we can get or OWN version of the SSSCA created!
Kevin
So fix the blurb before we get 4 billion posts talking about GPL violations.. oops. too late.
That being said, read the reviews on download.com, people are not happy at all with the new version. Although that doesn't say much since most of them are obviously clueless.. (half of them said "why fix it if it wasn't broken?" aparently missing the fact that it WAS broken.)
Then again, the whole story was a farce but it makes you question the claims of people not being happy in /. articles a bit more.
This may be a bit off-topic, but the other day my old Morpheus program stopped working, because it "is too old to connect to the network". This seemed like bullshit, but I dutifully dl'ed KazaaMediaDesktop (same thing, only more adds). Now my question is this: why can't somebody design a prog that utilizes the technology that makes Morpheus usable and relatively quick, but without the (alleged) spyware, pop-up ads, and lousy interface? Music City doesn't control the network, right? It's weird, it's "peer-to-peer", but you always gotta hit their stupid add servers.........umm, obviously my understanding of P to P and whatnot is a bit shallow, so any illumination is appreciated.
Misinformation... (see earlier comments) time to moderate the original story poster/admin as TROLL
Now won't it be funny if MusicCity claims another 5 million users 'cause a bunch of scruffy nerds downloaded the source tonight . Who would have thunk that the ./ effect could actually *help* someone? :)
Reading the reviews on CNET pissed the hell out of me. People think that this product is the hard work of the Morpheus team. Sure, it may be legal, but I don't like it. Taking another product and re-labeling it is cheap and wrong. They could have taken the time to actually make their own product (i.e. change the UI perhaps). I hope that the new "Morpehus" is a true fork - that it continues development on it's own and does not take any more code from the Gnucleus team.
Also, for those who have downloaded the zip file linked above, it contains a "gnucleus1" folder. Does the GPL allow GPL'd software to be used in "closed-source" software ?? Doesn't doing this "taint" the closed-source program and therefore make it GPL also ?? Or, is this simply ESR's dream/wish ?? Fact is, the GPL has never been tried in court. Until then, all you get is a bunch of non-lawyers spouting their opinion or interpretation.
this is a prime example. the code is free as in costs nothing. but it is not liberated. And thus you have to meet requirements to use it. Pitty.
Consider it added.
Notice how he says "available now" like it wasn't before? It's not like the stupid monkey would know. Who are you trying to fool Taco?
This story is completely wrong. The source is available
and has been. The "update" leads you to believe they some how
gave in when they always complied. Do the editors check
anything ? Of course not this is slashdot.
As a side note check the load of crap news post on the gnucleaus
site. They somehow believe morpheus needed some 'permission'
to do anything with the source and act like they are
more honest and holy than morpheus, when they are just taking
advantage of the GPL as its meant to be.
I've been thinking about whether I would be willing to pay for a subscription or put up with advertising, but I have to agree with you -- this "article" just made the decision easy. If the "reporters" like CmdrTaco can't be bother to check something so trivial before splattering such a sensationalistic item like a supermarket tabloid, then I see absolutely no sense in paying for the "service."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Yes, friends, subscribe to /. now for this kind of journalistic integrity and quality.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Ok, i really have nothing against opensource but the GPL is horrible. The way i see it is if i were to do something opensource it would be a variation on the BSD license. Take what i got and use it to make whatever you're working on better. None of this "IF YOU USE MY SHIT YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT OPENSOURCE TOO" thats just rude. IMO thats MORE wrong then most of the crap Microsoft does like what they did with the Windows XP registration. IE "Buy Our Operating System and you can only use it on one machine because we'll make it so you cant put it on more@#$%@"
Section 3 makes it clear. The downloaded file does not need to include source. But if it doesn't, then it must include a written offer of source for no more than the cost of distribution. (Said offer can be from you, or else instructions for whereever you got it.)
Just having a link to the source on the original site might be infringment with the letter, if not necessarily the spirit, of the GPL. What you are distributed must be accompanied with source-code or the offer, and the link on the site doesn't accompany the download...
