P2P vs. The Clones

smash writes "Rebranding software then loading it with spyware and adware (or just selling it for profit) has become a recent trend with oversea individuals trying to make a few bucks. We all remember the KaZaA Gold, don't we? Shareaza, which recently went open source under the GPL, has been subject to a similar type of theft by a company going by the name RockSoft Development. Surprisingly enough, their software labelled as 'Go Music' hasn't been pulled from C|Net's Download.com after more than a week."

Comments

Hahaha....

[Izago909]

You can never go bankrupt betting on the ignorance of average PC users.

Re:Hahaha....

[Izago909]

You sir have won the daily "Tool of the Industry" award by spouting their corporate spin and calling pirates thievs. You shall recieve you prize tomorrow moring when you show up to your desk at the RIAA. The dictionary.... er... prize doubles as a stress reliever. Just bang repeatedly over your head.

Re:Hahaha....

[RLiegh]

You sir have won the daily "Tool of the Industry" award by spouting their corporate spin and calling pirates thievs.

Are you going to have one sent around your desk too, or do you accept the corporate labeling of copyright infringers as "pirates" and only object to them being called "thieves"?

Re:Hahaha....

[sqrt(2)]

WRONG. That is a popular definition and not an acceptable LEGAL definition. Piracy is murder and plunder on the high seas AND THAT'S IT.

Re:Hahaha....

[JPriest]

Something I was thinking about the other day. It is pretty obvious that spyware is a gray area in legislation, but maybe there would be a loophole in this. Say I require anyone that develop software for my OS have a free license to do so. I could simply refuse less than credible companies a license. Instead of going after them for writing intrusive software, you could go after them for license violations.

A big company like MS could never get away with this, but I wonder if one could build a Linux distro with a module or something that requires such a license. The idea would add another layer of security for people that use that distro again legit companies whose software is not considered malicious but should be. Is anyone doing something like this?

Re:Hahaha....

[Anonymous Coward]

In the context of computers, "pirate" is a shorter name for "copyright infringer." It's been this way since the first Apple ][ game was copied from one floppy to another. Deal with it.

In this context, "pirate" refers to a roaming stealer of ships as much as "mouse" refers to a furry animal. When you start closing your "windows" to stop the draft coming through your monitor, you can start getting incensed by the use of the word "pirate."

Re:Hahaha....

[mailtomomo]

i wonder what lead to that definition ?
"Arrr ! Give me your XP CD Key or you'll feed the sharks !" ?

Re:Hahaha....

[XipX]

Thats the great (or not so great, depending on how you see it) thing about the english language. It constantly evolves.

Re:Hahaha....

[sqrt(2)]

It is still not acceptable to use "piracy" to mean "copyright infringment" even in an informal setting. The basterdization of the English language for corporate gain isn't great at all, no matter how you see it.

The next thing you know the dictionary will be shrinking a little each year!

Re:Hahaha....

[ergean]

Really? Isn't that what Microsoft wants with DRM. Except that - they whant more that what you said, they want total control over your computer, over what you run on your computer.

Re:Hahaha....

[Froboz23]

If you don't like spyware hackers doing this to GPL projects, you can voice your opinion of the software by going to the download.com link mentioned above and submitting your own review using the "rate this title" link.

The download.com submission review procedure is odd. It delays submissions for a couple hours, but I don't know what the heck they do during that time. They sure aren't checking the review content. My test review submission got through, no problem:

Claria Corporation 12-Aug-2004 09:08:21 PM

"Herbal Viagra! Peepee Enlargement! Video Professor! Hair Replacement Ointments! Work from Home!"

As a reseller of dubious online advertising, I highly endorse this software product. As soon as the half-witted user installs this "utility", a tidalwave of beautiful pop-up advertising will fill the user's screen. Every ad generates revenue for our company, so we're very excited about this product. Plus, even if you uninstall the Go Music software, the spam advertisements keep coming! Highly recommended.

;)

Re:Hahaha....

[Short Circuit]

Thanks to this Slashdot article, I expect it. (Or something similar.)

Maybe not for the 2.6 kernel, though...it does seem a little bleeding-edge for introduction into a current stable kernel.

Re:Hahaha....

[Frizzle Fry]

Of course it's not an acceptable legal definition. Who cares? We're not in a coutroom. An enormous number of words have specific meanings in a court of law that differ from how they are ordinarily used. Since when do we object (oops) whenever someone uses one of them in an ordinary discussion and tell them they aren't using the legal meaning?

Re:Hahaha....

[Anonymous Coward]

It is still not acceptable to use "piracy" to mean "copyright infringment" even in an informal setting. The basterdization of the English language for corporate gain isn't great at all, no matter how you see it.

Dear Idiot.

"Piracy" has ment copyright infringement since the 17th century. Deal with it.

Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

This does, in fact, represent a flaw in current open-source licenses such as GPL, and in the free (as in speech) software movement in general.

I've noticed this happening more and more as I am called upon to uninstall this kind of garbage from my friends' computers; "Uhh, this looks rather like Gnucleus; you could have just gotten that for free, without the spyware, you know...."

The idea is that adding spyware to open-source projects circumvents the "You can't take this software and sell it" restriction of the licenses because it's not being sold. It's just adding spyware to. And in some cases, the source code isn't even modified, so there is no need to redistribute the modified source code as per the license. It's just open-source software bundled with spyware in an installer.

The problem in using a license such as the GPL, and giving people essentially unlimited rights to incorporate your code into their software is that you'll end up with situations like this, and most critically, have absolutely no recourse against them so long as they are following the letter of the agreement.

(In this particular case, I don't know if they're following it or not. I don't see them providing the source code for download, so they may be in violation if they have modified it. But I may just have missed the link, and I'm not about to install their spyware fest on my box to see if it comes with source code or some such.)

The solution, unfortunately, would seem to be to add more restrictions to the licenses, similar to how the you-cannot-sell-this-software-for-more-than-the-co st-of-copying-and-the-media clause works. The difficulty comes in deciding exactly what needs to be restricted, and how to word it properly. You then combine this with a proper copyright on the code, and you have something you can enforce.

Because at that point, once you can clearly show that the company pulling this crap is in violation of your license, you can start using the DMCA as your friend, and issuing takedown notices to their ISP. Do you think for a minute that C|Net would still have the files available for download if they'd been told that they are an illegal distribution of copyrighted material? Doubtful.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

i couldnt find the part where you arent allowed to sell gnu software
you just have to supply the source

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[FuzzyFox]

If someone managed to package up something they found for free, and sell it to somebody, good for them! They managed to separate a fool from his money. That's what the economy is all about, after all.

Users are supposed to not be stupid. They should shop around, check out the market. If they do that, they will find that the software is available for free, and they don't need to pay for it, or even download a re-branded form of it. Caveat emptor!

Stupid users are always going to end up with spyware on their machine.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[pavon]

This doesn't change the main point of your argument, but you are slightly misinformed about what the GPL says about selling software. The GPL allows you to take the software and sell it at any price you want, bundled or not. However, you must either

A) include the source with sold binary, or
B) make it available seperately at additional cost.

It is just this additional cost that is limited to reasonable compensation.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[forlornhope]

Not exactly correct. Acctually very wrong. First, the GPL doesn't say you can't sell a piece of software. You actually can and many people do(Red Hat, SUSE, etc.).

To counter the rest of your argument, its unclear as to how far the GPL extends, but some people read it to say that if you distribute GPL source inside your _product_ the product must be licenced under the GPL. This is because the definition of a Derivative Work is kind of hazey as far as software is concerned. It sounds like these people took the shareza software and created a derived product called Go Music that now includes SpyWare. So it may be possible for the developers of Shareza to demand the release of all the source including the spyware. Oh, and the GPL doesn't give people unlimited rights to include your code anywhere. The distribution of your code is governed by a very strict set of rules and if they don't, they deal with copyright law which is no fun.
I think the Go Music people are in trouble wrt copyright, though I may be wrong.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

To counter the rest of your argument....

Er, why would you want to do that, exactly?

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[eurleif]

Er, not quite. The additional cost can only be "no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution", and you're certainly not required to charge anything for distribution.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Artega VH]

being a bit more specific

From the GPL: "1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."

And from the GPL FAQ: "Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide "equivalent access" to download the source--therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary." but note that "The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)"

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

(I'm the AC who wrote the original post in this thread.)

I think it really says something--even more than what the actual details of the license are--when three people in these cascading posts, all of whom obviously have some experience with free software, had three different ideas of how the GPL actually works. It's almost as if the GPL has attained some sort of cult status that everyone just defers to, assuming it fits whatever their perfect vision of free software is, without bothering to really look at all the details of.

I now see that I was mixing in a lot of free-as-in-beer with the free-as-in-speech in my understanding of the GPL. I, personally, read it all once back in the mid 90's, and haven't really looked at it since, just assuming that I'd remember all the important details over time. Obviously my memory was both selective and spotty. Certainly it would be a good time for me to take another look; perhaps others might be inspired to as well.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

i couldnt find the part where you arent allowed to sell gnu software. you just have to supply the source

You're quite correct. Many people do not understand the GPL. There is no problem at all selling GPLd software for whatever price you like, and you don't even have to be the author. This is a fact.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Er, not quite. The additional cost can only be "no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution", and you're certainly not required to charge anything for distribution.

SPAMMER: "My time is very valuble. This is going to cost you big..."

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Have Blue]

The GPL goes into a good bit of detail about what exactly consistutes "part of the software", and it's likely that bundled apps would not be required to be covered under the same license as the original GPLed executable or library depending on how they communicate with it.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is always telling people there's no problem making money with open source; you just have to find another business model.

Welcome to the other business model.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

So it may be possible for the developers of Shareza to demand the release of all the source including the spyware.

No, it won't be. If the Go Music people are not doing what the GPL says, then they're simply violating copyright law. And copyright law only says that they must (a) stop distributing the program and (b) possibly pay damages. There is nothing in copyright law to suggest that there are any circumstances under which a judge could order someone to release their own code under the GPL, let alone would.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

I'm reminded of this quote:

"The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty." ~ Lord Chief Justice Halisham

In short, you cannot have freedom -- true freedom -- unless you allow what you see as abuse. The more and more the GNU foundation tries to restrict what people do with GPL'd license software (as they have done from moment one), the further they move away from freedom. The GNU foundation has never expressed freedom in anyway. They've always wanted to restrict and control, they just happen to do it while flashing the word "freedom".

Quite frankly, the GNU foundation has out right lied about what their license provides. Proof: "We recommend copyleft, because it protects freedom for all users [...]" Sorry, but copyleft licenses do not protect freedom, they restrict it.

The GPL license is no better than an EULA. Both take something away from whoever has the software. The GPL removes the right for closed source redistribution and choice of license if you use any GPL'd code. The EULA (and the like) removes access to the code and the ability to redistribute the program or code. You may see closed source redistribution as infringing on your rights. Closed source software sees the GPL as infringing on theirs.

The only true free-as-in-speech licenses are BSD-like licenses.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[forlornhope]

Yes I agree with you, but I think your missing something. You can demand that they meet with the license terms( release the source) or stop distributing and possibly pay damages.

I never said anything about a judge ordering anything under copyright law, what I said was the the developers could demand that the Go Music people comply with the license, or the Go Music people would have to deal with copyright law, which is no fun at all. Maybe I wasn't clear about that in my original post, if I was I apologize.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't is also say that you must notify the users of their rights under the GPL.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

you cited gladly:
"Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty."

Should I think that you'll be more than happy in abu graib jail?

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a flaw in the GPL, it's rather a matter of how trustworthy is the site/repository/cvs you download from.

Where would you download the Linux kernel from? kernel.org or gokernel.com?

Now C|NET 's Downloads.com has them all. They have the good renowed ones but also the crappy spyware/malware bloated ones.

This being slashdoted is a blow to the reputation of C|NET downloads.com... most embarrassing for them.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

The ecnomic argument to this is that since anyone can compile the sources and redistribute it, it does not make sense to sell it. Yes, you can sell GPL code, even if your not the author, but it's doubtful you'll have success.

Still, what goMusic is doing is wrong. It does not supply the source, it is faking itself as being original work, it lies by saying it's spyware free, and they cheat C|NET's review system.

