Slashdot Mirror
CherryOS Not All It's Cracked Up To Be
CherryBS continues "PearPC developers who have seen CherryOS have confirmed it is a fraud, while others remaining anonymous have posted the 'strings' output that CherryOS and PearPC share, showing many function names, warning/informational message strings that exist verbatim in PearPC. Additionally, now-pulled screenshots of CherryOS, mirrored in the long thread at pearpc.net, show CherryOS's boot process revealing variable names and missing or incorrectly emulated hardware in such a way as to be specific to PearPC. Arben Kryeziu, the developer of CherryOS, claims that no code has been taken from PearPC whatsoever, and that he will release a trial version this week. However, with the amount of deception on the part of the company, and considering this wouldn't be the first time he's violated the GPL, it's hard to believe they're telling the truth. Additionally, Kryeziu now claims the "trial" may "disable modules like sound or drag and drop"...likely because PearPC itself does not support such features. To further add to the tale, someone who was likely Arben was specifically asking for video server load testing for their vx30.com video codec/server product, even specifically mentioning slashdot as a great candidate, and in the days following the CherryOS story unfolding, went back and deleted the posts. The first day, all that was left online were two videos, one of which was subsequently removed because of PearPC-specific strings in the boot process shown in the video..."
The other day, when I first saw mention of 'CherryOS', the first thing that came to mind was "I bet they're using PearPC code without attribution.". A full-featured PPC emulator (an incredibly difificult accomplishment) coming out so soon after another?
Glad to see that my fears were vindicated. DIE, HOARDER SCUM.
...popped the cherry!
from the borrows-code-without-asking dept.
Did anyone think it would be anything differnt? This reminds me of whenever some new console comes out, there is always some miricle emulator coming out soon that will play every game for it perfectly.
Something's a little rotten w/that Cherry? That's the pits!!!
read the mirrored thread. it's well worth the time to examine it.
Let's check the facts here - this guy claims to have written a mac emulator that runs at 80% native speed, all by himself... in 4 months?!! He's either a frickin' genius, or he's "embraced" some code from somewhere - and I think we all know where...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Glad i didn't take this guy up on his bet.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
This is a surprise to who???
while IANAL, is this necessarily illegal?? if he makes the source code for pearpc downloadable/packaged with with cherry and acknowlodges somewhere in the eula that its pearpc rebranded than while he has morally been an asshole he hasnt violated the gpl, has he?
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Perhaps they were just practicing Agile Software Development...
You know, it's one thing for a corporate guy to think that he can get away with this. It's quite another for an open source developer to pilfer and another open source developer's code, release his "modifications" online and claim it's his. The CherryOS guy(s) better watch out, they may find themselves next in line for a darwin award for being that stupid.
I mean seriously... this is about as bright as murdering your neighbor in your front lawn in the middle of the day and stretching their corpse out on a lawn chair in your yard while you cut the grass...
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
popped
Have things gone pear shaped? Have they lost their Cherry?
The first day, all that was left online were two videos, one of which was subsequently removed because of PearPC-specific strings in the boot process shown in the video..."
Heh. If they can't even cover their tracks THIS BAD, no wonder they got catched (which is a good thing).
Now I wonder... are all GPL violators this clumsy? Probably not... you know the saying, for every thief you catch, hundreds still run free.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
I understand that CherryOS has been deceptive in its origins about where the emulation came from, but what would be wrong if they distributed it under a different name? I thought that one of the advantages of the GPL was that it did not impose any naming provisions like the older BSD licenses did. As long as the CherryOS people are following the guidelines of the GPL (relelasing source, etc.), what would be wrong with their distribution?
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
Sebastian Ballas, PearPC's lead developer, said a screenshot of CherryOS shows a variable named "SPIRO MULTIMAX 3000," a nonsensical term Ballas claims to have invented for use in PearPC.
"It is absolutely unlikely that someone uses exactly this name for the same purpose," he said. "The way he (Kryeziu) is lying is making me angry."
When told that variables with the same names had been found in both CherryOS and PearPC, Kryeziu said programming logic often leads to variables and functions with similar, or identical, names.
"There are some functionalities that can only be done a certain way," he said. "Names are going to be similar or identical because there are only certain ways to do things."
BUAHAHHAHAAHHAHHAHA
Seems like the slashdotters in this thread figured this out first.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement! At least, that's what we say about music and movies ... why should the party line be any different for GPLed code?