The GPL actually obliges the distributor to either provide the source with the binary or accompany the binary with a written offer to provide source. So while it's true that he only has to actually provide source to those who ask, he's still required to make a written offer to do so; just providing the source to people who ask isn't itself enough.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I didn't say that either is right. I just said that there is a legal difference, so there might be a case for the FSF in this one. Also of note is that Morpheus only FACILITATES illegal things. It isn't in itself illegal, and it COULD be used for legal ends.
Besides, I was making a joke.
Does not accepting prevent the program from running?
The GPL does not require that you accept the license to use the software. It only requires you accept the liscense if you modify or distribute the program or its derivative works.
But the Gnucleus team is really happy with Morpheus. The "news rant" i think was due to the MusicCity attitude. They didn't even the contact Gnucleus team.
But they indeed are very proud, and happy. Take a look:
http://www.gnucleus.com/general/clones.html
Here's the text:
"Morpheus: Also a post-Gnucleus 1.0 clone. Wow, this was unexpected, 50 million users and they switch over to the Gnucleus engine... uhm.. welcome aboard!"
unfinished: (adj.)
This is well-covered in the previous slashdot story today. They're using a newer version of the gnutella protocol, one which allows for special "super-peers" which function similar to the supernodes on the KaZaa network. This means things should scale relatively nicely, theoretically. Go read the lengthy discussion earlier today, or just go read up on the recent versions of the gnutella protocol.
I thought GMT was dead, man...
UCT's not gonna be happy 'bout this...
Notepad specialist & FAT administrator, group training available
C:\Program Files\Gnucleus\Source>type Source.txt
The source is getting really big so its not being included with this release.
To get the latest source code please read the instructions on http://www.gnucleus.net
Thanks.
Let me just say it again. giFT. giFT, giFT, giFT. If you're into file-trading and you've got Linux (or some other Unixlike that will compile it), run it. If you're into file-trading and programming and you use some other OS, maybe you should consider writing a port.
Or you could use Limewire or some other Gnutella, I suppose, but I have been trying for days and I have yet to get anything to download from Gnutella. It just keeps rechecking and rechecking and nothing ever sends. giFT might have a smaller network, but at least it actually works most of the time.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I was a previous user of Morpheus and on installing the preview edition I was *NOT* presented with the GPL license, nor any information as to the source of their new modifications... It is only because of my previous knowledge and beta testing of Gnucleus that I recognized the panels and went... "heyyy"... further inspection of the website www.gnucleus.com revealed that they had recognized the swipe of code as well, and I fired an angry e-mail to Morpheus for not recognizing where their code was from and that they were in violation of the GPL. Then I headed to Slashdot to see if others had found out, and lo and behold this topic here... Interestingly enough my experience is a little different from the initial news bearer....
Why is the above labelled as a troll message?
It's a rather perceptive observation pointing out the hypocrisy of the situation. Whoever labelled this as a "troll" message seems like an unsophisticated or immature computer user who probably also happens to pirate music of the Internet and can't accept the criticism. This seriously weakens Slashdot's image as an open discussion forum.
Hey guys lets all make a code fork of the Morpheus client!! Tit for tat!
That way we can access the morpheus network and gnutella, and get rid of all the bullshit ads
Thanks! I appreciate the pointer...
I was browsing the source files, opened Gnucleus.plg with my browser. The file seems to be a build log, but one thing in it intrigues me:
Output Window
Compiling resources...
Compiling...
SearchToolbar.cpp
D:\gnucleus\Source\SearchToolbar.cpp(139) : error C2065: 'm_Preferences64' : undeclared identifier
D:\gnucleus\Source\SearchToolbar.cpp(143) : error C2065: 'm_SHARED64Bitmap' : undeclared identifier
Error executing cl.exe.
Results
morpheusp.exe - 2 error(s), 0 warning(s)
I didn't have time to install a compiler on my computer yet, but i wonder if these errors are still there.
This space reserved...
+1 Insightful
Stupid GPL freaks, why can't you have a little patience!!!
to be bashed on slashdot.
No one forces people to use GPL'ed software, so if they choose to then they are bound by the license. If Microsoft says you can only use their software on one PC per license, then you can either agree to that or not use it. The GPL is more acceptable an agreement, in that you probably didn't even pay for the software it governs.
:-P
Don't bitch about a free lunch
WTF? Anyone have this problem?