C|NET is the one losing the most in this story. A former boss I had once said, a satisfied client may talk of you in good to 4 other persons, a dissatisfied client will talk in bad of you to 13 other persons. This made me realise how important a reputation is, because it's so hard to get and so easy to lose.

Just like in real life, know your pusher, or else you might by junk.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[True Grit]

In short, you cannot have freedom -- true freedom -- unless you allow what you see as abuse.

• We aren't talking about government here, no one is forcing you to use the GPL.
• If you want to allow others to abuse you, thats fine, but not everyone agrees with you on that score.
• The GPL's extra restrictions are there solely to insure the code *stays* free. Some see that as a restriction of the code's "liberty", as you do, others however see it as added protection for the code's "liberty", as I and others do.
• As much as you hate this, this isn't going to change, and it certainly won't change with yet another GPL/FSF bashing rant on /. Use which license you want to, and stop annoying the ones who choose differently than you.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[mark-t]

The idea is that adding spyware to open-source projects circumvents the "You can't take this software and sell it" restriction of the licenses because it's not being sold.

Actually, you _ARE_ allowed to sell GPL software... but consider that if what you are charging for can freely be obtained elsewhere, you're going to have a hard time competing with them pricewise if you are charging anything more than a modest fee for the media and maybe even a convenience factor.

What you are *NOT* allowed to is limit the rights of other people to copy, modifiy, and distribute the code in compliance with the GPL. If you try to restrict the GPL's privileges in any way, you are not allowed to distribute the code under the GPL at all (unless you actually wrote all of the code in the first place, in which case you own the copyright, and can relicense it under a different license if you are so inclined). Not making the source code available to those that you distribute the program to is a limitation of these privileges and is therefore disallowed.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

We aren't talking about government here, no one is forcing you to use the GPL.

That's true in the sense I'm not forced to license something I create from scratch under the GPL. However, if you use any GPL'd code, you are forced to license it under the GPL. Distribute any GPL'd code (compiled or binary), and you must adhere to a list of requirements.

If you want to allow others to abuse you, thats fine, but not everyone agrees with you on that score.

True again. I take beef with the fact that GNU zealots run around screaming that the GNU provides freedom when nothing could be further from the truth. A big fat lie right on the GNU homepage: "Free as in Freedom".

The GPL's extra restrictions are there solely to insure the code *stays* free. Some see that as a restriction of the code's "liberty", as you do, others however see it as added protection for the code's "liberty", as I and others do.

But restricting the code in any such way, by defition, removes liberty.

As much as you hate this, this isn't going to change, and it certainly won't change with yet another GPL/FSF bashing rant on /. Use which license you want to, and stop annoying the ones who choose differently than you.

GNU foundation, and the open source community in general, should take your advice. GNU zealots think that everything should be GPL'd. The GPL license itself annoys anyone using or distributing licensed code. Open source zealots want a death to closed source software.

As I said above, my beef is with thinking that somehow the GPL license provides freedom. Unless you change the defintion of freedom (perhaps they redefine "freedom" somewhere in the license), that is simply a lie. The GPL is a lock-in device on multiple levels.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should get off of your ass and do some work? No one forces you to use gpl source code for your projects and to tell you the truth if you really want to preserve your job as a programmer maybe its better if you get to rewrite the sections you would rather steal and call your own work? Also if you really need a specific gpl library to be closed up in your application have you considered the possibility of paying the author of the code you want to steal so that they can give you a different license? No you probably haven't because you're a piece of shit like the person who stole shareaza and claimed it was all their work that made this product. Also if you think people who write gpl software wouldn't license their source under another license then you have been smoking too much crack. They don't make enough money to turn down the chance to actually sell something they wrote.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[occupied]

I think your comments are brilliant.
Sort of what I was thinking, but too afraid to say.
I thought I had "missed" something.
Please keep at it.
Maybe one day we will find logic & serenity.
But I doubt it.
Turmoil seems to be the way :)
In a phrase- chaos resolution.
Cheers, Robin

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Aim Here]

Yeah yeah yeah. Sure the GPL restricts your freedom. In one, and only one way. You're not allowed to take other people's GPL'ed work and use that free software to make non-free software from it.

Anyone who bandies around the word 'freedom' in order to fight for the right to use other people's labour to make unfree software is a hypocritical asshat IMO.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the kind of person who wants to live in a "free country" where that means you are "free" to build a prison, and go out into the street and grab people you don't like, and lock them away... right?

I'm sure that when you run the BSD code in Windows, you're glad that you're still free to distribute it -- oh wait, you're not, because it was unprotected BSD code and now Microsoft owns it.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft astroturfers like you should be censored.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

The ecnomic argument to this is that since anyone can compile the sources and redistribute it, it does not make sense to sell it. Yes, you can sell GPL code, even if your not the author, but it's doubtful you'll have success.

This is NOT so. There are plenty of high-profile GPLd apps being sold by companies / indeviduals making money.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

GPL restricts freedom in multiple ways. Not only can you not make non-free software using GPL'd code, you cannot make non-GPL'd software. You must redistribute source code if you distribute a binary. So on and so fourth.

Anyone who bandies the word 'freedom' in order to restrict the rights of my labour is a hypocritical asshole.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Aim Here]

Those apparently multiple restrictions are just different ways of covering the same one restriction. Binary-only code is unfree code. Relicensing GPL'ed code to another license means being able to turn it into unfree code. The GPL does the absolute minimum necessary to prevent GPL'ed code being turned into unfree software, and no more.

As for restricting your labour, you misunderstand the GPL. It does nothing of the sort. You can license the code YOU wrote under any license you want, and if your software happens to be free software, you can distribute it with GPLed code.

The resulting software, as a whole, is a GPL'ed application, but your own code can be BSD, or public domain, or any GPL-compatible license if you like. If you bother to mark the BSD-licensed bits clearly enough, then Bill Gates himself can come along and take those and stick them into IE8 if he wants.

YOUR labour isn't restricted in the slightest - the only restriction is what you do with the work of the guy who wrote the GPL'ed code, and the only restriction is that you can't do anything that can turn GPLed code into non-free software.

See?

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

The GPL does the absolute minimum necessary to prevent GPL'ed code being turned into unfree software, and no more.

That's right. The license applies many restrictions to whatever software it touches. Glad we are on the same page. I'm guessing that somewhere in the GPL they redefine "Freedom" to mean "Restrictions".

As for restricting your labour, you misunderstand the GPL. It does nothing of the sort. You can license the code YOU wrote under any license you want, and if your software happens to be free software, you can distribute it with GPLed code.

You misunderstand what I said. If I used GPL'd code, I am forced to license my code under the GPL. Not under any OSI approved license, but the GPL itself. Anyone who then uses my code or redistributions my program has to adhere to a laundry list of requirements. Yes, I could and do choose not to use the GPL for obvious reasons.

The resulting software, as a whole, is a GPL'ed application, but your own code can be BSD, or public domain, or any GPL-compatible license if you like. If you bother to mark the BSD-licensed bits clearly enough, then Bill Gates himself can come along and take those and stick them into IE8 if he wants.

And why shouldn't Bill Gates be allowed to use the code if he wanted? Why discriminate against another group? I want my code to truly be free instead of locked away under a restrictive license.

YOUR labour isn't restricted in the slightest - the only restriction is what you do with the work of the guy who wrote the GPL'ed code, and the only restriction is that you can't do anything that can turn GPLed code into non-free software.

If I license my code under the GPL, it is restricted. That is non-free as in non-freedom.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Aim Here]

I'm guessing that somewhere in the GPL they redefine "Freedom" to mean "Restrictions".

No. The 'Freedom' of the GPL is the freedom to run, copy, distribute, and modify code. The 'freedom' you're banging on about is the freedom to use other people's work to make code that isn't free in those other four senses. Next you'll be telling me that we don't live in a free country because it's illegal to lock random strangers in the basement of a house that someone else built. "I should be free to take away other people's freedom, using other people's property!"

"And why shouldn't Bill Gates be allowed to use the code if he wanted? "

I never said he shouldn't. I was just showing an example of how he could rip code that you wrote out of your GPL'ed app and put it in a proprietary application if he wanted to, thus contradicting whatever it was that you said.

"You misunderstand what I said. If I used GPL'd code, I am forced to license my code under the GPL. Not under any OSI approved license, but the GPL itself."

I understood you the first time and you're wrong. I said that the software AS A WHOLE must be licensed under the GPL, since that's the only way of preventing the GPL'ed code that you didn't write from becoming proprietary software. But individual parts of that software, such as lines of code or files that you yourself wrote, can be under a different license. The code you add to the GPL'ed code merely has to be under a GPL-compatible license for it to be bundled in a GPL'ed app. There's a big list of GPL-compatible licenses on the FSF site for you to choose from.

"Anyone who then uses my code or redistributions my program has to adhere to a laundry list of requirements. "

The onerous laundry list of heinous restrictions that is destroying your freedom reads thus:
1) You aren't allowed to change the license on my code
2) When you give people copies of my code, give people the source code to whatever you gave them.
3) Erm...
4) that's it.

The GPL is of course longer than that, but the rest of it is just closing loopholes and technicalities - if you adhere to the spirit of 1) and 2) above, you'll pretty much be in the clear.

"If I license my code under the GPL, it is restricted. That is non-free as in non-freedom"

Firstly, I've already said that you're not forced to license the code that you wrote under the GPL.

Secondly, you are using the word 'free' in a way which is completely contrary to the manner in which the whole of the free software community uses it. The GPL is a free software license. There are definitions of what constitute 'free software' all over the place.

It frankly amazes me how gung-ho you are about the right to make non-free software. Why do you bother with the free software movement at all, if the most important freedom to you is the ability to make proprietary software? Is 'free software' to you just a big supply of other people's work that you can put in a box and sell it with an EULA full of fascist licensing restrictions?

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

No. The 'Freedom' of the GPL is the freedom to run, copy, distribute, and modify code. The 'freedom' you're banging on about is the freedom to use other people's work to make code that isn't free in those other four senses. Next you'll be telling me that we don't live in a free country because it's illegal to lock random strangers in the basement of a house that someone else built. "I should be free to take away other people's freedom, using other people's property!"

No, the freedom I'm "banging" on about is actual freedom. You seem to ignore this and redefine what freedom is. Anything under an EULA provides "freedom", according to you. After all, if you pay for it you are free to use it. As with the GPL, you can't redistribute the software at will, but I guess that's the price of freedom.

I understood you the first time and you're wrong. I said that the software AS A WHOLE must be licensed under the GPL, since that's the only way of preventing the GPL'ed code that you didn't write from becoming proprietary software. But individual parts of that software, such as lines of code or files that you yourself wrote, can be under a different license. The code you add to the GPL'ed code merely has to be under a GPL-compatible license for it to be bundled in a GPL'ed app. There's a big list of GPL-compatible licenses on the FSF site for you to choose from.

But licensing it as a whole already infects the software with the GPL. Redistributing the software already has to adhere to a number of restrictions. My code, if licensed under a truly free license, can be pulled out but that's not the issue.

The onerous laundry list of heinous restrictions that is destroying your freedom reads thus:
1) You aren't allowed to change the license on my code
2) When you give people copies of my code, give people the source code to whatever you gave them.
3) Erm...
4) that's it.

That is the problem. It removes freedom, it restricts what can and cannot be done with/to the software. Why you fail to understand this is beyond me.

Firstly, I've already said that you're not forced to license the code that you wrote under the GPL.

Secondly, you are using the word 'free' in a way which is completely contrary to the manner in which the whole of the free software community uses it. The GPL is a free software license. There are definitions of what constitute 'free software' all over the place.

It frankly amazes me how gung-ho you are about the right to make non-free software. Why do you bother with the free software movement at all, if the most important freedom to you is the ability to make proprietary software?

But you're wrong, in part. If I were to modify GPL code, that code must be under the GPL. And as you said, if I took GPL'd code, put into another piece of software, that software as a whole must be under the GPL. As a result, freedom has been lost.

Secondly, the GNU software foundation uses the term "freedom" is a way which completely destroys the meaning of the word. How can there be freedom when we are being dominated and restricted?

I don't bother with the free software movement at all. You people are nuts. You brandish the word "freedom" about in an attempt to con people into using your software. No part of the GPL provides any freedom. All it does is restrict what you can and cannot do with the software. Frankly, the GPL is a virus. Anything it touches must become infected, says so right in the license.

