Mambo Users Are Free And Clear

ValourX writes "By now most of you have heard of the copyright infringement and code theft claims involving the Mambo content management system and businessman Brian Connolly. Legal questions have been raised, guesses have been made, commentary has flowed forth, and everyone involved in the dispute has had their fifteen minutes to relay their sad tale of injustice. Now it is time for the facts, and NewsForge can definitively say, based on material and quotes from Larry Rosen, Dan Ravicher, and Eben Moglen, that Connolly's legal threats against innocent Mambo users are baseless. Part of the new information in this article reveals that the SCO Group helped Brian Connolly by giving him some media contacts. NewsForge is part of OSTG, like Slashdot."

Comments

Connolly replies...

[saddino]

FYI, he's issued his rebuttal here: Point-by-Point Response to Matzan's Op-Ed

Re:Connolly replies...

[rewt66]

I read his reply. He does all right until his fourth point, where he says, "However, reverse engineering would still require the permission of the copyright holder."

This is total baloney. You only need permission of the copyright holder if you are copying, or if you are creating a derivative work within the meaning of the copyright law. It's not enough to say, "It does the same thing, it's by the same guy, so it must be a derivative." Reverse engineering is almost certainly not going to create a derivative work in copyright terms.

Now, reverse engineering could get you in trouble with patents. And if the same person did the work, there could be trade secret issues. But Connolly didn't argue those points; he yelled about copyrights. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Copyright only applies if someone copies something. If I understand correctly, Salik says he didn't copy anything; he re-wrote it.

In point 5, Connolly claims, "The code committed to Mambo was done under contract and paid for by the Literati Group." If this is true, that's a big no-no. But if the code committed to Mambo does the same thing as the code written for Literati, but is in fact different code, re-written from scratch (it's only a few lines), then Connolly has nothing contractually to lean on.

Moving on to point 9: Connolly claims that the GPL doesn't require you to redistribute. This is true. What the GPL requires is that, if you distribute the program in any form, you must also distribute the source under the GPL. If you leave the program in-house running your web site, you don't have to distribute the code at all, ever, to anyone, under the GPL or under any other terms.

The questions are: First, did Salik contribute original code to Mambo, or did he contribute the code he wrote under contract for Literati or a derivative thereof? (Note well: "He wrote the one, and then he wrote the other, and they do the same things, so the second must be a derivative" is a fallacious argument.) And second, did Literati distribute the program under any terms to anybody, and does the program contain GPL'd code that is not owned by Literati? (Note that Literati can GPL a version of their code, and ship a version that contains the same code plus other code, without having to GPL all the code in the second version, as long as all the GPL'd code in the second version is owned by themselves.)

Article is mostly crap

[jhoger]

The author doesn't seem to understand how the GPL works.

If I make changes to a GPL'ed work, they are my changes. I own the copyright. I don't own the copyright to the entire work, but I own my changes. Imagine my changes as a diff file with a copyright on it.

If I distribute it, the GPL requires that I license my copyrighted code under the GPL.

The author completely misses this point, and in fact makes the assertion that if you derive a work from GPLed code that your work is automatically GPLed. This is a common fallacy. I can't believe it made Newsforge as such.

The only issue here is whether a) the code was copied such that it is close enough to be considered infringement and b) whether Connelly distributed the code outside of his organization.

If either are untrue, Connelly has no case.

Re:More of the same.

[El]

But, how many times has Microsoft been sued for infringement of intellectual property? More times than Open Source has, by my count. If I were Microsoft, I'd avoid drawing attention to the issue! "People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!" and all that...

Let's see... Apple, Stac, Eolas, Priceline, InterTrust, AT&T, Burst.com, and GoldTouch[?] have all sued Microsoft for infringement. M$ has been sued at least 42 times for patent infringement! All in all, I'd say the Open Source movement has a much better track record than Microsoft does in respecting intellectual property rights!

Re:What's a mambo? Mambo #5?

[Best ID Ever!]

If only there was some sort of article you could read that would explain it.

And if that goes over your head, here is a snip of reply from the code's author:

To summarize it:
1) The code delivered to Brian Connolly is not the same as the code implemented in Mambo.
2) The code delivered to Brian Connolly was derived from GPL, Copyright Miro International Pty.
3) Brian Connolly distributed copies of Mambo that had the so-called 'infringing' functionality under the GPL.
4) There are no copyright assignments with my signature on.
5) Brian Connolly has no trademarks or patents on anything resembling the disputed functionality.