Otherwise I could connect to the network and inject my own version of the client, complete with back doors etc?
Am I the only one who doesn't like the idea of the GPL being used in an apparently spiteful and vindictive way?
Why not save your money to reverse the sex change you've been regretting all these years?
not really the spirit... I downloaded the source, and even rebooted into windows to give it a whirl. It's painful. When you first open the open the workspace in visual studio, you have many open files, and they have neglected to include all of the resources necessary for a build. (All of the source seems to be there, but icons and bitmaps are missing... VS won't even start a build without them.) To be fair to the Morpheus folks, though, it looks like they might have simply forgotten a directory in their zip file. I checked Gnucleus out of CVS and copied the "res" directory from their checkout to the Morpheus directory. It still didn't build, but I got the same (mis-)behavior with both projects. Morpheus clearly was in a hurry to get this source file up; the archive is a mess. Absolute paths (like d:\gnucleus\morpheuspe.exe) are hard-coded into the workspace, and the changelog isn't even updated. I'm too tired to play with it more tonight, but it looks like the essentials (for license compliance) are there, just in a shitty package.
.sig: file not found
followed by the rest of the GPL.
You are just plain wrong, sorry.
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I feel another hoax coming on....
mjl
--------------------Configuration: Gnucleus - Win32 Release--------------------
Compiling resources...
C:\gnucleus1\Gnucleus.rc(1852) : fatal error RC1015: cannot open include file 'res\Gnucleus.rc2'.
Error executing rc.exe.
morpheusp.exe - 1 error(s), 0 warning(s)
Naturally, this makes sense since the contents of the zip contains no res\Gnucleus.rc2
Now I recall having read in one of the posts that the source doesn't include some of the major Morpheus components.
But, damn it...I want to exercise my right to be able to compile this project and breeze through all the source. Since the inclusion of the Gnucleus source will spread the GPL throughout the morpheus client, I would like to get a full source code distribution...
Am I missing something here? This is simply wrong
There are two popular IM clients for OS X-- Fire and Proteus.
...
From the author of Fire, on the Fire development mailing list
{#} Replies are directed back to fire@firelist.org
{#} To reply to the author, write to Eric Peyton
Also to note some other "relationships"
Proteus uses many of the same underlying libraries but is violating the
GPL by not releasing the source to code to either those libraries or the
application itself.
Fire releases all of it's source code as specified by the GPL.
Proteus may one day attempt to charge users for it's application.
Fire will never attempt to do such a thing.
Proteus has no open source contributions.
Fire is mostly open source contributions at this time.
Eric
(a discussion on Proteus's site is here. The author says "As of now, proteus is in violation of GPL.")
As far as I know the source code has been available from the music city website since the beginning of the availability Morpheus's New Preview Version. (I was one of the first ppl to download it) No GPL violation ever took place, I guess it took them some hours to add a link to the source (albeit not a very prominent link)
..To be a lot of this going around.
:p It'd save everyone time.
It also seems that as soon as someone with a clue finds out, source magically appears.
Why don't these companies just follow the darned license and offer source initially?
The real reason why Morpheous stopped working is probably because they couldn't continue to pay or never paid Kazaa'a Fasttrack license fee. I'm sure the Fasttrack owners would happily have let Morpheous connect if all fees were up to date.
They made the source available, but well hidden, and then submitted a story to Slashdot saying "The source ain't there!". Result: free advertising on Slashdot.
Will paying for subscription also remove this kind of ads, guys?
- Tal Cohen
I fear this will give the GPL and free software a bad name. If Morpheus is ever shut down because of copyright violations, then maybe people will associate GPL and free software with distributing warez, mp3s, videos, etc... all these illegal things that Morpheus (and gnutella) let you do.
I really think people associated with free software DO NOT want their reputations attached to software which lets people conduct illegal activities (and don't argue with this - IT IS ILLEGAL). Yes, you could say this about FTPd or apache or other programs, but Morpheus and Gnutella have a single purpose - to let people exchange these files illegally. I just don't want other projects to take the rap for the few bad apples in the bunch... You know - then free software opponents (read as: Microsoft) will come along and paint Linux and other open source projects as "illegal" and "insecure" and "untrustworthy" (which they may or may not be). Anyone out there with the same sentiment?
taco
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
Not only did CmdrTaco not check this out before posting, but Timothy's update is VERY misleading. He says "It looks like the source is available now, gpl.txt and all." (emphasis mine) Well, looks to me like it was available BEFORE too if you bothered to look. It's not like all the sudden they said "Holy CRAP, look at this story on /., we better get our source code up..."