The open source movement is a different story.

Is 'free software' to you just a big supply of other people's work that you can put in a box and sell it with an EULA full of fascist licensing restrictions?

Not at all. The GPL does a good job of already applying "fascist licensing restrictions."

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Aim Here]

"Anything under an EULA provides "freedom", according to you.After all, if you pay for it you are free to use it."

You should brush up on your reading comprehension skills. I defined 'free software' the way everyone here defines free software - software that is freely modifiable, runnable, examinable and redistributable. An EULA usually provides only one of those freedoms and is therefore totally unfree.

You're using 'free software' in a manner inconsistent with the way almost everyone else here uses it. If you're going to talk here, it helps if we speak the same language.

"Frankly, the GPL is a virus. Anything it touches must become infected, says so right in the license."

You're quoting Bill Gates now. And all this redefining of the language we use is reminiscent of Ken Brown and Rob Enderle's FUD attacks. You're keeping good company these days.

"The open source movement is a different story."

Funnily enough, the Open Source people like using the GPL too. They just don't happen to use the word 'free' as much, since businessmen don't like freedom and 'free' is, unfortunately, ambiguous in English. The software and licenses that the Free Software and Open Source people use are identical.

Look we're never going to agree, but I'll stop thinking you're some sort of proprietary troll if you can tell me one restriction of the GPL that isn't absolutely neccesary to keep that software free or open source in the FSF/OSI/Debian sense (take your pick).
No matter which bit of the GPL you make less restrictive, you'll always end up with someone, somewhere, being able to slap a EULA on it and deprive a hapless user somewhere in the world of his freedom. That's the sole purpose of the GPL. It prevents GPL'ed code being proprietarised and no more.
You might not like being told you can't slap a EULA on someone else's code, but if you're wanting to start some sort of anti-GPL freedom crusade based on that, then I don't reckon you're going to get many followers - I think most people here can see that the logical conclusion of getting rid of the GPL is just to relegate free software to being embraced, extended, proprietarised and reduced to some sort of ham-radio type hobby instead of the mass social movement/competitive industry that it now happens to be. Maybe you want that. Fair enough.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

You should brush up on your reading comprehension skills. I defined 'free software' the way everyone here defines free software - software that is freely modifiable, runnable, examinable and redistributable. An EULA usually provides only one of those freedoms and is therefore totally unfree.

As should you. I clearly said that the EULA provides freedom, not becomes free software. There's a difference.

You're using 'free software' in a manner inconsistent with the way almost everyone else here uses it. If you're going to talk here, it helps if we speak the same language.

The argument isn't about "free software." It's about one license, the GPL, and how it doesn't follow through on it's claims of providing freedom.

Funnily enough, the Open Source people like using the GPL too. They just don't happen to use the word 'free' as much, since businessmen don't like freedom and 'free' is, unfortunately, ambiguous in English. The software and licenses that the Free Software and Open Source people use are identical.

Not those that I know. They hate the GPL for obvious reasons. They strongly advocate against it. Perhaps you should adventure outside of the Linux and GNU safety bubbles and meets those who have differing opinions. It makes life interesting.

Look we're never going to agree, but I'll stop thinking you're some sort of proprietary troll if you can tell me one restriction of the GPL that isn't absolutely neccesary to keep that software free or open source in the FSF/OSI/Debian sense (take your pick).

I can do that since you didn't say "neccesary to keep that software free as defined by FSF." All I have to do is point to the BSD license, an OSI approved license. Anything more than what it lines out isn't needed to adhere to the Open Source definition.

No matter which bit of the GPL you make less restrictive, you'll always end up with someone, somewhere, being able to slap a EULA on it and deprive a hapless user somewhere in the world of his freedom. That's the sole purpose of the GPL. It prevents GPL'ed code being proprietarised and no more.

But who says that's a bad thing? What if Microsoft cleaned up its act by using OpenBSD code to increase security? Or used FreeBSD code to increase stability? Would that be a bad thing? Of course not. In fact, it would be a great thing. Would OpenBSD or FreeBSD gain anything by having Microsofts modifications published? Probably not. Would Microsoft gain anything by publishing its modifications? Probably not.

Forcing them to release their modifications is pointless so why do it? In the name of what the GNU foundation labels as "freedom"? Give me a break.

You might not like being told you can't slap a EULA on someone else's code, but if you're wanting to start some sort of anti-GPL freedom crusade based on that, then I don't reckon you're going to get many followers - I think most people here can see that the logical conclusion of getting rid of the GPL is just to relegate free software to being embraced, extended, proprietarised and reduced to some sort of ham-radio type hobby instead of the mass social movement/competitive industry that it now happens to be. Maybe you want that. Fair enough.

There are many people out there who agree with my views and would like to see the world de-GNU'd. It's just so on Slashdot and other strong Linux communities, that isn't so.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Aim Here]

"As should you. I clearly said that the EULA provides freedom, not becomes free software. There's a difference."

Aaah right. Well yes, the EULA provides a small amount of freedoms in that sense, just as the GPL provides a small amount of restrictions. You can do nothing to EULA-ed software except run it and even then with some severe restrictions and in this straw man example, you expect me to pick out those bits and say it's 'freedom'.

But that's not my way of thinking, it's closer to YOUR way of thinking. I look at the whole EULA and say it's mostly unfree. Just as I look at the whole GPL, and say it's mostly unrestricted - you can do anything to GPL'ed software except for a restriction on distributing it as non-GPL'ed software. You look at the GPL and pick out the one smallish restriction through a magnifying glass and complain about the lack of freedom, just like in straw-man-world you'd expect me to pick out the tiny bit of freedom in a EULA.

"I can do that since you didn't say "neccesary to keep that software free as defined by FSF." All I have to do is point to the BSD license, an OSI approved license."

Wrong answer. I said *keep* the software free. The minute you release BSD code, someone can come along and embrace/extend it slightly and turn it into fascist EULA-ware. You see? Lift that restriction, it turns into proprietary software. You might think that's good, that's between you and your rabbi/witchdoctor/conscience or whatever. I was showing that the GPL contains only the minimum restrictions necessary to preserve software as free or open source software, and I don't think you can argue with that.

And FYI, BSD code IS free as defined by the FSF. The OSI and FSF agree in nearly every case on what constitutes free or open source software.

"Would OpenBSD or FreeBSD gain anything by having Microsofts modifications published?"
If Microsoft made decent modifications that other people find useful, then yes, of course, *BSD would gain something - better code, or at least and alternative way of doing something. It's not impossible for Microsoft to make good code, you know. Only a rabid anti-M$er would think otherwise.

"Would Microsoft gain anything by publishing its modifications?"
Trickier since MS's current business model depends on secret source code, but if that hurdle was overcome, then yes, Microsoft would gain by having it's bugs spotted and checked a lot earlier for one. And perhaps it could find the community making good modifications to it's mods in return.

"There are many people out there who agree with my views and would like to see the world de-GNU'd"

True. Prominent among your anti-GNU soulmates are Bill Gates, Darl McBride, Rob Enderle, sworn enemies of free software.

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

Aaah right. Well yes, the EULA provides a small amount of freedoms in that sense, just as the GPL provides a small amount of restrictions. You can do nothing to EULA-ed software except run it and even then with some severe restrictions and in this straw man example, you expect me to pick out those bits and say it's 'freedom'. But that's not my way of thinking, it's closer to YOUR way of thinking. I look at the whole EULA and say it's mostly unfree. Just as I look at the whole GPL, and say it's mostly unrestricted - you can do anything to GPL'ed software except for a restriction on distributing it as non-GPL'ed software. You look at the GPL and pick out the one smallish restriction through a magnifying glass and complain about the lack of freedom, just like in straw-man-world you'd expect me to pick out the tiny bit of freedom in a EULA.

GPL providing small amount of restrictions? Sounds like your way of thinking. Anyone who looks at the GPL can see that it's unfree. Most of the license is devoted to laying out restrictions. It's encumbered by them. You may sum it up as one or two restrictions, but it goes deeper than that. It goes down to the core of the GPL. A core wrapped in a sheet with the words "Freedom" printed on it. A nice slap-in-the-face lie.

I'd agree that the EULA is pretty much unfree. However, if you think the GPL is in any way "free" than the EULA must be free also since they both provide nothing more than a small amount of freedom and a boat load of restrictions.

Wrong answer. I said *keep* the software free. The minute you release BSD code, someone can come along and embrace/extend it slightly and turn it into fascist EULA-ware. You see? Lift that restriction, it turns into proprietary software. You might think that's good, that's between you and your rabbi/witchdoctor/conscience or whatever. I was showing that the GPL contains only the minimum restrictions necessary to preserve software as free or open source software, and I don't think you can argue with that.

Do you see that I don't care if someone takes my code and releases it as some EULA software? Or even under the ultra-fascist GPL? It doesn't matter to me. I know this going in when I license it under the BSD. When true freedom is achived, there will be abuse. You must accept it to have freedom. Any restrictions denies the very essence of freedom. And so, the GPL cannot be viewed as "freedom" despite what you hear from the GNU foundation.

You see, that's the great thing about the BSD license. You don't have to worry about all these restrictions and claims of false freedom put fourth by the GNU foundation. The GPL denies the freedom of others so you can retain yours. It's not freedom, it's not even close.

I can't argue with the fact that the GPL is completely made up of restrictions designed to propagate itself through the world. However, I can view that for what it is: Unfree. I still don't know why you fail to this. Perhaps out of fear or conformity.

If Microsoft made decent modifications that other people find useful, then yes, of course, *BSD would gain something - better code, or at least and alternative way of doing something. It's not impossible for Microsoft to make good code, you know. Only a rabid anti-M$er would think otherwise.

I strongly disagree. Just because a company modifies the software doesn't mean the creator wants it back. PostgreSQL is an open source database released under the BSD license. A commerical company has added replication to the database, a much requested feature yet to see its way into the open source version. The PostgreSQL community isn't pounding down the companys door, begging for the code to be released. They are fine with it. They fully understand what freedom is. When you actually hold your morals at a high value, it's easy to understand why that is so important.

Trickier since MS's current business model depends on secret source code, but if that hurdle

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[Aim Here]

"Anyone who looks at the GPL can see that it's unfree."
And yet millions still persist in calling it a free software license. Why's that?

"Most of the license is devoted to laying out restrictions"
Most of the criminal law is devoted to laying out restrictions too, yet people still use the words 'free country' all the time. When you look at WHAT the restricitions say, they merely say a tiny minority of GPL'ed software users - the distributers and modifiers - aren't allowed to place restrictions on the vast majority of GPL'ed software users - the people who run the software.

"The GPL denies the freedom of others so you can
retain yours.It's not freedom, it's not even close."

Oh right. Thanks for that. I'll apply the same logic to real life.

"The law against murdering people denies the freedom of others so that I can retain mine. It's not freedom, it's not even close. Abolish the murder laws!"
Hmmm, interesting view of freedom you got there, bud. I don't think I'll subscribe to it just yet.

Oh and:
"My problem is with people like you decide to run around, spreading misinformation about the GPL -- That is that it provides freedom."

"Or even under the ultra-fascist GPL?"

If saying that the GPL provides freedom is misinformation, what exactly is it when you call the GPL 'Ultra-Fascist'?

"Add the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD groups;"

All of whom distribute GPLed software. The FreeBSD and OpenBSD groups certainly won't distribute software they don't consider free. I haven't looked at the policies of the NetBSD people. I'll strike them off the list of the GPL enemies list, shall I?

I think I'll leave this thread here, we've gone round in circles long enough, methinks. Thanks for the trollin', it was a fairly decent mental exercise.

Cheers!

Re:Restricting Free (as in speech) Software

[JustinXB]

And yet millions still persist in calling it a free software license. Why's that?

They don't know any better. Within the GNU community, no one brings up anything anti-GNU. If the facts do not support the theory, they must be destroyed -- GNU foundation marching song.

When you look at WHAT the restricitions say, they merely say a tiny minority of GPL'ed software users - the distributers and modifiers - aren't allowed to place restrictions on the vast majority of GPL'ed software users - the people who run the software.

The distributers and modifiers don't need to place any restrictions. The GPL comes loaded with them. You keep trying to diminish this fact. Sweep it under the rug, you know?

