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Abusing the GPL?

Posted by Cliff on from the manipulations-and-loopholes dept.

Anonymous with good reason, a reader would like to bring this important question to your collective attention: "Our (technically savvy) lawyer has advised my company that 'incidental resources' do not a work derive. For example: If I have a student's version of a development environment whose license does not allow me to distribute code compiled with it for commercial use, I am legally allowed to use the environment to create my ANSI C++ code, which, when I compile it with GCC, I am free to use to whatever commercial end I like. This seems fairly intuitive. (After all, you could have written the same thing in a text editor, and the debugging, etc, that you need the IDE for doesn't actually 'show up' in the final code). Here's the kicker: My company wants to translate this to an abuse of the GPL and has been advised 'full speed ahead!'"

"How, you may ask?

Integrate the highly useful GPL code we're eyeing into our only slightly more complex (but much more lucrative) project, thereby saving us at least 30% of the coding involved. The company then go all the way to production with it, but instead of finally compiling the actual project for distribution, they instead compile a bunch of incomprehensible gobbledygook that just happens to compile to the same bytecode. You know the game: globally replace every function name, variable name, and so on from our code with nonsensical names (or random characters), remove all of the comments, and any other form of obfuscation they can introduce. They will then GPL the obfuscated gobbledygook, which isn't much more useful to anyone than reverse-engineered bytecode would be (it is a complex project). 'Voila!' All the benefits of a huge GPL project and countless thousands of volunteer hours and unreadable, incomprehensible source tree.

For the record: I do not think this is right yet, I have not been able to find any precedent for why the GPL should protect against this kind of abuse.

I'm not trying to snitch on my company -- or lose my job, which is why I am posting anonymously -- but hopefully some lawyers out there could point out some iron-clad legal reason preventing this sort of thing. I've read the GPL through at least a dozen times since yesterday, and so far it looks like our lawyer is right. I have not found any relevant linkage either, as I have mentioned. Links to extended legal analyses of the GPL from a technical standpoint (if any exist) would be the most helpful. All help is appreciated."

4 of 661 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dirty Pool! But also confusing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just had an idea.

    What if they claim that the obstafacation (sp?) is part of a copy-protection plan and that anybody whom writes a program to un-do it is violating the DMCA.

    Could they sue even though the code is in fact GPL?

    -J

  2. Re:Dirty Pool! But also confusing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That is a scary notion.

    It could lead to a situition where corps. co-opt open source programs, embed a password protection scheme,than obfascate. They could then outright take all the code they want and make a program to give away. Then could then make money off of selling the passwords. All will being covered by the GPL and DMCA.

  3. Re:Why did it take so many posts? by mpe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just because something compiles does NOT mean that it is source according to the GPL. That you would not do development on the obfuscated gobbledegook clearly shows that the obfuscated version is NOT the preferred form for modification.

    Also how is the obfuscated version going to be produced. Either feeding the source through some for of obfuscating preprocessor or decompiling the object code would simply be creating a derived work anyway.
    Effectivly you'd be trying to argue that you wern't infringing copyright because you scramble and/or encrypt before you distribute. You'd need a very good lawyer to convince any judge with this kind of argument.

  4. Slimyness does not pay. by Bobzibub · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What benefit does a company accrue to taking someone's work, obfuscating(sp) it and then re-releasing it under GPL as one's own? Unless they are not actually intending to release as GPL..
    Well, assuming what you say is correct, the benefits are few... The chances of getting caught are moderate, but if you or one of your staff is laid off/fired/quits then the word will get out and make its way to the original authors.

    Nobody needs to "squeal" either. Say I write a lot of code for GPL's project X and this company comes out with product X' which is almost the same, but better. Their code is extremely obscure as well...
    I might out of curiosity, run one of those web-based code checking tools. These are designed to find cheating students and do not require similar variable names, etc.

    If caught the costs would be painfully high. I think most software companies would rather face a ravenous pack of lawyers than face the savage hordes of a jilted Open Source community. Every day operations would become difficult due to clogged email/phone lines, not to mention that your good corporate name would be mud.

    The B/C analysis is vastly in favour of crediting the original authors. I think your managers and your lawyers are playing dice with your company's future. If I was a share holder (let alone an OS geek or an employee like yourself) I'd be quite pissed.

    Good luck!
    -b