Sheeesh...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Because this is honestly the first accurate description of the way things are and should be with slashdot.
This place is merely a community. If you want it to survive, you donate. The editors are providing some kind of minor reward for this. But really, the reward means shit, you're donating to this site if you truly want it to go on. If you don't, then shut up.
The only other place that I in my limited college student surfing experience have witnessed do this honor system is Penny Arcade. You donate, you get a bonus wallpaper. The only way the site got payment was through their users. They tried this at the beginning of July. Note that link isn't dead.
The sheer intelligence of your comment reflects the deep thought you must have given my comment. Never have I been this amazed at how one sentence can so tersely describe both your sentiment on the issue AND your intelligence level. All that, and the fact that you corageously put your name behind your words speaks to me that you must believe what you're saying is true and just. If everyone was like you, the whole world would be a better place to leave, or at least one where everyone wears protective cups over their groins.
In other words, STFU IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY.
thank you
taco
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
"In all seriousness, if /. wants people to pay for it, there needs to be some serious checking of stories before posting. The Internet may have partially obsoleted deadtree papers, but it hasn't obsoleted the concept of journalistic integrity - and integrity is what separates a legitmate newspaper from a tabloid."
I'm going to get nailed for this, but I think it has to be said. I'm not trolling.
No one ever told you that you were paying for slashdot to have "journalistic integrity." Or that you have to pay. Or that you should pay for slashdot at all. In fact, you've been given every ability not to pay, and still obtain the same content. It's just that now you'll have to look at a few annoying ads if you choose not to pay. So will you pay? That depends on how much you can tolerate ads, doesn't it?
You know, whether you like it or not, slashdot has been doing the same damn thing for as long as I've been here. Maybe you'll argue that I missed the "grand old days," but I think I've been reading for long enough that I'd have noticed if slashdot's content changed appreciably at some point. I haven't noticed. So I guess I'm confused--why is this lack of "journalistic integrity" such a surprise to you? More specifically, why is it such a surprise that you have to spend time writing snarky little comments about the site, ON the site that you so despise? Don't you have anything better to do with your time?
In my recollection, no one here has ever suggested that slashdot should be your only source for "news." In fact, other than the occasional noteworthy editorial, book review, or famous comment, I don't recall slashdot ever generating any "news" of it's own. It's nearly always about linking to something interesting that somebody else wrote, and making some editorial comment about the link. You'd have to be living in a dreamworld to think that this was ever objective "news." For me, it's always been about two things: 1) rapid exposure to things and ideas that interest me and 2) reading the collected opinions of a bunch of like-minded people on subjects that I enjoy thinking about. Except that recently, that second aspect has been increasingly buried by pissy little comments like your own. And that really chaps my ass.
So you don't like slashdot. You think it's subjective and lacking integrity. Fine. That's your right. Go read something with integrity and leave the rest of us alone. We'll get along fine without you.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
It just amazes me how many people like to knock slashdot for its "lack of journalistic integrity". The fact is that every news publication makes mistakes every now and then. But on slashdot, those mistakes come to light quickly in the comments made to an erroneous article. Actually the headline usually gets updated, too. When's the last time you saw CNN post corrections to itself like that? Slashdot's comment system is great.
I'm a gnu world man.
Just because you can't figure out how to set up your computer, 100,000 gnutella users got it right, why not try learning about computers first?
Who said computers were for the stupid? THEY AREN'T!
RMS does not have issues with calling Linux Linux. He simply has issues with people calling Linux kernel + GNU userland simply Linux, because it neglects the majority of the software required to build a full OS.
If you were to build Linux without any GNU software -- which would be rather hard, since I don't know of any free binutils toolchain to replace GNU's -- I very much doubt that RMS would care if you called it Foo/Linux or just Linux, or whatever else you wanted.