Oh and: "My problem is with people like you decide to run around, spreading misinformation about the GPL -- That is that it provides freedom." "Or even under the ultra-fascist GPL?" If saying that the GPL provides freedom is misinformation, what exactly is it when you call the GPL 'Ultra-Fascist'?

It is ultra-fascist. Licensing code under the GPL implies dictatorship.

All of whom distribute GPLed software. The FreeBSD and OpenBSD groups certainly won't distribute software they don't consider free. I haven't looked at the policies of the NetBSD people. I'll strike them off the list of the GPL enemies list, shall I?

They distribute GPL'd software when they have no other choice. Just because they distribute GPL'd code doesn't mean they agree with the GPL. None of them would dare license their code under the GPL. They know better. All 3 BSDs do whatever they can to rip anything GPL'd from their operating systems.

I think I'll leave this thread here, we've gone round in circles long enough, methinks. Thanks for the trollin', it was a fairly decent mental exercise.

Nice to know you think someone is trolling when they disagree with your views.

download.com sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

since they went 100% commercial with a pay per listing model. freeware is rarely seen and tucows is much better anyway.

Re:download.com sucks...

[NeoThermic]

Or, use the service which is free, and has been for a while:

SnapFiles


NeoThermic

Re:download.com sucks...

[Stevyn]

You should try this: http://packages.gentoo.org/. It's almost all GPL'd freeware and it's only a matter of a command to install. It's much easier than download.com.

Re:download.com sucks...

[Breakfast Pants]

Or you could try my uncles barn, its almost all cowshit and he gives it away for free. Its much easier than download.com. Come on man, your solution is in no way a substitute for download.com and neither is mine.

Re:download.com sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't rely on ratings on tucows. They can be bought. I used to work at a company that did this. 2 cow raiting changed to 5 cows after a particular person made a phone call.

(The company is now out of business and I don't see the program listed on the site anymore)

this just in from SCO

[JeffSh]

Well, DUH!! you cant just give away source code and not expect this to happen. This is what you open source people get!! /begin astroturfing

Re:this just in from SCO

[Pieroxy]

I so much agree with you. You can't possibly give away something and later on say: Oh no! Look what they've done with it! Let's prevent that!

The line between malware/spyware/crapware and regular software is often very thin, hence probably impossible to define in lawman's terms.

Hence the impossibility to enforce these kind of things.

Re:this just in from SCO

[Qzukk]

I so much agree with you. You can't possibly give away something and later on say: Oh no! Look what they've done with it! Let's prevent that!


Ah, but if these people don't provide the source to Go Music, we can go after that. The spyware's presence just ticks people off enough to do this.

Re:this just in from SCO

[Pieroxy]

Bundling something with a product isn't necessarily modifying it. Are *you* going to sue them on this little technicality?

Re:this just in from SCO

[randomencounter]

Modification is irrelevant. They need to provide access to source that matches the binary they distribute.
If the spyware is compiled in, well, they need to provide the source to that also.

Re:this just in from SCO

[Pieroxy]

They need to provide access to source that matches the binary they distribute

Well, not really. You forgot the entire point: If this binary is in any way a derivative of a GPL piece.

I can bundle software A (GPL) with software B (Not GPL) in the same installation process without modifying one line of code in soft A. Hence software B is still closed source and you can brush yourself to get the source code.

What is wrong (from a license standpoint) with that?

Re:this just in from SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing. Nothing at all against bundling non-GPL spyware.

But, as the FSF points out, you have to tell your users that the program is GPL and that you will give them the source. Its not enough to just point them somewhere else. Additionally, they have made at least minor modifications to the program itself in order to change its name and appearance.

Re:this just in from SCO

[randomencounter]

Right. If the binary is modified to include the spyware/viruses/etc. they need to make the source
available to reproduce the GPL'd binary.

If they just do it as a massive zip file, with an unmodified
version of the GPL'd program they are covered.

Could somebody fill me in?

[thephotoman]

I don't have the background knowledge on P2P services, as their peak was during a time when I had an unreliable, low-speed Internet connection. Therefore, I don't remember Kazaa Gold. I don't even know much about the original Napster.

Re:Could somebody fill me in?

[BlueCup]

I'll give it a shot...

Back in days of yore, Kazaa was given away for free for people to download to connect to the fast track netword. Then someone came along and modded the program, and created kazaa-lite. This gave users many added benefits, and made getting files easier. But, the changes were freely available, and then a company took those changes, renamed them, "gave" them away on a website that required your email address, and they bundled a ton of spyware crap in (not that the regular Kazaa didn't already start out with enough of that as it was.

If you want to see the evil that is Kazaa Gold, it still exists, and can be found here... just don't download it =) forms of Kazaa Lite can still be found if anyone must use the Fast Track network... =) hope this helped.

Re:Could somebody fill me in?

[thephotoman]

Many thanks for the information. As I said before, this is a realm of IT that I don't know much about, due to my preference to keep everything legal. Of course, that preference led me to the wonderful world of F/OSS, where I don't necessarily have to pay to be legal.

That gives me an idea

[prostoalex]

Tune in next week for my version of EnhancedOffice Gold Edition for WinXP with super enhancements such as

Internet accelerator

Bandwidth optimizer

Password manager (Gator, the industry standard)

HotBar

and many other goodies you would have never got off some open source site.

Re:That gives me an idea

[BlueCup]

Gator?! Man, get with the times! Claria is all the rage now, it's completely seperate and better than Gator could ever be. Sheesh.

Re:That gives me an idea

[strider44]

what? I was trying to get EnhancedOffice Gold Edition - your link showed me OpenOffice. What a rip-off!

Re:That gives me an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You can have Luxuriousity Office for just $12.99 plus shipping. Guaranteed spyware-free!

Re:That gives me an idea

[HermanAB]

Wow, they even have The Gimp too...

I am so underwhelmed...

Re:That gives me an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean LuxuriousityPhoto.

Kazaa gold?

[Billobob]

If anything, this reminds me more of how Morpheus completely ripped off Gnucleus after Kazaa kicked them off their networks, leaving Morpheus pretty much screwed. They changed a few pictures, and originally presented none of the code to the public.

#1 problem

[deutschemonte]

These programs are the #1 problem I encounter when I get the oh so common call from friends and family about how their PC just keeps popping up ads and is running really slow.

Damn them all to hell!

This being /. I am sure a great deal of you know my pain.

Re:#1 problem

[AvantLegion]

These programs are the #1 problem I encounter when I get the oh so common call from friends and family about how their PC just keeps popping up ads and is running really slow.

Damn them all to hell!

This being /. I am sure a great deal of you know my pain.

No. This is Slashdot. We don't have friends, and family doesn't invite us over anymore.

Re:#1 problem

[Veridium]

I say God bless them.

They've been nothing but good for my consulting business. Buhahaha.

Re:#1 problem

[RWerp]

This is a great way for certain companies to undermine open software. User installs a program which has "GPL" written on it and gets adware running on his computer. What will the user do? he'll blame the Open Source! Add to it some articles in popular PC press about 'how you get spyware with Open Source products'.

Download.com is pay to list now....

[Kenja]

Ever since download.com went from a free listing of free/shareware to a pay for listing service they've gotten far less scrupleless. They realy dont seem to care what they host so long as they get paid.

Re:Download.com is pay to list now....

[M.C. Hampster]

Ever since download.com went from a free listing of free/shareware to a pay for listing service they've gotten far less scrupleless

Ok, I don't think scrupleless is even a word. Do you mean "having less scruples" by that word? If so, are you saying that now have more scruples through the double negative? I'm honestly not trying to be a Nazi here, I'm just trying to figure out what you attempting to say. Some people must understand because you've already been modded insightful.

Re:Download.com is pay to list now....

[martinX]

I think he means "less scrupulous". Of course "having less scruples" would have achieved the same thing.

Now please excuse me I have to flush my memory of that word. I have thought it too many times and it's causing problems.

Re:Download.com is pay to list now....

[Kenja]

Ment "scrupulous". My bad. Blame it on having to code for Lotus Domino. It makes chunks of my brain shut down.

Re:Download.com is pay to list now....

[alex_ware]

the word is: scrupulous it think

Re:Download.com is pay to list now....

[Blakey Rat]

I'd just like you to know, as a sysadmin who works in a Domino/Notes environment, that I hate you. That is all.

Re:Download.com is pay to list now....

[cheekyboy]

try versiontracker.com , the old mac listing site that now supports windows & linux

Its great, though could do with more listings.

Re:Download.com is pay to list now....

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be fewer scruples? Which sounds more correct? Of course, that doesn't mean that it's more gramatically correct, but I'm pretty sure about this.

"I have fewer apples than he does, but I have less scruples, so I didn't give him any."

"I have less anger than he does, but I have fewer scruples, so I didn't give him any apples."

Ciao!

How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[nlinecomputers]

How can you steal something that is free? I admit that I have yet to read the links. Off to do that now but that line in the story above sure seems incorrect to me.

Re:How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[alex_ware]

can you steal 'free beer' no
can you steal 'free speech' yes
OSS is free speech

Re:How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

can you steal 'free speech' yes

WTF?!?! Can you give one example of this? Without resorting to FUD?

Re:How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[unixfd0]

I haven't read the links either but my understanding is that "credit" is the currency in OSS. So if you don't abide by the OSS license (essentially giving the original author(s) credit, imdemnity and releasing the source of your version) you're stealing.

Re:How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[Monty845]

Actually there is some precedent for being charged with stealing free things, for instance in some states its a crime to steal a free newspaper, granted you need to take a bunch for it to count, but if you take 100s they can charge you...

Re:How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not theft, the poster has bought into the RIAA and the MPAA's propoganda. Even if they weren't complying with the GPL, it would be copyright infringement, not theft.

Re:How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not theft... it's just really lame and rather dastardly (and probably envious to some) to repackage it with spyware and then sell it to idiots.

Re:How is repacking a GPL'd program theft?

[Qzukk]

Right: Taking sharaza (a free as in speech program) renaming it to go music, and releasing it without source.

Wait, thats what this whole article is about! The spyware stuff is just icing on the cake ("Not only are these people infringing on a GPLd program's copyright, they're even infecting users with spyware!")

That's funny; I didn't see that clause

[tepples]

The solution, unfortunately, would seem to be to add more restrictions to the licenses, similar to how the you-cannot-sell-this-software-for-more-than-the-co st-of-copying-and-the-media clause works.

What clause? Gnucleus, Shareaza, and eMule are licensed under the GNU General Public License. This license lets a redistributor sell copies or digital deliveries of a covered program provided that the source code is either included or available at cost.

Re:That's funny; I didn't see that clause

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two eight letter A-words. The other one is "adoption." Learn it. Use it.

Why have all three replies to tepples' comment been to his sig?

Re:That's funny; I didn't see that clause

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I get the feeling that you've never been in the position to create a child?

Re:That's funny; I didn't see that clause

[yourmom16]

Because this is slashdot

Re:That's funny; I didn't see that clause

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they are under 2 or 3 years old, since they have likely not reached the level of self-consciousness yet. I don't see any problem with leaving a young infant out for the wolves if you don't want it.

Shame your paernet's didn't think of that.

Fake user opinions on CNET

[brokencomputer]

Those user opinions have got to be fake. " "I like it :)" No spyware is bundled with it, and it is a fairly reliable software package. This must be the best Thing in the world. Now my life is excelent!" ""Great Program No Ads!" Fast, easy to use, plenty to choose from My roommate and I both use this program and we think it's stupendous! This program is excellent." Give me a break. They could have at least made it a little less obvious.

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[darth_MALL]

I'm loving the negative ons like this:
""Virus Infected Shareaza Ripoff" Included malware: 1. Win32:Trojan-gen. {Other} 2. New.Net spyware 3. Search Toolbar adware "

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[onewing]

Yeah, I also noticed all the positive reviews on the first few pages were submitted by usernames with no capitals or numbers.

If you look for a capital letter or number theyre pretty much all negative.

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[arkanes]

Look at the timestamps on the postives, too. If CNet , after being alerted/this getting publicity/etc doesn't at least strip out the most obvious of bot postings, I'll... well, I won't do anything. But they'll still suck.

