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AOL Pulls Nullsoft's WASTE
dmehus writes "America Online, parent company of Nullsoft, has pulled what it views as a controversial project called WASTE from Nullsoft's servers. This is not the only time it has stepped in to Nullsoft's doings. It had quickly taken down Gnutella, developed by Nullsoft co-founder Justin Frankel, and shut down an MP3 search engine. CNET's News.com has more details." For those not keeping track, WASTE was only recently released.
Hold on, Waste was released under the GPL.. exactly how can AOL plan to pull that?
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Who didn't see this coming. Justin comes up with cool tech because he can't be touched by AOL and even if they fired him he's stinking rich from the takeover so he doesn't have to work for anyone. AOL still owns the servers and can dictate what gets released by one of their holding but once the code is out there it's there for good (assuming Justin didn't violate any sections of the GPL, specifically re patents).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The whole "unauthorized" release thing is interesting, though. I'd say that they have to prove that it wasn't an official release as it certainly looked like one. But what if somebody infiltrates Microsoft and puts sections of the Windows source on the web site under the GPL?
"If you downloaded or otherwise obtained a copy of the Software, you acquired no lawful rights to the Software and must destroy any and all copies of the Software, including by deleting it from your computer. Any license that you may believe you acquired with the Software is void, revoked and terminated."
It was released under the GPL, it's out there...the GPL is out there...they can't all of a sudden say "Sorry, we changed our minds".
Will this be a landmark case that tests the GPL now? I wonder...
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Was the code written on free time or time that the company is paying them to work?? I think that is what matters. The company I work for has no control over the things I do in my free time.
Just because their parent company doesn't like that choice, it can't be undone. If AOL have a problem with nullsoft's choice of license, that's an internal matter for the two compaines to resolve.
The only way I can see things being different would be if under contract terms between the two companies AOL had to aprove each piece of software produced by their subsidiary. Then they might argue that the code wasn't nullsoft's to release or give any license to. In much the same way as if someone here found the code to Microsoft Office, they can't just slap the GPL at the top and release it to the world.
.. and Waste may very well be illegal, no matter if it was released under the GPL.
What matters is WHO released it under the GPL. If the ones that released it had no legal rights to do what they did, then Waste is illegal, and redistributing it is illegal.
Why? Because only the copyright holder can release software like this. Otherwise the license is void, and you are all doing something illegal by distributing the source.
The above is pretty much clear, but lawyers might want to answer the question of wether the people that released the software did in fact have the rights to do something like this. If a lowly employee releases software, my guess is that he does not have the rights to do so. Otherwise any employee of Microsoft would have the right to release Windows under the GPL..
Before distributing Waste, you should be pretty sure that it was in fact a release warranted by Nullsoft executives, otherwise it may be illegal.
It may be that the release was warranted by someone with the proper authority, but if AOL/Nullsoft states otherwise, this might be decided by trial.
Just the other day the story about the release of WASTE was here on /., with a comment like "Download it ASAP, tomorrow AOL might yank it".
It seems that commenter got it right, and I got a copy of WASTE.
Now for the interesting part. WASTE was released as GPL (even that some RSA code didn't really make it clear - but I digress), and as such everyone that got a copy of it has got unlimited use-rights, and GPL "limited" (i.e. granted) distribution rights.
So how the heck is AOL thinking if they believe they can retract a software (or statement or anything) POST release? Does "logically challenged" strike anyone but me as an appropriate description?
Actually, since there must be people behind that logic, "intellectually challenged" must be the definition I'm really thinking of.
daniel@starship:/src/waste$ tree | grep cpp | wc
28 56 435
daniel@starship:/src/waste$ grep "under the terms of the GNU General Public License" *cpp -r | wc
28 392 2395
Translation to English: each cpp file has a GPL license declaration in it.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Is this just coincidence? I mean, could AOL be THAT stupid TWICE!? Or, are they doing a favor for MS, so that MS can say:
."
"See, look. The GPL IS EVIL. It just takes one employee with web access to turnover your IP. You better look into our new products that prevent employees from having such freedom . .
I mean, how good could WASTE be? Let's not be TOO eager to help the bad guys here and stick to untainted code, OK?
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
What if I work at Microsoft and I release Microsoft Bob source code to GPL? Same deal here. I do not have the right to do it.
/. make judgement 100% for selfish reasons. There will be no way to justify your selfish actions in those fields and others when you just want to claim that it's GPL even though you know it's not.
In the same way, it seems a human at nullsoft posted internal files online [Waste was used like their own intranet file sharing app]. Just because he had 1) the source code to release it, and 2) nullsoft web site FTP password, doesn't mean he has the ownership of it to declare it GPL.