He wants GNU/Linux called GNU/Linux because it is GNU/Linux. Simple as that.
Not the entire source is provided, it seems. This DOES look like a GPL violation. Now the Gnucleus folks don't have the money to sue. The FSF probably won't sue. This gives powerful GPL opponents too much of a chance to associate GPL with pirating in the mainstream press. Even if Gnucleus has its fair uses... Seems like a very unhealthy situation to me. Morpheus knows this very well...
this is bs I downloaded the source code the same morning they released the new client. Please dont post this bs
Anyone tried compiling this beyotch yet?
.ico and .jpg files.
I did and it seems to be missing a "res" directory which should contain a whole mess of
I suppose one could just replace the files with dummy ones, and get the compile to go through, but why put us through the hoops? Why not post the latest complete checkout rather than this neutered version?
I went to music city's home page, and a download for source code was right on the front page. Hell, it was easier to find then the compiled app they are dishing out.
:)
It helps to read before posting doesn't it
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
This isn't even AVAILABLE for Linux. Why bother giving them free publicity?
EVERYTIME I see some company do something like this, everyone freaks out. OMG THEY'RE VIOLATING THE GPL!!!! This is getting old people!! How about WAITING an hout or so or INVESTIGATING it further before posting a freakout story. SHEESH!
Gorkman
Now Morpheus is based on GPL software, how do they plan to make money from it?
Surely they can do nothing to stop anyone from re-distributing an ad-free, spyware-free version of the Morpheus client?
Correct me if i'm wrong, but I thought the ads were their only *real* source of income??
This article is intentionally hyped up. It says Morpheus is 'currently being distributed without source'. It's only been a day for christsakes!! And probably a very hectic and frustrating day for the Morpheus programmers i'd venture to say. They probably had always intended to release the source, but i'd venture to guess that they were just a little busy last night.
Furthur, I see no indication that the Gnuclus programmers are 'not too happy about this'. Their homepage stated that they did not know what to think, but that as long as the source was released they'd be fine with it.
No where does the gpl specify that the source has to be included with the binary. Only that is has to be made available, or the user told where the source can be gotten from. SO, that means, I can make the source only available on a floppy, and charge you for the distribution costs. No where does it say the binary has to be free. Nor does it say that a Makefile has to be included, or that it even has to build for you.
You just had to disassemble the program to get to it...
Slashdot is a public forum where people can excercise their 1st Amendment right to free speech (even if they don't have a right to free speech where they are from) which means they can be completely misinformed and/or outright lying to us to further some end of theirs.
If you're here looking for journalism or integrity in any way shape or form (aside from the links to news articles posted here) just wake the hell up. There has never been any here.
OK, so is Morpheus now just another Gnutella client. I used Morpheus because I liked it better than Gnutella.
the linux kernel license specifically exempts binary-only kernel modules that use an interface already existing in the kernel from the GPL.
If you take my GPL code, and build upon it, even if the resulting product is 100x bigger, you are STILL using my code, and still have a derivative work.
(If I steal your code off your computer, but then use it to make something 100x bigger, can you no longer sue me for damages because your code is insignificant? No..)
Right. But If I take gnucleus, change the name, re-do any graphics so it looks different, and put up a site hawking CD versions and not mentioning the original authors, that is my RIGHT under the GPL, so long as I follow the terms of the GPL.
The GPL does not require you to cite sources, give credit, or any other such thing. It requires that you provide the source code in a commonly readable form on the platform in question.
(So if you re-write the software in your custom version of C in which you only have the compiler... that is probably your right)
however, the gnucleus people already gave permission to Morpheus to do this, under certain terms.
Those terms are known as the GPL.
Wow, the editorial incompetence here has been reaching dangerous levels as of late. How long, CmdrTaco, until Slashdot gets hit with a defamation lawsuit for posting outright lies about a company and portraying them as fact?
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
--- snip ---
Morpheus Preview Edition 1.3.1.1
Copyright(c) 2002 Streamcast Networks. All rights reserved.
Includes Gnutella, Gnucleus Technologies under General Public License.
Portions Copyright(c) 1995-2000 Microsoft Corporation.
Includes Microsoft Internet Explorer technology under license.