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[Pheonix5000]

In addition, notice that all the positive reviews are each either 2 hours or 2 hours and 10 mins apart.

Sounds to me like someone's using an automated program to submit those fake reviews.

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

And I suggest that everyone here do a "Katie.Com" on this program and give it the comments that it deserves.

Release the hounds!!

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[initialE]

"And, my penis is longer now!"

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[Dogun]

don't forget the randomly capitalized first letter in a word in the middle of a sentence.

Re:Fake user opinions on CNET

[Impotent_Emperor]

Download.com may post comments in blocks. It takes in comments for ten minutes, but only posts them after that period is complete. All the posts, even negative, seem to come in ten minute intervals that end in the minute-digit 8. (The time seems to gradually advance, though. The seconds column is increasing.)

I believe that this accounts for those posts in which an extra ten minutes appears (instead of being an even 2 hours between every bot-post).

Of course, I don't know why they don't show the date and time of which the comment was entered. That kind of information would seem important for catching such trickery.

They HAVE modified it

[Savet Hegar]

By rereleasing the software with spyware included, they have modified the software. Certain linux distributions contain proprietary software, but linux = the kernel. linux does not equal the distribution.

gnucleus, gtk-gnutella, etc are covered by the GPL. So modifying the program itself means they MUST release the source code at no additional charge.

They aren't actually doing anything wrong by charging a price for this software either. Technically, they could justify it for their "enhancements" to the software such as spyware and adware.

Re:They HAVE modified it

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

By rereleasing the software with spyware included, they have modified the software.

No. They have released an installer which installs spyware, and coincidentally also installs UNMODIFIED p2p software. GPL does not address this issue. And really, does it make a difference? Realisticly, no one is going to sue tham.

Re:They HAVE modified it

[rgriff59]

There seems to be some fixation with a requirement to distribute source if it is modified. Just for clarity, it is the distribution, not the modification, that brings with it the source requirement as indicated in this quote from the GPL:

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

Anyone can sell a GPL'ed binary, or give it away, barter it, whatever. But the act of distributing it in any form requires the distributor to also provide access to the source on request.

Re:They HAVE modified it

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL requirements are not conditional upon them having modified the package: it is always their burden to make corresponding source code available for the GPL software and to INFORM users that it is GPL licensed and include a copy of the GPL.

Even if they modified nothing.

Anyhow... by releasing it as an installer executable without an option of "not installing the spyware", they have made the Spyware an integral part of the package.

So they HAVE modified the software package by
including an Installer and Spyware in the GNU package.

The reason that it's a modification to the original work is the user can't separate it from the original work. (The installer is not merely a distribution package/archive/medium... it is an Application the user has to run to install the binary programs)

Distributors are already obliged them to make available source code for the corresponding source code for all software licensed under GPL... including any scripts, and programs necessary to control compilation and installation of the executable I.E. to build the binary software package (THE INSTALLER ITSELF) that they are distributing and its contents which they are also distributing

Re:They HAVE modified it

[djeca]

Yeah, this stuff may fall under the 'aggregate' clause that covers proprietary-enhanced Linux distros. That's the sort of thing a court needs to decide, but in all honesty I think that if SuSE Linux is OK (and was back when YaST was proprietary), then so is this form of bundling.

However, the point isn't whether or not you can sue them, it's whether or not you can force download.com to delist them with a DMCA takedown notice. And to do that, all you need is evidence that the scumbags aren't following every last letter of the GPL. Clause 3b. is the main one, but you can check the other clauses as well.

Of course, if they are compying with the GPL, then what's the harm? If a few people are idiots enough to only use software that is backed by fancy advertising that just screams 'malware', then it's hardly a high priority for the Free Software community to reeducate them, even if it's possible.

Ironic

[carcosa30]

So the makers of p2p software are annoyed with opportunists stepping on their copyrights?

Sorry, but I have no pity for Sharman Networks.

Re:Ironic

[Izago909]

I don't remember seeing Shareaza authors complaining about their copyrights. Please reply with link. Also, Shareaza is not part of Sharman Networks. It uses, guntella, G2, donkey, and bittorrent, but no fasttrack.

Re:that's because...

[RLiegh]

Are there any alternatives for those of us on a crap-free diet?

GPL allowes selling the program

[TorKlingberg]

The GPL does not forbid you from selling modified versions. It only says that if you have distributed the binary to someone, you cannot charge for the source (more than shipping etc.)

Re:Best P2P client?

[Coke in a Can]

I use a combination of eMule, BitTorrent, and DC++. eMule is great for small files like MP3s and files that have been out for a long time (and therefore BT won't have many peers). BitTorrent is great, naturally, for big stuff that's popular. DC++, I just use for use with friends on my private registered-users-only hub.

Re:Best P2P client?

[sqrt(2)]

eMule plus. Unless you listen to that pop/rap/hiphop shit.

WinMerge has been stolen I think

[Anonymous Coward]

I think someone said that WinMerge has been stolen and sold as well (sf.net/projects/winmerge)

75% popular my donkey!

[B747SP]

A quick read of the user comments pages on C|Net makes it pretty clear that all of those positive comments are written by the same person with the same fractured ESL English and the same misgivings about what is 'really cool' and how to make one's life 'complete'.

Some might call this 'astroturf', but I reckon that even blind freddy could see that this grass is brown!

Re:75% popular my donkey!

[arkanes]

The last time I remember this happening, it was with the open-source CD ripper CDex (BSD license). Downloads.com didn't de-list it, but did add a big yellow spyware warning label, and user comments quickly caught up with it. The same thing will probably happen here - even automated astroturfing will only take you so far.

theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Shareaza, which recently went open source under the GPL, has been subject to a similar type of theft by a company going by the name RockSoft Development."

Oh, so When you steal something from a record label, it's copyright infringement, but when you steal GPL software, it's actually theft?

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[sqrt(2)]

Say this:

"The GPL is to be respected, Copyright laws are not."

Repeat until learned.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[OverkillTASF]

Well, what does P2P have to do with stealing music? I know we've all been through this before... I won't make my usual "pirates/p2p/criminals/guns" comparison... Whoops. :-) P2P has many GREAT applications that are both legal and... GREAT. And uh... useful.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you are being sarcastic (I think you are).

In case anybody actually "learns" that, I would advise you to read this. Without copyright laws, the GPL could not exist.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[ad0gg]

Oh, so When you steal something from a record label, it's copyright infringement, but when you steal GPL software, it's actually theft?

Welcome to slashdot newcomer! Please follow the following guidelines when posting in order of importance

1. Microsoft = Bad
2. GPL = Good
3. Linx = good
4. Copyright/Patent = bad
5. RIAA/MPAA = Bad
6. Apple = good
7. Real = Buffering

I hope you enjoy your stay.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

You = insensitive clod

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[arose]

Without copyright laws, the GPL would not be needed. There is a reason they call it copyleft.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Rysc]

Real = Buffering

Funniest damn thing I've seen all day...