Who would own the project? Well, since it is used internally in Nullsoft, it was probably one on Nullsoft's own projects, in which case the company owns it. But even if an employee wrote it during his free time at the company, if he was paid during 'free time' then the company still owns it by default (unless his employee contract says anything he does at work he keeps rights to.)
Whether stuff was posted discretely by a disgruntled programmer or whether the process of approval of distributing this online was followd to the letter, the ultimate bosses at AOL apparently don't like this so they will have some heads rolling. And by doing that, they will blame those people responsible for it and say, whether there is 1 person found or 800, that those people were not acting on behalf of the company and that the company never wanted the files online. Which.. is exactly what it says on the site now! Only time remains for public 'humiliation' of the people judged responsible by AOL.
AOL's goal will be showing how an employee was not authorized to distribute those files on behalf of the company.
Since this will be pretty easy to do as I've described above, we can safely conclude that the files were distributed illegally and posessing and modifying the code is a federal offense. NOT GPL at all.
I hope people on this site will denounce the GPL of WASTE to show that we are fairness loving people. It seems though, people will instantly assume it's GPL so it's GPL because it suffices their selfishness.
By treating the code as if it IS GPL, you are denouncing everything slashdot says for excuses that people want fairness and how the goverment is bad.
Yeah people will really take slashdot posters seriously on other issues now:
FILE SHARING -- people use it for legal uses! [Fact: illegal trading]
PRIVACY -- The government will be spying on me! [Fact: you just don't want to get ticketed]
Everyone will no longer believe any excuses slashdot crowd makes, since
Cover your eyes and click this link!
I humbly suggest possibility #3...
3. AOL owns the copyright, and is trying to test whether they can "retract" a decision to release code under the GPL.
This is actually a critical point... If AOL can "retract" this decision, what stops them from "taking back" Mozilla? What keeps SAP from "taking back" SAPdb? Many open-source projects get code from, or are even started thanks to the largesse of, large corporate interests.
If they can establish in court that it is okay for AOL to "retract" an officially GPL'ed release, how long before a major player starts buying companies that have "right of retraction" on their open source competitors and exercising those rights?
Who did what now?
I sometimes wonder what goes on inside of Powell's head whenever his greusome creation periodically spasms in the direction of the public eye?
He has to know he fucked up big time. It's not something that could escape notice barring certain levels of mental retardation. Powell isn't mentally retarded. And with AOL still twitching and lurching around like the monster it is, he promtes yet another massive merging of technology with media deregulation. What kind of person does this make him? Not a moral person. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
I don't understand why they're still allowing powell to make decisions. He's simultaneously chair of the FCC and a lobbyist for the industry he's supposed to regulate. That doesn't make any sense. Industry Lobbyists and regulatory agencies are mutally incompatible entities. You cannot perform both functions at the same time. But if you look closely at all the other regulatory agencies in this country, you'll find they've been compromised in the same way.
You better hope like hell mad cow never gets into our food supply because the FDA is kind of like the FCC. Powell is useful in a least one aspect. He represents the attitudes of our various regulatory agencies and departments. So when you listen to Powell and consider his sincerity, take a good look because that is what stands between you and mad cow, and whatever else a regulatory agency is tasked to protect you against.
Powell is interesting because be embodies so much of what's wrong with government. Appointed like royalty through powerful family connections, compromised by the industry he governs, shamelessly lies with much arrogance. I get the feeling that when I'm looking at him, I'm seeing a snapshot of a mature government.
Warning: there are half-assed guesses below.
Seems to me that as it was on Nullsoft's server, it was probably intended -- at the time at least -- as an official release. I suspect the Nullsoft boys wrote it to be released and went ahead and did it.
Secondly, as various other things on the Nullsoft site are under weird and wonderful open-source redistribution-allowed licences, I reckon they are probably allowed to determine their own licences under their contract with TW.
So I suspect the GPL licence on the original source is legit. Otherwise, we have to assume they haven't been allowed to open source their other bits of software and TW have been turning a blind eye; TW don't seem like the type to turn a blind eye to anything to me.
Now, this is what I find interested: I couldn't find any other GPL software on the site, just stuff under some custom-written clickthrough redistribution allowed licences. Could it be that Frankel came up with this while messing around, decided to release it knowing it would probably get pulled, and put it under the GPL on purpose? Knowing that it would get mirrored to Hades if TW did pull it?
I'm just speculating, of course, but it seems to me that's the likely way events occured. We'll be able to tell in the next few weeks by the vigour TW employs in asking people to stop hosting mirrors, I suppose.
You win again, gravity!
your post misses one thing:
The code is property of Nullsoft. Nullsoft is a subsidiary of AOL. That does not necessarily make all code released by Nullsoft property of AOL. Property and control due to majority of the shares are two different things.
Nullsoft ran into the problem, that AOL told them to pull "waste" from Nullsoft's site, but the program was already spreading on the internet.
