Slashdot Mirror
Kiss Technology Counters MPlayer GPL Arguments
Snaller writes "Recently, MPlayer claimed that KISS Technology were violating the GPL by using parts of their MPlayer movie playback code in proprietary software. Now The Danish National Radio has interviewed the managing director of Kiss Technology, Peter Wilmar Christensen. He denies all claims of wrongdoing and suggests that if the pieces of code are the same, perhaps they were leaked from Kiss Technology and were then used by the Mplayer group. He also adds that the GPL is a weak license which has never been tested in court. Gabucino from the Mplayer team is furious, and accuses the director of outright lying."
I met this guy at Cebit last year - and he certainly seemed VERY pleased with himself. He was going on about how the player used "2 million lines of code". I wonder how many of those 2 million came from the MPlayer CVS server? ]-[
There has been "solid violations of the licence" but the lawyers haven't been able to turn the terms of the license to their client's advantage.
The GPL is quite clear on what is and isn't allowed.
The copywrite holder decides to release under the GPL and anyone deriving works from that code must abide by those conditions.
By saying "if parts of the code are similar maybe MPlayer stole our code" he is basically admitting that someone stole from someone.
then he says...
The GPL is a weak license and hasn't been tested in court. What is the point of making this comment if he feels that MPlayer stole from them? What he is really saying is "What are you going to do about it?"
Actually, the code in question (the subtitle code) is even easier than that to verify. At issue is MPSub, the subtitle format developed internally by mplayer coders. This format was developed by them for them, and until mplayer's release had never been "in the wild". KISS's players mention the MPSub format in their subtitling code. That makes it pretty darn clear to me.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
...it was already mentioned in the previous article, but the KISS player can even play older divx format (the 3.xx one), which are based on illegaly tweaked MS drivers.
I don't know if these divx can be played with legal drivers, but if it's not possible, and KISS accept to provide the source of the player, they ould also accept to provide the evidence that they are using illegal MS drivers in their product, wouldn't they ? In that case, doesn't it cast some light on their possible motivations ?
It's really too bad that this article wasn't out a bit sooner. It seems from on their homepage that they did a public presentation in vegas from the 8th-11th. Anyone know their next presentation date... perhaps we could come and present some poignant questions about the now-dubious legitimacy of their product (nothing quite like: "isn't it true that XXX and YYY have found evidence that your code is stolen from project ZZZ" in a public place).
MPlayer is the last open source project that needs to be giving lectures on breaking licences. The only thing that makes their project usefull are the dll's which they redistribute, the legality of which is iffy at best.
While thier claim of GPL violation may be completely legitimate, the first rule when breaking the law is you don't go calling the authorities if you get screwed.
This is an interesting problem that will require a solution. Can the Mplayer people prove that their code existed before it existed in Kiss' source tree? Certainly the contents of version control systems could be compared, and release repositories such as SourceForge could be used as evidence, but a more formal system is probably needed.
I imagine a system similar to copyright registration and escrow services, where a neutral third party would receive code checkins/snapshots that would be time-stamped, "sealed" as evidence (and compared against SCO sources, natch). Then the owner would stand on more solid ground, and even unpaid open-source developers would have a chance to protect their work. Of course, such a service would have to be highly affordable, perhaps even free, SourceForge-style; in fact, this is something SourceForge ought to support and promote.
but I'm curious as to why the mplayer folks were using "strings" on the KISS module(s).
Granted, if what they say is true, it *does* look like something's not right there.
But why they were even looking to see how KISS's stuff worked is a bit curious.
do() || do_not();
Mind you that I'm referring to U.S. law which may or may not impact the MPlayer/KISS problem, but didn't a high court recently decide that it is not copyright infringement to copy data from a database built from a compilation of data? That is, you can't just organize a bunch of readily available data and copyright it and prevent anyone else form using the same data.
The reason I ask is that the original Slashdot article stated that a big clue was "the KISS ROM includes the same list, in order, of subtitle formats as MPlayer (including their own format mpsub)". That sounds like it could be construed as a compiled set of data, akin to the case I cited above.
I'm certainly not supporting KISS
The problem is, this part probably will not happen, and KISS knows it. The "small guy" generally does not have the resources to pursue this kind of legal action. This is why I was happy to see SCO take the GPL to task, if it becomes part of their future legal insanity, we may then get a good test case that clears the unknowns up.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The GPL really is about protecting the copyright of the original authors. If it's ever tested in court that will be the final argument. "They wrote it so they can distribute it however the hell they want".
Kiss apparently thinks mplayer is small fries and hopefully kiss will either come clean, be boycotted, or get sued by the FSF.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
How come companies like Kiss cant'be punished by Law?
Well, see, they can. You yourself stated that you thought up the MPSub format and that this other guy, laaz, implemented it. Well, that means that laaz has *copyright* over that implementation and possibly you have copyright over the format itself (that's a bit more iffy though).