Five coolness points! SPEND THEM WISELY.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelt "Buggering" in # 7.

~~~

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

Without copyright laws, the GPL would not be needed.

No, without copyright laws, the GPL would not be possible. It would still be needed. Without copyright laws, everything would be the equivelent of the BSD-style licenses, meaning anybody could take Linux and produce a proprietary version.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[sqrt(2)]

The moderates "Sarcasm Detection Algorithms" must need some fine tuning.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[arose]

meaning anybody could take Linux and produce a proprietary version

That would be a free-as-in-beer version. So anybody who cares about security, transparency, support, etc. would use the version you can get the source for.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[teamhasnoi]

I'll bite - grabbing a mp3 and selling a GPL app as your own are different - I say that 98% of every mp3 downloaded are never resold. The difference is in the profit. People who close source GPL software and sell it for a profit are taking the work of those who have already decided to donate their time and code for the common good and using it for their own selfish gain.

It's the difference between photocopying a book, and plagiarizing one.

All statistics are from here.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

And thats the purpose of the GPL. To make sure that there will always be the version you can get the source for. And as an added bonus, as long as the author(s) of the program license it only with the GPL, the version you can get the source for is the only one you have to choose.

So, without IP law: you could get Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux, or Linux, and only one of them would be free as in speech. With IP law: You get Linux, and you know its free as in speech. Without IP law: Dell produces proprietary Dellix and claims they wrote it from scratch, consisting of spending 5 minutes modifying the Linux source to show a dell logo on boot and only boot on dell machines. With IP law: Dell produces Dellix and everyone makes fun of them for wasting programmer man-hours on such a stupid idea, and nobody believes they wrote it from scratch. Without IP Law: Microsoft takes Apache and adds it into Windows as IIS7 and cripples it to not serve out HTML files anymore. 95% of the websites suddenly start being written in MSML, which is only supported in IE. With IP law: Majority of webservers continue to run Apache, regardless of underlying OS.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[arose]

There is no "IP Law". And I really hope it stays that way.

Oh, and Microsoft doesn't take anything in this scenario. There is no Microsoft in a world without copyright.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[julesh]

DNS Domain 'www.outofmyass.com' is invalid: Host not found (authoritative).

Damnit!

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it backwards. without copyright laws, the GPL would not be possible. Anyone could take source code and only release a binary version of it you you would have no recourse.

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot rule 0:

0. Complaining about Slashdot biases = good

Re:theft or copyright infringement.

[arose]

Who would? The freeware comunity would be about the only ones for whom nothing would change. The Free Software comunity would adjust quickly. Most of pay per copy companies would go under.

eMule and clones

[sir_lichtkind]

why o why in such articels no one talks about eMule, wich once grown out the eDonkey thing. It has many cutting edge features supports most networks (Kad may be the future) ans last but not least most of my buddies use ist(most of them dont even heard about Bittorrent).

Re:eMule and clones

[occupied]

Good example of what the previous poster said:
sub-ESL English, coupled with stupidity.
What did you mean?

Re:eMule and clones

[AndroidCat]

That's the software that won't take no for an answer and will keep banging on an IP address for days after the person using it has rebooted and got another DHCP dynamic IP? Oh yeah, real cutting edge.

Re:Best P2P client?

[Anonymous Coward]

Usenet if I want newish TV shows twenty minutes after I begin downloading, BitTorrent if I want very new stuff a few hours after I start downloading, or very big stuff (like 8 gig comics archives) a few days later.

I still use Kazaa Lite TK++ (or whataver the hell it's called) for single songs. I just download every different hash that comes up in a search; I can usually guarantee that I have a valid file in there somewhere.

What's To Stop...

[reallocate]

...someone from taking a popular open source application, adding some nefarious code of their own, rebranding and selling it as a proprietary, closed product?

If the license violation was detected, would anyone have the resources to enforce the license? E.g., if someone in Shanghai pulls this off, who's the FSF going to sue?

Perhaps this has already happened. Anyone know?

Re:What's To Stop...

[Toby_Tyke]

If the license violation was detected, would anyone have the resources to enforce the license?

That is a pretty big if. After all, if I take some source code from an OSS project and cut n' paste it into my closed source app, how would you ever know?

Re:What's To Stop...

[HermanAB]

That is why it is a good idea to assign your copyright to the FSF or Sun. They will follow up, threaten and prosecute it necessary.

Re:What's To Stop...

[giminy]

After all, if I take some source code from an OSS project and cut n' paste it into my closed source app, how would you ever know?

Well, if I compiled the code with the same C compiler as you (or even not, I imagine many compilers roll out loops in the same way into machine code), there would be a big chunk of the binary that was exactly the same. That would be one giveaway...I believe this happened with some open source sound app a couple of years ago, perhaps someone remembers the details?

sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Megatokyo? Do you have one of those blue 'Kimiko in the snow' blankets you'd like to sell to me? (I'm in

nice sig, buddy. didn't you bother to proofread it?

Open source software on eBay

[mbrubeck]

I work on the Audacity sound editor, a free software project that is being re-branded and sold on eBay under names like LuxuriousitySound. Most of the sellers try to conceal the app's identity, and of course they don't mention that it's free and open-source. The same vendors are also selling rebranded versions of Open Office and GIMP. We get a lot of messages from angry users who find out that they payed $15 for software that's free for everybody.

The vendors are obeying the GPL, so they aren't guilty of copyright infringement. They're careful not to use the software's real name, so of course they aren't guilty of misusing our trademarks. They might be in violation of deceptive advertising laws, or eBay's own "Brand Name Misuse Policy," but eBay hasn't yet acted on any of the buyers' complaints.

Re:Open source software on eBay

[timmyf2371]

If I understand you correctly, I don't see the problem with this scenario.

Audacity is distributed under the GPL - therefore anyone can take the code and distribute the application providing they make the code accessible - and of course, the GPL allows it to be sold for a fee.

Sounds like a perfectly legal, profitable, albeit arguably immoral, business model. Guess thats a potential drawback to using the GPL.

Re:Open source software on eBay

[The Bungi]

Seems to me all is peachy. "Deceptive advertising" AFAIK is that only if they're misleading consumers as to what the thing does. Are they doing that?

They're not violating your own copyright or trademarks (if you have them), by your own admission. Also by your own admission they are obeying the GPL.

So what's your problem? That they're making a buck on your creation? You should have thought about that before you made it open source, mmm?

Re:Open source software on eBay

[BenjyD]

Looking through the adverts for things like "Professional photoeditor 4" (otherwise known as GIMP 2) on ebay, the thing that really shocks me is just how stupid people must be. From the buyer feedback there must be real people buying the software - even if you assumed every positive feedback is fake, there are enough negative ones there as well.

Who buys software from a company with adverts so badly spelt, with english so bad as to be incomprehensible in places? Who can't type "free photo editor" into google? Are these the same people who believe they really have won the Dutch lottery?

Re:Open source software on eBay

[mbrubeck]

In the US at least, the FTC's advertising regulations can prohibit omission of information critical to the buyer's decision. I don't have the legal expertise to tell whether particular vendors are violating those laws. These eBay vendors are using the "bottled tap water" business model, just like companies that take municipal tap water and market it at high prices as "natural mineral water." (And in the US, bottled water companies are actually required by law to include a notice on their packaging if their product is from a municipal source.)

Re:Open source software on eBay

[The Bungi]

prohibit omission of information critical to the buyer's decision.

I doubt that includes "you can get it for free somewhere else". You know, free markets, capitalism and all that nonsense.

Re:Open source software on eBay

[Anonymous Coward]

They might be in violation of deceptive advertising laws, or eBay's own "Brand Name Misuse Policy," but eBay hasn't yet acted on any of the buyers' complaints.

Huh? They aren't doing anything wrong! They are forking your project and selling it.

The people who are complaining... are they saying that the software isn't worth $15? No? They are complaining that they could have gotten a better deal elsewhere?

Sorry, but I can't feel sorry for somebody who paid for what may have been proprietary software, and ended up getting not only the software they were after, but a whole bunch of extra rights, such as the right to redistribute and the right to the source code, for free.

Re:Open source software on eBay

[mqduck]

Q: "If I understand you correctly, I don't see the problem with this scenario."

A: "Sounds like a[n]... arguably immoral, business model."

Dork. ;)

Re:Open source software on eBay

[HermanAB]

Nothing wrong if they package it nicely, give a printed book and phone/email support.

Re:Open source software on eBay

[orkysoft]

Around here, they call it the German lottery. Figures...

Re:Open source software on eBay

[PsiPsiStar]

Good thing too. Most businesses pay their sales people, and the adoption of an open source program as a standard is a good thing for the program. I guess the only problem is the 'spyware' end of things.

The Danger of Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a clear example of the danger of open source. You don't know what you are getting. I say just avoid this problem altogether and use a secure, trusted operating system like SCO Unix.

Re:Best P2P client?

[OverkillTASF]

With a little finangling, you can import that incomplete download into Shareaza.

original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[Rai]

"Rebranding software then loading it with spyware and adware (or just selling it for profit) has become a recent trend with oversea individuals trying to make a few bucks. We all remember the KaZaA Gold, don't we?"

Doesn't the original KaZaA client have it's own spyware? I don't see a reason to cry over someone robbing a company of spyware revenue in favor of their own spyware revenue. Now, if someone robs the client to remove the spyware altogether (like KaZaA Lite supposedly did), I'm all for that.

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[sinner0423]

Doesn't the original KaZaA client have it's own spyware? I don't see a reason to cry over someone robbing a company of spyware revenue in favor of their own spyware revenue. Now, if someone robs the client to remove the spyware altogether (like KaZaA Lite supposedly did), I'm all for that.

Kazaa came bundled with a client for BDE which was used to sell your spare cpu cycles to someone else. Basically like a huge distributed computing project, that the end user had absolutely no idea about.. I believe this single act kick-started the whole anti-adware/spyware movement.

I'd recommend using KazaaLite K++, which has removed all of the extra FUD. Although, good luck finding a legitimate download. 98% of the files on Kazaa are fakes, planted by the RIAA to dissuade you from downloading music. In the end, it is not going to matter what client you use, if all of the files on the network are bogus.

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[everdave]

i dont know what you are trying to download, but moral and legal issues aside i have a "friend" cough cough who downloads new and recent release MOVIES and TV episodes (Sopranos, Stargate Atlantis, etc...) on a regular basis, and I have never got something that was "fake", though maybe less than 5% of the time something has been mislabeled (for example I downloaded Spiderman 2, turns out it was Spidey 1, so I looked and found the correct file(s) and was happily on my (uh I mean my friend was) way to viewing that movie for free, just like my friend has done for Troy, Riddick, Van Helsing and so so so many others. KazaaLite K++ still rocks my world, bro.

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[burns210]

I always wondered if it were possible to build some sort of moderation/md5 checksum on files. It a file is actually an RIAA garbage file, then the client recieving that file can flag it somehow. That md5 should be red-flagged whenever found...

maybe it is just a trusted set of users, sharing a .txt file of md5 checksums of all corrupt files found on their p2p app of choice. And then have the search/download function of said p2p app filter out files that match those corrupt files.

A similar approach exists with blocking ranges of IP addresses that are known to be owned by RIAA and such, to avoid being traced by them... or so the thinking goes.

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

This wouldn't work for the same reasons these things get there in the first place. 1) Users are too lazy/dumb to delete incompletes/incorrects 2) the RIAA will be more than happy to moderate the correct files out of existance, and moderate their own corrupt files up.

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[Mycroft_VIII]

LOL except that's exactly what you can do with shareaza, and it mostly works. Of course it's backed in part by a filter that blocks out known bad ip addresses (user changeable, you can accept the defaults and or add in new ones, even whole compiled lists) but even still some spam gets through and other crap, but most of the worst abusing sites and the *aa's mostly blocked out.
Oh yeah the 'mod system' is one where you still see the file and it's mods, so even badly rated stuff still shows up, just with lots of 'it's crap' mods. The mods include a few presets (sorta like slashdot's mod system does) and the optional write in.

Mycroft

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[julesh]

Although, good luck finding a legitimate download. 98% of the files on Kazaa are fakes, planted by the RIAA to dissuade you from downloading music.

I'd like to add a warning to this. DO NOT DOWNLOAD EXECUTABLE FILES FROM KAZAA . The Kazaa network does not perform a secure hash verification of the file you download, therefore it is impossible to trust that the file you end up with is the same as the one you started download. Somebody could have injected malware into it without you noticing.

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[julesh]

Shareaza (linked in the article text) has a system that goes some way towards this. There are also various web sites that provide sha1 (for gnutella) / md4 (for edonkey network) hashes for files that have been verified by them. This can't be done for kazaa because kazaa doesn't have a useful hashing mechanism that can be used before you've finished downloading the file -- at which point you might as well just examine it to see what you've got! :)

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[WWWWolf]

Doesn't the original KaZaA client have it's own spyware?

Note that it talks about Kazaa Gold, not Kazaa Lite. As I understood it, the deal was this:

Kazaa was freeware that had spyware in it. Big, nasty stuff that gives you nightmares.

Kazaa Lite was freeware, and didn't have spyware. Kazaa's makers weren't happy.

Kazaa Gold was just like Kazaa Lite (it was based on KLite anyway, I'm not sure if they added anything), except it was actually sold to unsuspecting people who didn't know about Kazaa Lite. Kazaa's makers sure weren't damn happy. Nor were the KLite folks or fans.

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[mikechant]

98% eh? I must be the luckiest person in the world. Never had a single fake file from Kazaa.

Or more likely the 98% figure only applies if you're downloading the latest Britney-shit type stuff - this is probably what the RIAA concentrate on when they're putting up fake tracks...

Re:original KaZaA had spyware, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd recommend using KazaaLite K++, which has removed all of the extra FUD.

Don't you mean something like crud? It seems people on slashdot love to throw around the term "FUD" without having any idea what it means.