Though the release was legal, because the program was not technically AOL's property, Nullsoft tries to limit the spread by releasing a FUD notice on the download page.
The only legal consequences this can have, is between parent and subsidiary. Not between them and an end-user, who downloaded the program under the GPL.
As far as I know, in the absence of overriding contracts regarding copyright holdings of Nullsoft, Inc. that automatically assign such copyrights to AOLTW and prohibit sale or trade of rights in those copyrighted materials without explicit authorization of AOLTW, I believe Nullsoft management would have acted as legal agents of Nullsoft Inc. with respect to copyrighted materials when they posted them on the Nullsoft web site with license and copyright notices attached. If AOL failed to put greater contractual and procedural controls in place, that's their problem, and they could take it up in court with the individual managers or corporate personage of Nullsoft, Inc.
Then again, after the Gnutella fiasco, if AOLTW _didn't_ have explicit contracts in place giving them assignment and control of all copyrighted Nullsoft works, they are idiots.
Yeah, the law is usually 50 years behind the times, but since I am not a lawyer, I can make outrageous guesses about the law without feeling the slightest bit of guilt or lack of professionalism . . .
In this case, Nullsoft released WASTE under the GPL and AOL didn't like that. Too bad. As far as any individuals external to the organization are concerned, they thought this was legit. The net effect is AOL accidently released it under the GPL and is now trying to "unrelease" it. As far as any external users are concerned, this is the case, and I could care less about what is going on within their organization.
However, if your site was cracked THEN AOL cannot be help liable for the decisions of the hacker. But it wouldn't really matter with source code. It would not be economically feasible to claim that ALL other closed source code is now tainted and demand royalties, now would it. So the effect to the company would be just as bad.
Of course, this gives A LOT of room for lying, but I guess corporations have always had THAT going for them. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
The site that's there now claims that WASTE is owned by Nullsoft, and whomever posted WASTE on the server with a GPL license lacked the authority to do. As a result, AOL's view is that the GPL doesn't stick to the software because only Nullsoft held the copyright and Nullsoft didn't attach the GPL.
What a mess here... something that's really lacking from the new page is anything that says just how "unauthorized software" appeared on the nullsoft.com site.
- If they're claiming that they were hacked, this would have to go down as the hack of the century... I doubt that happened.
- If they're claiming an employee acted outside of their authority, aren't they responsible for restraining that employee's actions so they don't become visible to the public?
- If AOL's trying to overrule a decsion made by their Nullsoft division after learning about it, isn't that too little too late?
This has got to be one of the most interesting test cases of how the GPL works ever.
here in europe, especially germany, is a section of the civil law that deals with these issues and i'm pretty sure i've heard about similar things from the netherlands and france.
basically it comes down to the question "did the customer know he was buing illegal goods, did he had to know this if he was anything but ignorant or was it surely beyond his horizon?".
if the salesman sells the car with a rebate of 10%, the customer probably wasn't ignorant or too lazy to check the legal status. if the car is 50% or less, any sane person would have to ask some questions before taking it for granted.
bought in good faith means, the deal has to be reversed. car goes back to shop, money goes back to customer. any financial damage done by the illegal transaction is to be reimbursed by the guilty salesman.
pretty easy that way, when the deal is only some days old. it gets complicated, when the customer sells the newly bought goods to someone else. (in good faith and not negligent, as always) then THIS transaction will prevail, leaving the second customer his car, the first customer his money, giving NOTHING back to the shop, guilty salesman has to reimburse EVERYTHING.
this principle is instituted with the aim that legal incertainties cannot propagate indefinetly.
but this complicated case is about information and information with a zero dollar price to make it even worse. information cannot possibly be transferred back to a "shop" (the website) and everyone now hosting this information can host it on its website since he was in good faith it was released under the GPL. maybe...
if some corporation releases information under an open source license, even if it was for just one day, it cannot be revoked. the corp. has full rights to demand reimbursements of the guilty part, be it hacker or employee. any attempt to revoke fewer than 1mb of information circulating around the web is so futile, no judge will ever moan about. and if it is something with such a low value like WASTE (e.g. not DeCSS), any legal action is doomed. you can't sue someone over the price of an apple...
Let's *assume* that this is not a legal release (not AOL/TW trying to override Nullsoft after Nullsoft has released it legally).
Anything that "is" Waste or a derivate of Waste probably recieves a nastygram and that'll be the end of it. But what about this:
If someone picks up this code, without knowing anything about this controversy, sees the GPL and finds out that this is useful for any other project, say Gaim or Miranda or some other IM-client (or any other program for that matter) and copy-pastes away (including copyright headers, all fully legal if the licence is legal). What happens then? Does that OSS project suddenly become "poisoned"?
Also, if AOL/TW later finds out "hey, they used our code in project X", who gets the blame? Noone to blame really, unless they want to claim that you need to check with every copyright holder that they really *have* released it under the GPL.
