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Epson Pulls Linux Software Following GPL Violations
ChrisWong writes "GPL violations has caused Epson to yank their free downloads of their ImageScan! and Photo Image Print System software for Linux. While one can use xsane instead of their ImageScan! software, the latter is easier to use and produces subjectively more attractive output."
The license makes it clear. It is not an ambiguous document either.
Amd who said they slipped up? I find it hard to believe that someone, trying to write an application, could 'accidentally' cut and paste code from another application into the correct parts of his own, changing variables to suit his code, and then releasing it as his own work. It is not a simple slip-up.. more a deliberate act. How could this possibly be an honest mistake? If that wasn't enough proof, have you ever tried to cut and paste between two applications in Linux? ;-) I suppose a junior programmer could have done it as well and a senior project manager could have released the app without knowing but that doesn't make it any less wrong
I think it is far more likely that someone saw this as an easy and cheap way to shorten their development cycle. They most likely didn't realise they would get caught - the opportunity to steal the work as well as the temptation are both a large part of this sort of theft.
Imagine how you would feel if you spent years developing something , in collaboration with others, freely allowing others to learn from it and contribute as long as they acknowledged your part and re-invested their knowledge once they had learned from yours. Then someone comes along on a payroll, sees much money for no work, grabs your work and changes the credits. This is more like what happened here.
If you still think that this could be a simple slip-up, try going into you favourite text editor with two different documents open at the same time, each a few pages long. Pick five words in one document, and change them each to an arbitrary word from the other document. Then remove any comments that might imply that this belongs to someone else. Cut out a few sentences you don't like, then re-read it and check it still makes sense.
This is fairly analogous to taking a page of code, changing a few of 'their' variable to the ones you need, stripping some evidence, changing a small amount of it then debugging to check you haven't upset any of the inner workings. Now this is just for one page of work to be taken - the likelihood is that it would be much more.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Vuescan is a great product, but it doesn't have built-in support for GPL, so your pimping will unfortunately fall mostly on deaf ears.
This kind of licensing crap is why i think the BSD license is better...
Yeah because hiring a programmer for 1-2 weeks of work would be so much cheaper than just buying a new printer... NO IT WOULDN'T YOU DUMB FUCK!
Are all open source zealots as dumb as you? Long-term support for hardware is NOT in a hardware company's best interest because if you buy a printer today and don't need one a year from now because the one you have already runs fine, Epson has no chance of getting more money from you for another printer that IS supported.
Comparing a GPL violation to RAPE? How could that be? Oh, I get it..You're a linux user, you've never even been around a female let alone tried to understand the seriousness of rape.
I hope a terrorist flies a plane into your house, fuckwad.
Sounds like a bunch of hippie bullshit.
Commercial Closed-Source people who want to help Linux Users will now think twice before doing anything.