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Why would anyone annouce this without having the product? I'm not saying that they do or don't have a product, I'm just completely blown away when people announce products that don't exist and expect to somehow profit from them.
to the ripoff were so overwhelming, that its amazing they managed to scam so many news organizations. From almost identical function key hints in the title bar, to similar boot strings to the ridiculous idea of someone "getting tired of carrying two laptops" and writing CherryOS as a work-around, can anyone, really, truly be surprised?
Link to the PearPC Forum's thread where most of the uncovering was done:
t days=0&postorder=asc&start=0/
http://forums.pearpc.net/viewtopic.php?t=1237&pos
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
From TFSummary:
CherryBS continues
When told that variables with the same names had been found in both CherryOS and PearPC, Kryeziu said programming logic often leads to variables and functions with similar, or identical, names.
I would like to know what exact programming logic is going to lead two individual programmers - working off of two different code bases - to use the term "SPIRO MULTIMAX 3000" to do the same exact thing?
Someone had to bust their bubble eventually... or was it pop their cherry?
he may lose his Cherry - say, in prison?
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
Allegations are surfacing that "Windows 2000" which runs at 80% the speed of Windows NT on the X86 platform, is in fact not built on top of an X86 emulator and runs directly on the hardware.
Unknown host pong.
I did an article on my jackwhispers website about this.
I was one of the first to point this out and MANY of the PearPC forums respondents replied to me in email and told me about all the links within this article. (One of them is quite startling - about Arben having downloaded PearPC)
There are a few other insights at the link above.
Sorry to whore my own site, but I almost think it should be linked here too because I added a little political UNcorrectness to the mix.
Why the Cherry or The Pear May Be Apple's Next Lemon
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
methinks you underestimate the power of stupid people.... honestly though, think about how many people have paid for copies of kaazaa(insert version here) and ask your qustion again
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
I like this quote:
"If it isn't, it will ruin my reputation," he said. "I will end up as a bartender. I do not want to be a bartender."
Can I get mine shaken, not stirred?
Cherries, Pears, Apples... I don't know about the code, but I sure am getting hungry!
Vote for John Cherry!
From now on every piece of code I write is going to have a variable named SPIRO MULTIMAX 3000!
All,
To see the update from October 16th, click here.
To see the update from October 17th, click here.
I did a little investigating on CherryOS and I made several startling discoveries beyond its amazing similarity to PearPC. First, the individual who first posted on [H]ard|Forum about being given a "beta" test of CherryOS (that is, Dag33k), is in fact the same person as the alleged author of CherryOS, Arben Kryeziu. Interestingly, on HardForum Dag33k posted a link to the developer's response (alias: ArbenK) on the PearPC form. I have pretty sufficient evidence to suggest that these two people are one in the same. Look at the registration dates for Dag33k's account and Sourceforge's account for ArbenK. Coincidence?
HardForum's user information:
Sourceforge's user information:
Both dates, of course, are 2003-05-05.
Things get even more interesting, when we trap Arben Kryeziu in another lie. On the PearPC forum, he claims he doesn't speak any Albanian, as we see here:
But then strangely, earlier this year Arben (same screen name: arbishco) posted an Albanian translation for PJ IRC.
Now the shit really hits the fan. I started searching though his network of sites starting from bumpnetworks.com and found something even more interesting. If he's ripping off PearPC and violating the GPL, this is not the first time he's violated the GPL. On his bumpnetworks.com site, he has a link to piece of software he claims to have written, PdfConv (Link to image of description on website).
Now, as you'll see in the circled text, he claims it's based on Xpdf and VeryPDF. I went to VeryPDF and found their application PDF2HTML. Sure enough the product was GPL licensed and the source code is freely available (As seen in the following image). I downloaded trials of both to see how much different PdfConf was from PDF2HTML.
To Arben's credit, the interface is different from PDF2HTML, but identical in all other functions. The output from the same PDF file was almost identical. The only difference was that he took the time to remove the copyright notices from the generated html files. (As seen in this example graphical diff produced by WinMerge.) His output is on the left, PDF2HTML's output is on the right. Notice the only difference is the removal of the copyright notice.
I don't know if Arben changed any of PDF2HTML's code, but if he did, I'm not very confident he respected the GPL. From this, I have pretty good reason he is again disrespecting the GPL by pawning PearPC off as his own application. Finally, to summarize some other troublesome aspects regarding Arben, I found this slashdot post:
Sorry for all the inline images. I found this detective work fascinating, and I think its clear that Arben is perpetrating a fraud and that he personally has no respect for the GPL.