Let's Call Spyware "Fraud" and Be Done With It

[reallocate]

Marketing a product that secretly does something other than what the seller acknowledges seems to me to be equivalent to fraud.

Before the F/OSS community gets all hot and bothered about changing licensing language (ignoring how they might enforce any language) maybe the best course is to go after spyware using the fraud laws.

Re:Let's Call Spyware "Fraud" and Be Done With It

[fikuvin]

Go after them with fraud laws, why didn't I think of that? I'll just grab this stack of money I made with my open source software and find a lawyer and oh, wait...

Re:Let's Call Spyware "Fraud" and Be Done With It

[Anonymous Coward]

How about if we continue with those ideals that started the open source movement and spend more time educating users about malware? You know, like they educate kids about safe sex?

Re:Let's Call Spyware "Fraud" and Be Done With It

[Anonymous Coward]

That might actually work, considering that these days they teach kids to "not have any" (whether that refers to sex or safe sex is up to you)

Re:Let's Call Spyware "Fraud" and Be Done With It

[reallocate]

Greed versus preaching ideals many people will never support?

Yeah, that'll work...

So?

[amalcon]

If a user is too lazy to type the name of their software into google before they download it, that's their loss.

Re:Best P2P client?

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever happened to kazaa lite kpp? It seems to have disappeared and been replaced by pay sites.

Haha, I know your pain.

[Anonymous Coward]

I, too, have traveled down that road. Having 99% of some large file done, only to find out that apparently nobody has the final little chunk. I use eMule, and as of version 0.43b there is an attribute "Percentage of complete sources" (or something) that tells you the percentage of sources with that file who have the COMPLETE file. So, if that number is 0%, don't bother trying to download it because some piece is forever lost. This is especially annoying with porn movies, where you can preview part of it and the part that is missing seems like it should be good! I had an archive file I was trying to download (like 400MB or so) and I could only complete 95%. Using the preview function didn't recover some necessary files in the archive, so I kept looking for that file for a couple months. After a while, I just gave up because NOBODY seemed to have the missing piece, so I just deleted it. I would advise you to do the same thing, it will make life much less frustrating!

Re:Haha, I know your pain.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an archive file I was trying to download (like 400MB or so) and I could only complete 95%. Using the preview function didn't recover some necessary files in the archive, so I kept looking for that file for a couple months.

What did you do with my Temple Of Poon mirror? Four months is an awful long time to be looking for porn!

Re:Haha, I know your pain.

[AndroidCat]

So that's why all those eMule users keep banging on my ports for days. The network must be claiming that the previous owner of my IP address had the last remaining piece of Natalie Portman's Bathtub of Hot Grits.

Re:Foreign ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well this does stink of a sub-species like those in India who can't be original and leech of those who are.

Cut some slack holmes!

Spyware? Where?

[clubin]

It can't have spyware; it's site says it doesn't.

"It is totally free from spyware, adware and other similar stuff."

"And the best thing about this program is that it has been thoroughly checked and built so it is free from spyware , adware , pop up ads etc."

See?!

Re:simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up^

i wholeheartedly agree...

Re:Best P2P client?

[Raagshinnah]

giftcurs and Apollon are both quite good, both based on the gift daemon which has plugins for gnutella/openft/fasttrack/soulseek

http://www.nongnu.org/giftcurs/
http://apollon.sourceforge.net/files.html/

MOD PARENT UP -- INFORMATIVE!

[Anonymous Coward]

And who modded the grandparent poster down? I bet porn is the largest percentage of traffic on p2p networks anyhow!

Dude, check out the astroturfs

[RPoet]

Look at the user comments at download.com. The newest comments are shown first, which are users warning about the GPL theft and bundled spyware. Then there's a LOT of REALLY HAPPY users.

Three different users actually say "This must be the best Thing in the world. Now my life is excelent!"

"This is a great program, works well and easy My roommate and I both use this program and we think it's stupendous! Would recommend this to anyone"

"I'm using only best well-tested soft, and here it is."

"The speed is shocking"

"It id very-very-very and one million more times very NICE stuff i ever had" ... and so on.

The entire happy part of the user base seem to apply bad punctuation and similar spalling erors ;)

Re:Dude, check out the astroturfs

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but the positive comments are all spaced exactly 2 hours or 2 hrs 10 minutes apart (+/- a few seconds).

Re:Dude, check out the astroturfs

[tehcyder]

Ha ha ha, you made two spelling errors in spelling "spelling errors"...oh... I see.

I'll get my coat.

Not only open source

[ad0gg]

I've seen this all applied to public domain works by the government. I've seen the US Census data being sold for up to $750, when you can just download it from their site. I've also seen people selling access to NOAA weather images for a subscription rate of $100 a year. It all comes down to marketing, there's no way a producer of free content can compete against someone selling their stuff on the marketing side.

Selling NOAA data for $100 a year

SFW?

[Toby_Tyke]

The vendors are obeying the GPL, so they aren't guilty of copyright infringement. They're careful not to use the software's real name, so of course they aren't guilty of misusing our trademarks.

So, whats your point? Are you saying you disklike people re-branding your software and selling copies of it? If so, might I suggest you do not release it under the GPL.

They might be in violation of deceptive advertising laws

I doubt it. Advertisers are under no obligation to point out that cheaper alternatives (in this case, the same thing for free) are available. If they were, Microsoft would never sell another copy of office.

Re:SFW?

[mbrubeck]

"So, whats your point? Are you saying you disklike people re-branding your software and selling copies of it? If so, might I suggest you do not release it under the GPL." To clarify, I don't mind people re-branding and selling our software. One Linux distributor did this for a while, and I didn't object (although I did point out some practical problems with it, and they later stopped re-branding their version of Audacity). I know that the vendors are not stealing the software, and that I have given them full permission to modify and sell it. However, I think that these particular vendors are being unethical and deliberately deceptive in a way that is harmful to their customers. I wanted to point out the problems they cause, but I recognize that these some of these problems are unavoidable with free licensing. I'm interested in finding ways to prevent some of the harm while preserving the freedom of the software. One answer may be eBay's Brand Name Misuse Policy, which requires sellers not to use a different brand name than the product's manufacturer.

Re:SFW?

[The Bungi]

But you're not the "manufacturer". Isn't software supposed to be a commodity now?

I doubt eBay will stretch their definition to include use that is fair and square under your license of choice. Not ethical, but perfectly legal.

Re:SFW?

[Aadain2001]

The kind of people/companies that do this kind of rebranding are also the kind of people who wouldn't include source code or they would hide Very Bad Things (tm) in the program. If someone wanted to take Audacity and make their own version of it and sell it but also provide the source code (and hence all their improvements which would probably find their way back into the original Audacity) then more power to them. It's the ones that lie about the source of the program and don't follow the GPL that I think he's complaining about.

Re:SFW?

[Qzukk]

Huh? I bet if I sold copies of Macrosoft Wandows on Ebay, Microsoft would have the auctions shut down fast. Why should Ebay treat Audiovox any differently? The GPL is mum about program names and in these cases they would be specifically shut down for changing the name of the program.

Re:SFW?

[The Bungi]

Because these people are not selling "Audiorox".

Let's face it, the OP is moaning about something that is fair and square under his license of choice. That's open source for you, I guess.

Star Wars: Episode 2

[CHaN_316]

I almost think I'd prefer the title 'Star Wars: Episode 2, P2P VS The Clones' rather than 'Attack of the Clones.'

Padawan 2 Padawan VS The Clones!

Linx?

[Anonymous Coward]

8. Correct Spelling = lame

Yeah!

[Numen]

And those bastards at Redhat and Mandrake stole Linux too!!

Re:Yeah!

[cheekyboy]

They could release a redhat version running ontop of a freebsd kernel if they wished, or darwin, sure a few 1000s work, but it could be done.

The linux kernel is only a small part of the usefull 'redhat' monster.

Re:Best P2P client?

[Anonymous Coward]

alt.binaries.* has been working great for me ;)

What are you gonna do?

[DAtkins]

We can sit here and laugh at people who downloaded this stupid, stupid program. Heck, if one of us did it I think we would all laugh and laugh.

But this sad problem is the same problem that every new computer user has. No matter if you use Windows or Linux or Mac or / all new users have a tough time learning which program they need to accomplish a specific task. Hell, I spend more time telling people what program to use, more than actually fixing something.

Do you family and friends a favor. Since we all know the OSS versions of these programs, why not just post a list of what you use in your daily life so they can just look it up? Seems the easiest way to prevent non-computer people from getting screwed is for geeks to post their program list. Now that OSS has come around, I'm sure more of us can actually do that!

Re:What are you gonna do?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think people need to start keeping "goodlists" or something. Personal "i like these program" files (text) that you can throw to your family or friend?

But what about someone else's goodlist? Well, if they're reading that, they're no longer trusting YOUR opinion, they've moved on to ask someone else.

Just throwing out ideas.

Similar shenanigans.......

[Handpaper]

Here and here. The genuine article has even changed the title of its home page to draw attention to the problem.
Mind you, when somebody can't even look for the site probably deserves to be scammed.

Re:Best P2P client?

[Anonymous Coward]

aMule

Irony?

[stubear]

Am I the only one who sees the irony in shit statement, "...has been subject to a similar type of theft by a company going by the name RockSoft Development"?

Re:Irony?

[stubear]

Wow, what a Freudian slip. I meant 'this', not 'shit'.

Re:Irony?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, since the name is a combination of "rock" and "soft"? The irony shit would be the former, I guess, since iron is pretty hard.

Re:Irony?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I made a very similar mistake once in Junior High School. Though for me it was not written, but aloud... kind of embarrassing, really.

No one can possibly reply to this thread...

[iammaxus]

...with a story from experience. Not even an AC would admit to having fallen for one of these scams.

Re:No one can possibly reply to this thread...

[Anonymous Coward]

I fell for one of these scams.

Re:simple answer

[HermanAB]

A couple years ago, I once found a piece of malware on download.com, complained about it and they reacted immediately. The author of the program later commented that it was a really bad bug and fixed it. Whatever happened to them?

Ironic

[WiggyWack]

Sorry, but I find the 'theft' of GPL code of P2P software ironic.

Flame away.

Or do like Red Hat does...

[renehollan]

and trademark or copyright ancillary components bundled as part of the aggregate. You can aggregate non-free and free stuff, you know.

That way, when someone gets a Red Hat distro, they know it's "official", if the law has been followed.

Yes, yes, that's a big "if". But it's a start: you can have the GPL and still restrict what others can pass off as an "official" version.

The next step, of course, is to have a trusted source sign the aggregate and important components thereof. That has the advantage that redistribution of the aggregate in toto does not have to be curtailed to make sure that each copy is legit.

Red Hat Enterprise is the same.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this the same as Red Hat Enterprise (or pick any commercial distro).

Up2Date == spyware.

KDM screen = rebranding

$$$ = cost.

Interesting that ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...all positive reviews are written by users with name starting from a small letter. ralf and clinton are using same phrase and all other reviews sound very similar. Most likely it is same person but there surely a lot of positive reviews. It probalby took him a while to write them all. I bet it would be a good practice for writing style analyst (if there is one) to determine if this is one person or more than one.

One mispronounciation

[kgroombr]

It mispronounces giga as in gigabyte. Although most people say it as a hard "G", it is pronounced (correctly) with a "J" sound. Derived from the greek word gigantikos. Example: Pronounce: gigantic, giant Same root word.

Re:One mispronounciation

[Dogun]

m-w.com lists both pronunciations, thank you.^^

Re:One mispronounciation

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, buddy, the greek root is "gigas," meaning something like "terrifyingly large, or "formidable," and it is pronounced with a hard g. As a matter of fact, the j sound you are referring to doesn't even exist in the Greek language. The J sound only comes from hundreds of years of mistranslitteration by English-speakers. Just remember, if you're going to be a pedant on slashdot, there is always some bigger pedant out there ready to make you look like an idiot.

hosting

[Ethoscapade]

i'm still using kazaa lite K++, although the quality of the service has decreased a whole lot the past few years. i can host a copy of the installer for a short time if anybody wants...

Smartfox has been doing this for sometime

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there anything wrong with rebranding an open source project? SmartFox http://www.smartfox.org/ has been doing this with FireFox for a while now. While they don't seem to add anything more than some built in search to their directory software at least there is no spyware.

As long as they are paying to distribute and promote the software and they follow the licensing rules what is wrong with that?

Re:Smartfox has been doing this for sometime

[Dogun]

in response to your question and the implied misunderstanding about the rebranding of 'shareaza' to 'go music':

No, rebranding is pretty much totally cool (though I personally detest anyone who would practice it without crediting the parent). There are not any monetary restrictions on it - no money needs change hands, blah dee blah, as far as I know.

Go Music has not complied with GPL licensing
rules. No offer for the source code is made, no GPL is included with the program distribution. Possibly other stuff too (packaging it with the non gpl'd spyware, perhaps even integrating it with shareaza's source.) Hence, what they're doing is uncool, because it ain't GPL happy.

Overseas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be a stickler, but "overseas" greatly depends on which side of the "seas" you live.

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't guess anyone actually clicked on their actual website, since I didn't see any comments stating how fucking horrible it is. If it's supposed to be their 'official' site, it's pretty sad, given that there are no downloads, no links at all, just a tiny-ass little one page dealy.

Reminds me of FreeWire...

[Anonymous Coward]

They just replaced GPL'ed LimeWire lime logo with a hot pepper and replaced LimeWire's adware with their adware. I only looked into FreeWire because it seemed easier to download the source than LimeWire. Anyway, FreeWire's website blatantly lied and said "no adware!" yada yada... I'm not sure what happened to them now (obviously I'm too lazy to find out).

Re:Reminds me of FreeWire...

[julesh]

Err, downloading the LimeWire source is trivially easy. From the front page of limewire.org:

# Use CVS, with:
cvs -d:pserver:guest@cvs.limewire.org:/cvs login

cvs -d:pserver:guest@cvs.limewire.org:/cvs checkout core gui lib tests.

Re:that's because...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, basically anything that's not crap.
by the way, what are you re-ing to?

Re:that's because...

[Anonymous Coward]

What, this is rated as troll? Are you saying that there are people who actually think download.com doesn't have on average crappy content??? Wow.

anyone know of a license?

[the-build-chicken]

I know this doesn't fit into the model most open source champions prefer...but inflexibility is the mother of nothing, so here goes (no flames please).