Oh well. Someho an encrypted IM didn't sound that "advanced" to me anyway, not going to miss it...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Except that some random employee could just as easily post it there as somewhere else, assuming he had access to the source and the website farm. Right? The point being AOL can claim that Nullsoft division had no right to distribute that, and bingo, thats it.
Once code is under the GPL, that's it. It's GPL'd. Fire the employee who did it, jail them, etc.--tough tittie. Be more careful next time...if that's really what happened.
I suspect they planned this all along. Suppose the RIAA/MPAA decide to sue AOL for producing this code...AOL's lawyers stand in front of the judge and say "Look! it was an illegal release! It was just an internal research project, and research is legal, isn't it? Hell, we pulled it off the net as soon as we found out! The employee has been scolded mercilessly!"
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
In most states (if not all), companies cannot lay claim to anything produced outside the office, off the time clock, unless the product is directly related to the business at the time of its conception (so if an employee makes something cool then the business decides to move in that direction they can't claim it). They cannot under any circumstances claim work created before employment began, no matter how similar it is to the business, unless the employee chooses to integrate that work into the products of the business. Some states may even require that the relevant law be quoted in the contract, as the last employee agreement I signed had such a law attached as an appendix.
I read it all over several times to make sure I would still be able to develop my Open Source projects that I started before employment began, as well as new projects that aren't related to the business.
A solution to the problem with music today
I find it more likely it was released on purpose, without the AOL directors explicit (written, documented, traceable) permission to get it "out there". Then after enough time to get it spread around, "responsible" AOL "found out" and pulled it.
AOL is a very schizophrenic company. Half of it is an internet provider that wants as many users as possible (and sees benefits in this with file sharing etc.). The other half is an increasingly obsolete media publishing giant that wants the internet controlled and regulated in order to perpetuate itself. So they have these little "personalities" like Nullsoft that do the wild things their inner self could never do. The can even squish these personalities if they want...and create more later!
Seriously, just like the rest of the world, most of the money and power is in the hands of a small numer of people at AOL/TW. The rest really don't give a shit and only play-act at following the company line for political purposes. In reality they want to push agendas that helps them get resume fodder and promotions. Companies like to promote "loyal" employee's with good numbers the most. Thus they produce clever liars!
Perhaps its just a tactic to add fuel to the fire against GPL and BSD type of licenses.
:P
"See, you cant trust what you get, just beacuse it says its free, you may still be libel.. buy our software"
Regardless of how it turns out, it gets air-play, and it influences public opinion, and the people are making the decisions..
But that would be sinister, and noone would do that
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't understand HOW they keep getting away with this? First Gnutella, now WASTE. Both of these projects clearly offer nothing to AOL-TW, but at the same time could end up being very costly (lawsuits) to them.
So how does Nullsoft keep getting away with releasing these projects on their own AOL-TW -owned site? I mean, if I released this stuff from a major media company that I worked for, I'd think that it would be raining pink slips the very second they found out about it!
That said, I'm very happy they DO get away with it, because they are usually groundbreaking projects that are completely open source! How many more genies is Nullsoft going to let out before AOL-TW puts their foot down?
Except that the person, was an agent of Nullsoft - agents of commercial entities *are* legally capable of entering into an license agreement. This protects the 2nd party (in this case the public) from Businesses backing out of a 'deal' saying "this person didnt have the right to obligate us" - in fact, (s)he does.
imagine if some 3rd party came down on a seperate department (and previously unaware of this project) AOL for WASTE, maybe AOL's employees HAD discussed the matter with the people in their immediate sphere of relevance... all was well. teh decision to publish (and enter into the GPL license with the public) -- they cannot simply say "oh, we were just kidding". becasuse we, the public, had every reason to believe that the Nullsoft fellows had the authority (as they must have, in order to publish).
remember, IMNALBPOO/.
In other words, my Public Key is like the key to my house, I don't give it to somebody to give to my friend, I give it only to my friends. Because I have to trust anyone who has that key with the contents of my house. I have to trust they won't "break" in, and I have to trust they won't give it out.
That's a good analogy. What is the private key for then?
The code is (c) Nullsoft, and even AOL is not disputing this. The code is not (c) AOL Time Warner, which is an important distinction (Nullsoft is a subsidiary, and so a separate legal entity). Justin Frankel essentially is Nullsoft; he's a co-founder and principal developer. The code was released on the official Nullsoft website by him, the same way most other Nullsoft software is released. In short, the release followed the standard practice used by most other Nullsoft releases (most of which, like NetMon, are uncontroversial). This is Nullsoft release policy, and Justin is basically their release manager (for at least some of their stuff -- Winamp is handled separately). Simply because AOL disliked this particular release doesn't give them a legal leg to stand on in pulling it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10