Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How To Fight International OSS License Violations?

Posted by Cliff on from the please-seek-professional-legal-assistance dept.

sirshannon asks: "Frans Bouma's LLBLGen is a free, open source code generator that he licensed under the BSD license so that anyone could use it in any way, as long as they gave him some credit. Now Codease has released a product that apparently uses his code for 90% of the functionality but doesn't bother to attribute it to him. Frans lives in The Netherlands, Codease is in Singapore. What is the correct way to pursue this?"

4 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Hold up... by linuxkrn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Posted @ 3/3/2004 12:11 PM

    As a last resort I yesterday asked them why they didn't simply obey the license terms and suddenly they were willing to do so. I've mailed what I wanted them to do (adding a single line to the about box, as stated in the license) however haven't heared since. I'll try mailing them later today again.

    Looks like they may have changed their minds. Might want to hold off on the witch hunt... then again why they are so much fun. :)

  2. Re:Don't bother by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    BSD license is the only one of the two that has been tested in a court of law

    As far as I know, nobody in the AT&T case tried to argue that the BSD licence was invalid. Furthermore, the case was settled without a judgement.

    It's certainly the case that UC never really enforced the "advertising clause".

  3. Yeah I knew the BSD implications :) by Otis_INF · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm Frans Bouma and I wrote LLBLGen and I deliberately chose the BSD license because I don't care if someone could use the code for their own product and sell it or whatever. The core of this issue is indeed that they didn't follow the rules of the license I released the code under. This is what hurts: your work is not acknowledged.

    What's annoying is that even when you release the code under a very non-strict license (BSD2 has 2 simple rules, 1 applies to the binary version of the work) people think they can even ignore that single, simple rule. This isn't the first time this happens with the code though, although this time it is so extremely obvious (.NET has nice decompilers so you can peek into the code very easily). It's so obvious because their code is non-hungarian coding style and my code in LLBLGen is written in hungarian coding style (which is uncommon in .NET code, because MS wants you to use a different style, ala Java). So all kinds of weird prefixed names are preserved in the compiled version of CodeAse and which makes the CodeAse code easily comparable with the compiled version of LLBLGen 1.x and the sourcecode.

    I admit, with the GPL it wouldn't have been any different: people are still able to rip the code and use it as if it is theirs, however with the GPL you have one difference: if the license violation gets out when it is a GPL violation, there are more people who will know this because the FSF / GPL movement will make sure everybody knows it. But I'm glad someone mailed /. :)

    The latest news is that there is no news: I haven't heard back from them, after they (him?) said it was acceptable to follow the BSD license after all and after I then replied that it would be ok if they added a Based on LLBLGen 1.x Copyright Solutions Design line to the about box.

    --
    Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
  4. To those who'd say, "Who cares?" by Talonius · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's BSD, Frans meant for it to be usable by others.
    It's GPL but not assigned to the FSF, you'll never get any help.

    I wager that open source developers, when combined under the banners of all open source licenses, become one of the largest special interest groups in the technological community.

    As a SIG we wield considerable power; consider the power such groups hold in the United States Congress. Consider - would you want your name to villified online for stealing code when it is common to search the Internet for an applicant's name now? What about those companies that practice peer interviews prior to hiring?

    Companies are likely to want to minimize their legal exposure as well. If your boss or shareholders know that someone has stolen code and that a controversy surrounds that code, there is a good chance the code thief will suffer from a lost job.

    But these things can only happen if we act in concert; as a unified group that is capable of taking action and responsible for the actions it takes. Someone here posted that vigilante justice was the answer and in a way it is. The rule of governments are held only because the entire population does not rise up against them. Mob rule. In our situation we'll find little help for the common developer whose license has been violated... except from ourselves.

    Slashdot, kuro5hin, Groklaw... these are three shining examples of what we can do as a community.

    --
    My reality check bounced.