Is there a license that is essentially open source (i.e. you can take this source, do what you want with it, use the program, go nuts etc) but restricts redistribution (i.e all redistributions have to be approved by the project leader).

I know it's not 100% the spirit of open source...however since the two features that everyone touts as being the main benefits of open source (free and the ability to change to suit your needs) are addressed I would imagine it would only be the hard core open source zealots would object.

Anyone know of anything that suits those needs?

Re:anyone know of a license?

[Dogun]

Is there a license that is essentially open source (i.e. you can take this source, do what you want with it, use the program, go nuts etc) but restricts redistribution (i.e all redistributions have to be approved by the project leader). In a strange way, the GPL has that, except the 'project leader' you're discussing is the distribution requirements in the GPL. The biggest uncoolness with these Go Music folks is more GPL related than failing to acknowledge its roots. And, as you can see, in this situation, where they're being uncool, they are in fact NOT abiding by the terms of the license, and should not be allowed to distribute their bastard program. The spyware is a whole separate can of worms, for me. I'm pretty sure it's GPL-uncool to package those closed-source 'tools' with the GPL'd stuff. If someone would like to clarify, please do.

Re:anyone know of a license?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this doesn't fit into the model most open source champions prefer...but inflexibility is the mother of nothing, so here goes (no flames please).

Is there a license that is essentially open source (i.e. you can take this source, do what you want with it, use the program, go nuts etc) but restricts redistribution (i.e all redistributions have to be approved by the project leader).

I know it's not 100% the spirit of open source...however since the two features that everyone touts as being the main benefits of open source (free and the ability to change to suit your needs) are addressed I would imagine it would only be the hard core open source zealots would object.

Anyone know of anything that suits those needs?

No. The right to distribute modified versions is absolutely fundamental to Free Software (and Open Source), and objections would _not_ be limited only to "hard core open source zealots". What you are describing is essentially a proprietary-licensed program that happens to include source.

The advantages of open source are not just "free and the ability to change to suit your needs"; the former is just an unintentional side-effect that is _not_ always true (many people _do_ sell Free Software), and the latter is only one of many freedoms that Free and Open Source Software requires. For software to be Free, you must be able to use, copy, modify, and distribute it.

If you could give some additional details about the situation, and why you want this restriction, someone may be able to help you determine a Free Software license that would suit your needs. Might I suggest asking on debian-legal@lists.debian.org , or another forum for Free Software legal issues? You could get some more useful advice there.

Re:anyone know of a license?

[occupied]

I can't see any way that would work.
But I have never tried it.
Cheers, Robin. (Good Luck)

Re:anyone know of a license?

[the-build-chicken]

Until OSS liberalises it's view and allows other degrees of free software to fall under it's umbrella, companies will continue to view it extremely cautiously. That is, taking and not giving.

Personally, until I can be garunteed that I will not be moved off a project that I created because of someones political agenda, there's no way I'll open source a single SLOC.

If OSS was truly about freedom, they'd allow me the freedom to distribute under my terms....but I guess it's only freedom if we do things your way...hey, wait a minute, that sounds an awful lot like...no freedom at all.

And in regards to assistance choosing a license, I have been through just about every license I could find and read all the documentation...they are all extemely left wing and do not allow me to contribute any code.

Another one

[zjbs14]

Here's another one, looks like the same folks doing it:

http://www.download.com/Music-Master/3000-2196_4-1 0306583.html?tag=stbc.gp

The negative review are stacking up for Go Music, let's add some to Music Master too.

WTF is an "oversea individual"?

[1u3hr]

oversea individuals trying to make a few bucks

???

Re:WTF is an "oversea individual"?

[1u3hr]

Answering myself:
the submitter seems to have ineptly reworded somthing from one of the sources PacketFour:

The company behind it all, RockSoftDevelopment, has a very unprofessional website and interestingly enough, has its domain WHOIS information masked. Its domain servers are registered as NS1.DOWNLOADFILES.ORG and NS2, and www.downloadfiles.org is just a picture of a Israeli star. (star of David) Looks like someone overseas is tryin' to make a few bucks off good ol' Mike!

The use of "oversea", aside from being a rather antique Britush usage, is a big assumption, seemingly based on the single clue of the website having a Star of David. I realise Americans are getting more xenophobic by the day, but try not to blame those scheming furriners without some proof. (I'm manfully resisting making analogies with your president's actions.)

Re:WTF is an "oversea individual"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Further I propose the theory there are actually more Americans then "oversea individuals" that would put a David's star on an otherwise empty webpage.

Thanks For Working on Audacity!

[KrisHolland]

Thanks for working on audacity! Pretty soon free/open source software will be so good for general purposes, people won't be tempted to buy most other pay software (as they will already have / know to look for FOSS alternatives).

This eBay thing is just temporary :).

Happens with Websites too...

[Blic]

Everyone's favorite torrent site suprnova.org has two knockoffs - suprnova.com and suprnova.net (both seem to be the same ripoff site) that want you to sign up with an email address before using them, past which who knows? I'm not gonna check.

Maybe they have spyware laden versions of the BitTorrent client and who knows if they just steal listings from suprnova.org or link there directly...

Re:Happens with Websites too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you enter your e-mail you get asked for your credit card info.
When they asked for that I closed it faster than a preteen getting his first pr0n pop-ups on the family computer

Re:Happens with Websites too...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Maybe they have spyware laden versions of the BitTorrent client and who knows if they just
> steal listings from suprnova.org or link there directly...

Then again maybe a spyware version that actually worked would be preferable to the currently available version that insists on opening a webpage with the picture from the (rather ugly) author about 19 out of every 20 times you open it, and then just sits there doing nothing. (incidentally, who says my IP isn't logged every time it does that? Call me tinfoil lover but couldn't it just have shown a local readme.html with a link to the donate page?)

If I have to see that ugly face every time I double-click a .torrent file, fine, but at least start downloading my stuff and don't force me to open/close the program 20 times before it works darnit!

Re:Happens with Websites too...

[Blic]

Well, BitTorrent is open source so there's quite a few other clients out there that won't make you look at the creator's picture. =)

As for anonymity with BitTorrent, there isn't any, and I remember reading an interview with the creator who was amused it had become the piracy tool of choice. I'm sure if someone wanted to they could write a utility to download torrents of pirated software or media and log the IP addresses of others doing the same...

Good Idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Such as what is the best FOSS software for spread sheets, and or excel replacement? Word processor? Virus scanner (if any exists), media player etc.

I wonder what the best way is to organize such a list. By product type on the y-axis and the different versions on the x?

Re:Good Idea.

[DAtkins]

Exactly. However I think we can do one better too. Not only do we all have programs that we use, there are also programs that we don't use, but tried. I'm sure there aren't many Roxio users on /. and we all know why.

It would be good to, not only post the programs you use, but also the programs that you don't use and why. I'm gonna work on putting this together in a forum for my blog. Could be useful at least...

What can I say

[Orion Blastar]

a friend of mine told me that he paid for a subscription to Kazaa Lite network. I tried to tell him that Kazaa Lite was no longer being made, and never had a subscription model, but he didn't listen. Besides, I told him, it is based on Kazaa without the spyware/adware, and thus illegal. I am not sure what exactly he got, but it is some Kazaa named P2P program that you apparently pay a monthly fee for.

P2P file sharing is full of such scams, because people are gullable. Apparently file sharing, to them, is illegal, unless you pay a monthly fee for access to the files, and then it is legal? Internet Pirates with a business plan, who'dathunkit?

Once he wises up, I'll have to uninstall the malware from his system for him.

Re:What can I say

[dykofone]

Maybe this? It's part of www.mp5networks.com, which appears to have you download some P2P software (maybe Kazaa lite) and then charges you for tech support.

Actually sounds like a good idea to me, charging a monthly service for technical support on something free/illegal...not too different from charging lessons on how to swim, only without the threat of actually having to do any work.

It is like a 419'er

[Orion Blastar]

Typically a scam artist in another country like Nigeria that tries to scam an unsuspecting person in the United States, into giving them money, or installing malware, or the US person giving them information by tricking them.

Hey when you are in a sh*thole of a country, and you have a tin pot dictator running your country, and the economy is poor, you try to find creative ways to trick other people in richer economies into giving you money or info that will get you money, or malware that will do it for you.

Taking OSS programs and selling them on eBay under a different name, or bundling malware with them are just two new scams that are being pulled.

For example, there Chinese companies that make a fortune in identity theft by tricking US citizens into giving them account information by sending them a faked email pretending to be from another Internet service, yet the HTML of the email has a link in a spoofed URL that goes to their corporate website to a fake version of the Internet service the email is pretending to be. Usually an email stating that "your account has gone inactive", "please verify your account", or "fraud was detected on your account, please verify" scam mail. A variation of the 419 scam, but using a web site to collect the information. It is called Phishing, and people are dumb enough to fall for it.

Re:It is like a 419'er

[1u3hr]

Typically a scam artist in another country like Nigeria

I gathered that, but there isn't the slightest proof it is from another country. If anyone actually daed to install the app, maybe there are more clues in it. Until then it seems an unwarranted conclusion.

ESL English

[zarpa11]

Has anyone noticed that quite a lot of these knock-off/spyware/rip-off programs are ridden with broken ESL English and horribly incorrect grammar? One could root out this crap just by refining their english skills.

GPLed spyware?

[jesser]

They're bundling GPL software (Shareaza) with spyware. Does that mean the spyware is GPL too?

"Powered By" Icons?

[hethatishere]

What if some of the more popularly "abused" Open-source projects added a stipulation that commercial or freeware products that rebrand it must include a pre-defined (dimensions, design, location, etc) "Powered By" logo on the splash screen. Include this requirement for promotional ads and the product site and you might cut down on some of the more sketchy uses of GPLed software.

Although to be truthful I don't know what effect this might have on people adopting Open-Source since for some reason companies legitimate or not seem intent on hiding the Open-Source nature of their products generally. I'd have to hear more about the public perception of Open-Source to really understand why they do that.

Re:"Powered By" Icons?

[Kaladis Nefarian]

That would be equivalent to the advertising clause in the old BSD license.

Hahaha.... Hahahahaha!

[Gordonjcp]

The basterdization of the English language...

Hahahahaha

That is all.

Sueing Domains By Proxy

[Animats]

Companies which "cloak" website ownership by filing some nominee as the registrant may find themselves the target of lawsuits. See Pfizer vs. Domains By Proxy. Domains by Proxy was "cloaking" a site selling "generic lipitor", a Pfizer drug. So Domains by Proxy was sued for patent infringement.

So if you can't find the actual business, go after the "cloaking" service. Let them explain to the judge that they're not really the people behind the illegal scheme.

Re:Best P2P client?

[CAIMLAS]

how does one perform this conversion?

The big problem...

[Kjella]

...is that on the most part, the spyware is not in any way dependant on the OSS software (which may or not be rebranded, hell you can even obscurely include the rebranded source code to CYA). And, coming from the horse's mouth (GPL):

"In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License."

If it were any other way, you have a big problem. Take such a simple thing as a Linux install CD. I think you will find it extremely difficult to create a licence that'll allow that installer, yet disallow an installer that installs spyware (which is a loosely defined term, and would be hell to pin down). Restricting it to "only GPL-compatible licenced software" would create massive problems.

Kjella

Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/388b /

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have mod points, but this guy has a point

Re:Best P2P client?

[GuyFawkes]

I use usenet... ok it ain't exactly peer to peer, but after trying out audiogalaxy / napster when they came out and dc++ several times I always found the same thing.

loads of leechers, many of them with fakes shares, and fuck all users with content that I didn't already have and might be interested in downloading (complete works of britney and wacko jacko don't interest me) so they always got the boot within 24 hours of installing...

usenet rocks, p2p is for clueless newbs with empty platters.

Only thing I am lacking now is a linux clone of the excellent newsbin pro.

Re:Best P2P client? - Kazaa Lite without a doubt

[Anonymous Coward]

Kazaa Lite lives on! Its still available and free (with no adware/spyware) from http://www.klitetools.com/MM/klt.html

Re:Best P2P client?

[OverkillTASF]

http://forums.shareaza.com/showthread.php?threadid =17119&highlight=kazaa+incomplete The trick is going to be finding the same file on Shareaza. What hash information do you have about the file?

Oh No!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this world coming to? They're putting spyware on software we're using to steal music, videos, pics, and software? The nerve of these freaks!

God Save The Queen, JF is an asshole!

Hey

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this world coming to? Software we use to steal other stuff is bundling spyware?

Next thing you know, Microsoft will collect data about your computer and force you to use 25-digit code keys

God Save The Queen, JF is an asshole!

Re:Best P2P client? - Kazaa Lite without a doubt

[Anonymous Coward]

"it is really greate it change my life. clinton."

Is this a new case of Application Spamming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to find a program such as P2P or Junk/Spam filtering is such a chore a search on google brings up so many applications from honest to downright dishonest suppliers.
Developers spring up overnight with the same but rebadged apps, is this a new trend of apps reselling and marketing?

"Make money fast in your sleep websites" coupled with just enough skill to upload your own graphics are killing the internet and pc computing.

Gotta love it

[Orion Blastar]

They had a button that said "100% Legal" on the signup screen. Yet required your real information to be entered into a forum before you can download their software. Also, trust them, they tell you it has no spyware or adware, just like Morpheus said as well as other P2P programs said. Heh!

Ok maybe downloading the program and installing it is 100% Legal, but what they don't tell you is that if you download MP3 files, you are subject to the RIAA suing you. It also may be 100% legal in, oh say, China, or someplace else the web site is based in, but not in the US or other countries with copyright laws?

Hooray

[Dogun]

Looks like they've been delisted from download.com, and have released their source code, which consists of maybe 15 files that have been altered over the originals, most fo it being to change the text displayed in various pieces of the UI.

They're cockbites, but at least now they're complying like they should have frigging done in the first place.