--- snip ---
I wonder if the Internet Explorer code still is included - and if so, if its source has been published. Else Morpheus really would be in violation of the GPL...
You know why windows win on the desktop... because all p2p software are for windows only.
... FROM A USABILITY POINT OF VIEW?
(Don't say "Gnucleus because they're righteous;
those Morpheus guys are sneaky.)
Should I d/l the new Morpheus or Gnucleus?
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
My favorite part is Savenow which you agree to install along with the beta of Morpheus.r entversion\run\savenow.exe
Windows started locking up. I'm kinda suprised it's been running fine. After I install morpheus beta, machine locks up, morpheus beta is not running, machine locks up. hmmm. check the run line in the registry, yes morpheus dropped more free "stuff" with the install. again.
Under windows 2000 it's:
hkey_local_machine\software\microsoft\windows\cur
and default install to:
c:\program files\savenow\ It's also in add/remove if you like doing things the easy way. I probably would have noticed sooner but the proxy is running a popup closer. The one good part in this is the savenow.db file. A great starting point for aspiring perl artist. mmm, A nicely comma delineated txt file, how tasty, and it's chock full of domain names I find less then appealing.
Begin Rant: Savenow.exe, good job Music City. Way to add value to your eventual selloff people. Which one were you marketing to? BMG? Sony? What? Were you guys thinking you could throttle the P2P golden goose for just one fucking P2P golden egg? Even a little one? Make yours off the freeloading, err free trading networks before legislation folded the whole sorry tale down the flusher? Too bad. Your not alone however, Napster couldn't pull it off either. Good luck extending gnutella. End Rant.
savenow.exe is scary, a legal, I assume, trojan horse, riding in on the back of some other app. If it's like the last time it won't uninstall when you uninstall morpheus. Can't verify as I've already uninstalled savenow manually, and no, I'm not reinstalling for testing purposes! engage karma flush... now.
I wonder how many people ever download source and verify that it is indeed the source for the GPL'd product, of the correct version and such. I've downloaded and compiled source when pre-compiled wasn't available. Additionally, I've downloaded pre-compiled binary versions of GPL'd programs. But I don't think I've ever done both for a GPL'd program and compared the behavior of the two pieces of code. The raw laziness of human nature leaves a lot of weasel room in the GPL.
AM LEET, msuahshhas. DO j00 jh33r am huh MSUSH.
lol@me am opt1k musha opt1k@hotmail.com - am gay email me.
The GPL license should be adhered to from the start, not just when people call them on violating it. And now that they *have* posted the source code, people seem to think this somehow makes their VIOLATION of the GPL OK. It does NOT make it OK. Thousands of copies of the Morpheus program were downloaded without the source...this means that the people who downloaded it may be under the impression that its not GPL'ed, which creates all kinds of problems (such as them redistributing it in violation of the GPL, and eventually a company getting ahold of it and trying to claim its not GPL'ed so they can rape it).
To those of you who -- and I've read many of these comments -- say "calm down, calm down, give them a minute to post the source"...I say that its still a violation of the GPL. If a company got source code from MS or SGI on a confidential agreement, would they even DARE to, even for a few MINUTES, distribute that code on their web-site in violation of the confidentiality agreement? No, they wouldn't. The GPL should be adhered to just as strictly by corporations.
I seriously hope that FSF sues them. The problem with the GPL, though, is that suing after they start abiding by the GPL doesn't accomplish much (other than perhaps a public admittance of wrong-doing)...there should be a clause in the GPL that calls for fines if its violated by a company.
Tere are also some of you out there who say, "the GPL's never been taken to a court case," so it could mean anything, and the FSF's interpretation of it is meaningless. No, actually, that's not true. The FSF created the GPL, and they know exactly what it means. Furthermore, the GPL is written VERY clearly -- there's no doubt about exactly what it means. Corporations can hire the best lawyers in the world, but they'll never get a ruling that says "under the GPL, you don't have to distribute the source of something you bundle with a GPL'ed program". The GPL will not be invalidated -- it is in fact LESS strict than the EULA, which has (unconstitutionally) been held up in court.