October 16th update:
I sent an email to Arben with a link to this page and a request to honor PearPC's GPL. This is the response I received:
From: CherryOS Team [mailto:mail@cherryos.com]
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2004 3:18 AM
To: 'Dean Beeler'
Subject: RE: PearPC is GPL (via Web form)
Hi Dean,
I am already talking to the PearPC.net webmaster, he will receive the trial as one of the first - because he treated us with respect and an open mind. I will let PearPC test the @#$@ out of CherryOS so you guys can try to prove your points. As you can see I have another product called www.vx30.com, and believe me I am not a person who wants to loose all his reputation. If you contact VeryPDF and ask them about our relationship - he will tell you that there was never one problem and I respected his rights and requests as soon they where submitted to me. I even can send you the communication between us.
I will and am respecting the PearPC GPL and the PearPC community! If people wont like the CherryOS emulation, then trash me then. If people don't want to purchase, they can use
This guy is way out there
Leela: We'd already worked that out.
Yeah... something like that...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Gotta love that Hyperion Entertainment smell.
- Hubert
As a business owner, this just confirms what I've always felt about the GPL: it is anti-capitalist and prevents people from owning their own property. Who knows how much or how little code may have been taken; it could just be a few trivial routines. Nonetheless, the viral GPL license means that the many improvements this man has no doubt made no longer belong to him, but instead must be forced into the public domain under the provision's of the GPL. I'll never license my code under the GPL, and I encourage everyone who cares about freedom to do the same.
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:bFomBR52_8MJ: cherryos.com/+&hl=en
that SCO or MS will shortly come out backing Cherry and offering to fund it as well?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I wish there was a /.TV channel so that this would play out in a 60minutes style camera ambush on this guy.
We have seen the forum equivalent of that ambush but it is just not the same as watching this guy squirm as he is caught in his many lies.
DF
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
From the moment the news first came out, I knew there a caveat emptor in the fineprint! From their website, to the campy video that took forever, to the opinions of the majority. It just sounded too good to be true and it appears that this is the case. There wasn't even a peep from Apple Legal!
I still want OS X ported to Intel/AMD side! Don't you?
Life isn't just a bowl of cherries anymore
On another note, it appears he's trying for an SCO style attack, where he repeats things so many times that people start to think that it must be true... and he's probably counting on the PearPC folks not having enough money to fight him in court. That's if he's actually planning to release his modified copy, to anyone but the press, which is also in question.
knowing a bit about PPC/x86 code translation and cross-platform emulation, and also knowing others who are currently working on many emulation projects, I can safely say that 80% performance is pretty much impossible in what he is doing. First off, you have little-endian vs. big endian architectures to deal with; then you have to also factor in OS overhead, memory management translation, processor-unique opcodes that must have their logic translated to a different meme, incompatible register types, etc. The PearPC guys did an excellent job of overcoming all these hurdles, but as anyone who has used PearPC knows, routing around the obstacles comes with a massive performance hit. If he said that CherryOS took an 80% performance hit and that a technology beta was going to be released soon, he would at least be talking in the realms of remote possibility.
I hope he likes bartending, or that the poor fool whose name he's possibly been using finds out what he's been up to before it is too late.
When I'm thinking of variable names my mind often turns to thoughts of Spiro Agnew. And then of course, he was developing Cherry OS so thoughts immediatley turn to the movie Cherry 2000 and if a sequel (obviosuly named Cherry 3000) would be released.
Then you come to the thought that this method is muti to the max, and out pops SPIRO MULTIMAX 3000 right in the middle of your code. I must have that happen several times a day myself, and I don't even work with code that has anything to do with cherries - I just find them a tasty snack.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now this is what I call one sophisticated phishing scheme. They managed to get otherwise smart people knowledgeable about technology to hand over their personal info in the hopes of getting something most of them would admit sounds too good to be true. I wonder how many of the same people responded to the "email veerification request" messages claiming to be credit card companies. In my mind any company that has not proven anything in the real world is sure as sh*t not getting anything from me. I'd be curious how many people actually signed up on their website for the pre-release of the software.
Quiet! If you say his name three times he'll appear and start flaming.
:o)
Who's Derek Smart? Derek Smart? Derek Smart?
At least provide me a link.
Does anyone else some how find that his VX30 might be a rip off of the ogg theora java port. The fact that its listed on this site, right next to the java port of ogg theora is fishy..
- Find successful, interesting, or promising open-source/free-software product.
- Steal that product's code.
- Get your "new" commercial/pseudo-commercial/"subscription coerced" project covered on Slashdot
- Profit!!!!