In any case, laaz has obviously released his changes to the mplayer codebase under the GPL. If KISS used that part of the code, but didn't release their derivative work, then they have violated the licensing agreement that gave them access to that MPSub source in the first place. And that means laaz can sue them for copyright violation.
If the RIAA can sue people for it, then developers can too. My advice to anyone who finds this sort of attitude when they get their code stolen: call a lawyer. I know it's not nice, and I know you released the software so that anybody could use it. But if a company steals your work and won't play ball with everybody else, then sue them. You have the right. Your work has been *stolen* here. What the hell are you waiting for?
Despite what idiots say, the GPL has never been tested in court because it's rock-fucking-solid. It cannot be defeated, not really. This is the opinion of some very, very smart people who know law in great detail. And you'll have the support of every developer on the planet if the other side tries to attack the GPL directly.
So do it. If they won't abide by the terms of the license, no matter what you try, then sue the holy shit out of the fuckers. At least you'll be able to force them to stop using your code that way.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Please show what DLL's they distribute without a licence.
The hypocrisy of mplayer developers is interesting. They seem to believe that copyright should only be respected when it's their copyright. When are they going to stop distributing Apple binary codecs without permission?
Isn't that the idea of discovery: You go to court with what little you have, and then you have the judge compel the other side to produce records and such, just like IBM is doing to SCO (OK, SCO are dragging their feet).
In case KISS in this case did not steal code from the mplayer project, but
..the project leaders of the oss project? ..the person who contributed?
someone copied parts of a commercial product into an open source project,
and the damage to the company behind the commercial product is beyond repair, who is then responsible?
how shall the victim receive retribution..
and what if the person who contributed is untracable?
wrongdoing here can kill a company, and with the company the hard working employees who suddenly no longer can support their families and have to work so many hours at the local macdonalds they have no more time to contribute to open source projects in their spare time.
Its so easy to fuck someone up when noone is responsible, and if they are, it will mean nothing..
I like and love open source software projects, but what stops them from turning evil by will or event?
KISS claims to be able to play some files that mplayer can't play without MS's DLLs.. so is KISS also violating MS's IP by distributing MS's DLLs?
Maybe mplayer doesn't have the resources to smack KISS, but MS does.
So everyone, remember to keep your CVS respository and logs so no one can claim ownership on your code!
Well they still can, but you will have some solid evidence.
Now if there only was a way to timestamp a file in a tamperproof manner, something based on cryptography...
-- Having problems sending big files over the net? Try out Efisto (http://efisto.org)
I was thinking of buying one of those things, but I guess I shall be crossing it off my shopping list.
James
Thats if you have anything at all.
Honestly, what can the judge compel the other side to produce except for source-code. Even there, what is to stop companies from making alterations to stolen GPL code to obfuscate it 'just enough' so that it can no-longer be assumes to be the same as the original.
Reminds me of the Lindows/Windows debate. What if it had been Lindox, Lendox etc... where is the line?
I guess the best-case-scenerio, is to compel the company to provide the details of a developer they allege worked on the software in question and ask them under oath if the software was their own work or taken from elseware, but I think you will be surprise how many developers that make their living from close source development will develop amnesia when asked to implicate their employer. That kind of thing does not look good on a resume!
Go to http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/ . Notice how they have a variety of codecs for indeo, realplayer, quicktime, wmv, etc. None of these codecs are legally redistributable without permission which mplayer almost certainly does not have.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
GPL is a strong license which has never been defeated court.
if asked.
Help fight continental drift.
[please dont copy this and send it to kiss yourself - it will do more harm than good.]
Dear KiSS,
Let me start by saying that I am a big fan of KiSS technology products (in
particular your DivX compatible DVD players are great!) and I am also a
big fan of open source and free software.
However, I am rather worried by reports I have been reading about
allegations made by the mplayer team regarding unlicensed use of their
intellectual property by KiSS Technologies.
Having read the English translation of a recent radio interview involving
Peter Wilmar Christensen of KiSS I am a bit nervous.
Firstly, I am disappointed that Mr Christensen doesn't seem to respect the
GNU GPL License, but that is not a major concern.
My major worry is that the allegations by the mplayer team don't seem to
be taken seriously. There doesn't seem to be any attempt to show that
KiSS have not mis-appropriated the code from mplayer. Of course the burden
is not with you to prove anything, but as a professional software
developer myself, I know how easy it should be to show your development
history and you can clear the whole thing up in no time. (I also know as a
professional software developer that you _can_ release your source
sometimes, and it often pays off well as a PR exercise)
Until now I have considered KiSS to be a trustworthy company whose
products I have often recommended to others. Unfortunately however, until
this matter is resolved I will no longer do so.
I hope enough people share my view and together we can help you work with
the open source community instead of appearing to ignore them. You
probably already realise that a large number of your customers (at least
all the ones I know!) are open source advocates and would take a dim view
of any who appeared to be working against their community.
Yours,
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
However, if you would have RTFA, you would have seen that:
uhhh...except that in this case, the difference is Kiss is playing the role of linux and mplayer is playing the sco role.
well, that and the code might actually have been included inappropriately (we'll give Kiss time to investigate it fully before condemning them).
