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NeoNapster's NeoAudio Rips Off CDex
mydoghasworms writes "There's an interesting thing going down at CDex. Apparently the CDex application has been ripped off by NeoNapster, replacing the logo and adding some spyware and adware.
(For those not in the know, CDex is a very nice, very easy-to-use GPL (as in Open Source) Audio CD Ripper).
The user comments at download.com make for a very entertaining read."
What's the big deal here? They aren't in violation of the GPL. They have the source available for download. Why is this news again?
The problem is not so much that their taking someone's GPL'd program and redistributing it under a new name, but that they are removing the original author's (Albert L Faber) copyright notices. The author's copyright of the program must be maintained in order for the GPL to be effective, otherwise people (like these) could completely jack the code and release it under any liscense they want.
But we should consider ourselves lucky that they're releasing it under the GPL and the source code is still available at the bottom of this page.
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While the source is available for download, they've removed/changed copyright strings. That is a violation of the GPL. That's what.
Obviously, the GPL does not allow this. The only way for them to make it right is to change the copyright back to what it was, and add themselves to it, if they contributed code.
This has happenned before. The best freeware hard drive + data recovery tool out there, Drive Rescue was ripped off. Although DR is not GPL, the source is available for educational purposes.
Some Russian Company stole it and slapped a registration key on it and is now selling it.
It's still not very nice, but at the bottom of "NeoAudio.rtf" in the source (available from their site) it says:
I guess this and the GPL licence means they might technically be doing nothing wrong.
Meep meep
Sorta. I take your tongue-in-cheek sarcastic point, but you're not quite correct about the BSD license. It, too, requires that derivative works retain the copyright information -- which is the violation of the GPL that we're seeing.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
The GPL also involves crediting the original authors, especially if you haven't made any significant changes.
It think that's not quite right, but Apple did pay Xerox to license PARC technology for the Macintosh. Apple certainly didn't "steal" anything the way, say, Microsoft stole from Stac.
More important historically is that the idea that the Mac interface was taken wholesale from PARC is completely false. GUI work was done outside Xerox at the time, the Macintosh project was well underway before anyone at Apple saw the Alto/Star and the Mac system software went way beyond anything the Xerox interface had. Xerox's importance was overplayed by Steve Jobs, who was trying to diminish the history the Mac project had before he joined it.
What I don't get is why people are so attached to the idea that the Mac team was uninnovative and took everything from Xerox. _Someone_ had to have had the ideas, right? Why is it so difficult to accept that most of them came from Cupertino?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Under the GPL anything distributed in the same package as the program must be covered under the GPL - it is considered one program.
Please Support them. I'm sure every bit helps, I've just sent my $5USD.
put the what in the where?
On Mac OS X, you can just open up the tracks on CDs as AIFF files.
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Oh, I see. This software is free (as in "I am a sanctimonious prick") until someone tries to use it. At that point you are going to slam all sorts of requirements on it. ...) or it isn't. If you are a control phreak, be honest and make your software propriatary.
/. post, so read the ERS link I provided above.
Look. Either the software is free (as in
The issues are a bit more complex than I want to get into for a
Anyway, recognition is the money of the open source culture. recognition is gained through sharing something of value with the community.
To ensure that the code contributed by people is of maximum value, the GPL allows modification and redistribution; it is truly given to the community. On the other hand, hacker ethic protect's the author's ability to continue to recieve recognition for his/her work. While it is legal to fork a project, rebrand it, etc, it is considered bad form to do so unless the code has been abandoned (i.e. it is no longer activly maintained) or the author fails to make necessary/useful modifications to the code.
This can be kind of hard to understand if you don't play with these people, but what we are seeing here really is internally consistant behavior. There was no good reason for the fork; NeoNapster just wanted to make money off of someone else's work. They contributed nothing to the community, added nothing of value to the project. Legal, yes, but socially unacceptable.
As I read the GPL, the CDEX folks have nothing to complain about. They specifically allowed for this in their license. If they didn't want it to happen, they should have gone closed source. (or open source with a restrictive license (Shared source?))
The GPL is the best compromise I have seen between ensuring a piece of software will remain valueable to the community at large, and protecting the author's right to recognition. I imagine that the CDex team would welcome source modifications that are benificial, but to ensure that anyone can make these modifications, a GPL style license is necessary. This does make NeoNapster's actions legal (unless what I have been reading about their changing of copyright strings is true; I haven't browsed the source), but it does not make them right.
Whether the users of this software have something to complain about (spyware) is another matter, but very little of this discussion has been about them.
Watch what happens when someone developes an actuall, useful mod to a program. The reaction is usually "hey, cool" ro "well, lemme incorporate that into the next release." Much of the vehemence is due to the fact that modification to the program is crapware.
Thomas Galvin