About some of you who continue babbling about Morpheus as an "illegal product", no its not. It was not designed for any particular purpose, and can be used for sharing anything, not just music, movies, or software. You cannot say that it has no uses other than infringement.
If Morpheus -- or any other non-centralized file-sharing service -- is illegal, then so is the entire internet.
Why are they switching to GPL? To make their life easier. Under the GPL, you can't "sue anyone". Its distributed by everyone. And even if you somehow sue MusicCity and force them not to distribute, you can never stop the distribution of Morpheus now. It is a simple fact of life that no matter how hard the stupid judges stamp their feet, they can't stop the distribution of anything that's freely downloadable. Proof in point -- DeCSS. Its all over the place: both the source and the executable can be found by Googling.
As for some people's worries that GPL will be associated with piracy, warez, etc -- only in the minds of spin-meisters under the thumb of Jack Valentini and Hillary Rosen. The average person doesn't concern himself with these issues, and anyone smart enough to understand them knows how full of shit that idea is.
Aside from that, there's nothing wrong with warez, piracy, etc. Ghandi said we have an obligation to disobey immoral laws. How much more immoral can a law be than one which keeps information "secret" and in the hands of the rich few who can afford it?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
The GPL uses intellectual property law to achieve the rightthink agenda, making it plusrightthink, while others litigate against those who violate the ungood property laws, which is doubleplus ungood.
Opposing violating the GPL, even by accident, or even if the person making the righthink claim that you did without bothering to check, is thus doubleplessunrightthink.
see?
:)
hawk
As I couldn't even find the source code link until I emptied my cache. Looks like musiccity may have actually noticed the increased traffic and checked out the reason.
(though I still don't think they were in violation, it is nice of them to make the source code easily findable)
Historically this was not an issue with C.T.'s postings. It seems to have become a problem in the past 6-9 months, particularly the past 3-6 months.
A lot of /. articles lately should be modded as Flamebait themselves, and that is my issue. This is supposed to be a place for people to learn about what is going on in the industry and in various loosely tech-related subjects, not a place for C.T. to post potentially libelous flamebait rants.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The gnutella network is shit. I can occasionally download a full song.. but ripping off large div-x films, porn games etc is a no no..
morpheus/kazaa and the ft network was brilliant tho.. in windows i can download all sorts of excellent free films in a matter of hours
ft has more files and better speeds and is more stable
gnutella has few files, they are all slow, they drop all the time and afaik you cant download off multiple users
i want a native linux ft client and i want it now
thanks for your time
Well that's just too damn bad for him now isn't it? Just because his tools are being used, doesn't mean the title of the product has to honor him, his company or the source they've written in any fashion.
RIAA hackers hard at work.
-5 Karma points to dotslash for submitting an inaccurate story.
-5 Karma points to CmdrTaco for posting it.
The day slashdot realizes that they have to perform up to standards and they are just posting collected links around the Internet, priceless.
Paypal is not getting at my MasterCard yet.
Watch my Karma go -5 for this post...
It has, because this product actually consists ;)
of Linux and several packages of the GNU project.
An opersting system kernel alone (Linux) is no
operating system. (Neither is userland without
a kernel, as seen on GNU
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
whether they also establish a index node,
such as public.bearshare.net or
connect*.gnutellanet.com(sp?)
Or do they just use the existing? Sh.t!
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
holy bejeezus thats a lot of people using Morpheus.
I've been using Morpheus for quite awhile, although I had always wished that it was an open source product. Now it is, thanks to improvements to gnutella.
If Fast Track/Kazaa really did kick Morpheus off their network then they just committed suicide because given the choice between closed source spyware and open source, assumming both products work equally well, people will go for the open source version.
53,000,000 downloads! I think that makes Morpheus the single most popular GPL'd software ever. Good job, guys.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Microsoft is violating the GPL for not releasing the source to Windows XP!
UPDATE: XP is not actually under GPL. Though, please continue arguing amongst your selves about the best UN!X and why you should be able to download free music.
Just one would do fine, thank you
i hate pansy republicans
You *could* go elsewhere. If you don't like what you read, go to some other site to get information/news. Or can your simple minds only comprehend nothing further than slashdot.org. Did you accidentally set slashdot as your home page, and now can't change it to something else?