And the sick fact is, this moneymaking scheme works. How much money do you think "CherryOS" has made sinceWant to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
And I just thought "I wonder where in the small print they attribute PearPC.". They could have burried it in some legal mumbo-jumbo, and so long as their wrapper doesn't change PearPC or include any parts of it, but does make PearPC source available for download, they're scott free. Now it looks like they've not even done this, so they are in violation of the GPL.
He doesn't have to fool all people, or even some of the people, all the time. (to mangle an old saying) If he's developed a mailing list from people who registered, he may have accomplished all he ever intended with this stunt. Actually stretching a corpse on the lawn chair is not such a bad idea! In the early summer my neighbor's often out, lying pale, bloated and smelly. Its quite tempting to poke him with a stick, just to make sure.
And I'm not a die-hard "Everything must be by the book!" type-a guy, but what's to prevent some a-hole, which this Arben does appear to be shaping up as, from abusing the hell outta the GPL by copying, stealing, and selling the source of a GPL project as their own?
Yes, we do have the world-renowned "Slashdot Effect", which may cost him or her a little with their hosting company, but what other ramifications does the average GPLer hope for in cases such as this (profiting from GPL'd code without giving credit or $$ to the actual creators)?
I suppose that if the problem were big enough, one might hope for some support from the EFF, and perhaps there's some other well-intending lawyers for the bigger GPL cases, but I see little to actually deal with some of guys like this. If I call up his local police, they'll be laughing at me all the way to the donut shop, not running over to arrest him and charge him with violating the GPL.
And the worst part of this, in my view, is that the average consumer isn't a geek, and so losers like this can still make money off them since they aren't privy to this "elite geek knowledge", as we obviously are. You and me can laugh tomorrow about how CherryOS is appearing to be every bit the fake that we all thought it was last week when it hit the boards, but the average guy who just wants to run that cool OSX on his $300 PC isn't going to be privy to this kinda news. So ol' Arben's still likely to make a nice bit of money off these people before disapearing with some easy cash (potentially, of course - There's no smoking gun showing that CherryOS is a fake yet to my knowledge).
So other than losing a few potential sales to us geeks, and getting a bad rap in the nerd pools around the world, is that all this guy can expect? Certainly the average GPL code writer's not going to have the knowhow or money to go after an anonymous name who could be anywhere in the world.
Does this kinda thing happen a lot? I can see where someone could likely get away with this and make some nice cash if they were to avoid very visible, and geeky products such as this. I mean... If I'm writing closed-source IVR software in Russia, and I just repackage a bunch of open source code as my own, what's the odds that anyone would notice? Now... Stealing a product as new, and with as big of "WOW" factor as PearPC takes some big balls, or a lot of stupidity, but for a lot of smaller, or less public projects, it wouldn't surprise me to find this was happening more often than people want to know about.
And for that matter, what's to prevent all the entepreneurs(sp?) out there reading this story from doing this? I can see at least one Slashdot reader going "It's just the GPL, and it looks like it's easy money! I'll just register me a fake domain, erase some copyrights and come up with a logo, and voila! I'm ready to start selling me my new Internet browser "FireWolf" for a nice profit"?
Sorry if this is a well known thing... I tend to avoid philosophic discussions on the GPL as often it's a lot of flaming, and little real knowledge, but this is a question I've always wondered, yet have never seen definatively answered.
Woo, reserect Geeks In Space, but video.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
I wish I could mod you (+1, Troll) on this one :-)
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
The first thing I thought when I read the original /. story was that it sounded like Project David all over again.
Project David was allegedly an entirely new way of running Windows applications on Linux, covered on slashdot here which was suspiciously similar to the Wine project...
it's a random thing, in the past i have had it happen on some installs and not others, the left bar headingsa overlap the main content by a small amount.
Can PearPC run OS X at 80% speed?
If so, thats the real story -- because I would buy OS X in a heartbeat if I could run it on x86.
The one thing you forgot to cover in your in-depth article is the fact that Apple's EULA strictly prohibits the end user from running MacOS on anything but Apple-branded hardware.
So I don't think Apple has to worry much about emulators taking what remains of their market share... the actual big selling point about Macs is the fact that it's designed as a whole widget, not hardware vs. software as it is in the PC world.
When you buy a Mac you buy an 'experience', not just a piece of hardware bundled with some software.
Until somebody can replicate that then I don't think Apple needs to worry...
*cough*Phantom Console*cough*
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
The GPL works because of copyright, which in turn requires a name and date. So how can you claim its your work? You'd have to remove/change the copyright names, and that's a breach of copyright.