Perhaps, though Microsoft might have licensed the IP to them. There's another IP issue, though.
I there is code in MPlayer that, while legal, violates the agreement that the DVD Consortium forces vendors to sign into (like bypassing region codes and whatnot). KISS Technology is supposed to be a DVD system vendor, and may have signed this document. If they are, in fact, in violation of their DVD Consortium license, the DVD Consortium may revoke their license.
May we never see th
from the interview transcription by Peter Wilmar Christensen. (Kiss).
"Microsoft Media Player is the application used to display movies."
Hmmm... I never knew there was a Linux implementation of Microsoft media player.
Having read many of the comments by Peter Wilmar Christensen it is quite clear that he has no idea what he is talking about, and obviously no idea what is going on behind the scenes as development at Kiss.
This is really quite a shame, I was previously considering getting one of the Kiss machines. After this news I will be having second thoughts about doing it. At the end of the day they are making their money on the hardware they are selling. It really makes no difference whether the source code is open or closed for something like this (I know this is open to debate!)
At the end of the day, regardless of license GPL or not, it is plain unfair to steal someone elses code and pass it off as your own.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Has anybody considered the possibility that KISS honestly doesn't know that it is infringing? They probably hired a lazy contractor that thought to themself "Why should I write this from scratch, when there is free code out there I can steal?" Hence, KISS may beleive they really own the code, while the contractor that did the infringing is long gone...
I expect to see a lot more of this happening, especially as more and more software development is shipped overseas to countries that don't have a long tradition of IP protection.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Which is why you should put at least one obscure easter egg in the source, which is hard to find on casual inspection, but easy to trigger if you know how.
Imagine the blushing faces of KISS when Gabucino triggers an easter egg in the KISS player's subtitle code. Now who stole what from who again?
My memory is a little vague, but I do remember some incident where a case was one by a company because one of the programmers triggered an easter egg in the defendant's code, which blatantly showed that the defendant _had_ been stealing code. Can someone who has better recollection than me refresh my memory?
Didn't sigma rip off a load of GPL licenced stuff too?
This interesting kiss press release says this:
28-08-02 KiSS Technology selects Sigma
The Linux community have dealt with KISS before, and KISS are providing the linux kernel sources and busybox. People are building NFS support into their players and other fun stuff.
:-(
KISS supports Vorbis and DivX. I will give them that -- these are folks that seem to tend more towards the OSS side of things.
On the other hand, the mplayer folks have been burned before by folks ripping off their code (and subsequent attempts to cover up said infringement through obfuscation), and are probably extremely ready to blow up over this. I suspect that, in their shoes, I'd be in about the same state of mind.
I kind of wish that someone like ESR or Perens, someone respected by the folks involved, could step in and lend a cooling touch, maybe mediate a bit. The FSF only seems to get involved when it's software that they own the copyright on.
May we never see th
> I think the main reason that the GPL has never been tested in courst is because violations are very difficult to prove.
Dude, I see GPL violations popping up every few months on LKML and other places, usually due to someone reverse-engineering a binary or rom and finding GPL code/comments. Discovery doesn't seem too difficult.
In most cases I've heard a bit of grumbling, followed by an "I'll contact the company and tell them that they're doing the wrong thing", then a followup.
It seems to me that the authors of the code just want the company to do the right thing and not steal their code. They never seem keen on litigation.
Of course this is in stark contrast to what a number of corporations (yay SCO, ya fuckwits) do.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
What the GPL needs is sharper teeth for folks who think that the GPL is BS. Something along the lines of:
"If you do not accept the GPL and distribute the program or derivative works in violation of the GPL you agree to pay a minimum of $5000 USD per distributed work to the copyright holder and cease and desist in distribution of the program or derivative works. This also applies if the GPL is found to be invalid or illegal in a court case in which you are a defendant."
Indeed, that's how I read it too. But the evidence seems pretty damning. Particularly how the strings appear after the executable is unzipped.
My guess, without any inside knowledge, is that the frontman in the interview doesn't have a clue and is just going on what his programmers told him - but they lied. They ripped code from mplayer to make their own job easier, and passed it off to their superiors as their own work.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Please cite examples of where companies have told the FSF to go screw themselves, or simply ignored them, and where Eben has backed down quietely without telling anyone.
I find it hard to believe that Eben has settled every single case out of court. He's never run up against a bunch of incompetent blunderers (like KISS) who are too dumb to back down? Really?
To paraphrase Rumsfeld, we don't know if we know everything that Eben knows.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Eh what? The GPL has absolutely nothing to do with "public domain" - quite the opposite in fact. Its leveraging copywrite (the Berne Convention view of it) in order to enforce various conditions upon the licensee (ie, you must make it available under the same conditions that you got it, etc)
If it was built on the concept of public-domain, there would be absolutely no way to enforce those, as the concept of public-domain explicity removes all restrictions.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"