Or do you simply go to slashdot to bitch, moan, and complain? Glory hounds....
LOL!
...in violation of article 3 of the GPL...
:-)
Makes the GPL sound like the Ten Commandments or the Constitution. Not like it isn't for some of us
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I am happy to annouce that Raster famed developer of the lack luster Enlightenment wm....has decide to get married to his pal Georf Harrison....congrates to them both
Section 1 of the GPL already requires a copy of the GPL be distributed. Section 3b's written offer term is not a redundent copy of the Section 1 terms but an additional term above and beyond providing a copy of the GPL. Under your interreptation, the alternative terms in Section 3a and Section 3c are not needed since according to you following the required terms of Section 1 would in your rule-book be a defacto compliance with Section 3b. But, in reality, alternative term of Section 3a and 3c are provided because Section 3b terms is NOT defacto covered by GPL Section 1 compliance. Providing just the text of the GPL is NOT a written offer.
"Fork" seems to grand a term for just taking someone else's code and adding annoying popup ads to it.
Answer me this: is there ANY reason to use the new Morpheus rather than Gnucleus? Seems to me that Guncleus is just Morpheus without a whole lot of annoying shit added.
By the way, I got booted from the Morpheus chat room about six times yesterday for posting the Gnucleus URL. They seem to think they can supress the fact that they just took the code from Gnucleus and put their own branding info and advertising on it.
(I just had to post this again...)
.ico's or .bmp's.... No explanation how or where to get them, no instructions how to make the thing go. If all the "Source Code" link on a website does is give you raw, instruction-less code without data and descriptor files critical to actually _building_ something, the GPL hasn't been fulfilled.
$ grep 'res\\' *|wc -l
grep: Debug: Is a directory
75
Unfortunately, there is no 'res' directory for these 75 references to it. The project descriptor files refer to dozens of files THAT DO NOT EXIST.
There are no makefiles, there are no
For the sake of everyone, Streamcast, get this together!
-Brendan
proof?
I personally am a bit of a morpheus fan though I don't support piracy... NE one know a good MusicCity linux client?
I don't really like Gnucleus or gtk-gnutella which are all I've used both of which use only the the gnutella network...
Sigs pose an operational security risk and help the baddies aggregate data. I guess commenting does too, oops.
WinMX 3.0 BETA 5 is now available.
or use 2.6
multi-source downloads, auto-retries, any media
It's a damn hot little program. Way better then Morpheus or Kazaa
The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of Morpheus users don't know what GPL is or what source code does.
I don't use Morpheus however, the author must be a real dumb shit to think that 99.99% of the users downloading Morpheus care what GPL is or whether they have access to the source code.
Morpheus users just want to download and get stuff for free. They probably read the GPL as closely as they read Microsoft's EULA, which is to say, they skip over the text and go straight to the install.
The author needs to get a clue.
Moderators are fuckwits.
I posted this before all you other fucks, so don't mod me redundant, bitch. Check the FAQ fuckwits. Yet another reason why I won't pay for slashdot.
i hate pansy republicans
You know, whoever modded his post down as offtopic and DID NOT mod down the original thread as offtopic is clearly showing moderation bias and deserves to have their priveleges yanked.
I can see no problems Morpheus switching from Kazaa network to glutella. Take a beershare oppss.I ment bearshare;) for example Client integrated spyware no source codes avalable, banners galore. Morpheus is the same. Well if you're hex/assm coder you can change few things and Kazaa will accept you again. If you're interested...Morpheus is crypted by PeX...ironically open source crypter from Poland:)) LOL...go figure.
http://www.geocities.com/morphus124ff/
LOL. Pull the other one. All you guys do is aggregate other ppl's content. The only orginal content consists of unresearched commentary, which isn't even proof read.
Christ, it's not like this is the first time the headline has contained a major error... and not even an arcane error.
ID can release doom under GPL with missing pieces because it BELONGS to them.
However, Morpheus is distrubing a binary that is a derivitave work of GPL code without complying with the GPL. Period.
Does it take a different action (i.e. not install) if the user doesn't accept?
Why would someone want to get their users to agree to the GPL? Is it for the warranty and liability sections, or just ignorant habit, or what?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.