While the GPL might not say something about SAYING that it's his... that makes no difference because the authors of the code MUST still appear in the code listings. I'm sure he'd be breaking a whole bunch of different laws by lying anyway.
IANAL or course!
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The PearPC creators should change their license so you can not use the source code without the source being available and have it so you can't claim it's your own work. After that, lets see if CherryOS shuts their doors.
Or.. take the bastards to court.
There are no benefits to it whatsoever, as I am sure all these companies have regexes running on the output from google and whatever to locate any whiff of stolen code. But the logic seem to make sense superficially when certain people claim that open source software is full of stolen code.
The "developer" of CherryOS broke the GPL the second he charged people for nothing more than the code that's apparrently been stolen from the PearPC project put on top of some GUI.
Specialty: vodka with crack powder and blue curacao, with a cherry on top.
That is a bit like comparing nuclear weapons stockpiling to patent/IP rights hoarding, isn't it?
We, here on Slashdot, try to avoid indulging such extreme views.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
Ok, this guy claims to have written a mac emulator that runs at 80% native speed, all by himself... in 4 months.
:p
So it took him 4 months to figure out how to remove the copyrights and compile the code ?
From GPL version 2, section 1 talks about verbatim copies saying "you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty". Section 2 talks about distribution of modifications, that must follow section 1 and also three extra conditions. If you modify a file, you are coauthor. When you replace a file 100%, then you can claim 100% copyright and remove the other names without problem. Otherwise I doubt you are legally allowed to claim 100% copyright.
They've got no money to pay for people who know what's going on... copying and pasting a companies press release is cheap.
Also, they are too afraid of pissing off any advertisers to publish anything "controversial". The more (and larger) advertisers a news organization has, the more chance that a particular story will upset one of the real sources of income. That's why the news on the major cable networks is less than hard hitting.
Never ascribe to malice what could easily be attributed to incompetence
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
What are you talking about?
You're probably the author or a lackey for Cherry OS.
I think the guy's story is interesting, don't know if it was one of the first, but the publish date would indicate so.
There's also an interesting bit about other emulators and the business model that's behind them.
people.yahoo.com reports him as living in Wailuku, HI. Phone number is (808) 244-7408.
It seems that there is no longer a DNS entry for www.cherryos.com. The domain record was updated yesterday.
What open source software did this guy ever produce? Seems like he's just your common thief, not an OSS developer.
I think he saw this and was scarred for life.
Or, perhaps it was a directive from his parents. I had a friend whose dad was a geologist, and constantly as a kid his dad was telling us both things like "Become anything, but not a geologist. Turn to male prostitution, but whatever you do do not become a geologist". To this day I'd have to say neiter of us are, in fact, any sort of geologist. In fact my friend works as an engineer on a small boat at sea that's out for months at a time - about as far away from land as you can get.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Didn't anyone read the original post? Didn't anyone notice? We were USED! He wanted to get slashdotted! He wanted our hits! We were a stress test!
/. crowd to hit his servers.
The "CherryOS" was just a blind to get the
We've been had.
That raises the question. Now what?
--LWM
Is it me, or does cherryos.com not even resolve anymore?
If the dude takes down the dns, I bet he is running for cover. Has anyone managed to connect a reliable physical ID to this guy yet?
Just listen to the guy sleaze and backpedal around his stupidity.
::shakes head::
He tried it once with PDF2HTML, and now he's doing it with PearPC. Anyone wanna bet VX30 is some sort of code ripped out of a university project, or IBM's mpeg4 on java or Fluendo or something?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
anyone notice that on the page with his "I don't want to end up a bartender" crack ... is an ad for Absolut?
touche
When did we start modding "I told you so" posts insightful again? Maybe if there was some content, or even a link to an "I told you so" post, but this? BTW, I remember thinking to myself "Wow, the Ge6600 is going to be a great budget graphics card" when I first heard about it.
Glad to see my expectations were maintained. Mod me up, please.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
If you release something under license X, and people acquire it under that license, then unless you have language saying otherwise, releasing it again under license Y does not affect the people who already have it under license X.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
What's amusing are these so called 'journalists' at slashdot and wired who are making statements based on CHAT ROOM GOSSIP. It is laughable that these types of 'resources' are being used to concoct an article. And's it's equally amazing that their companies let them post such unfounded information.
When the trial version comes out the public can make a real judgment. Until then it's all water cooler talk.
There once was a time when journalists asked questions instead of quoting press releases..
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
I think this is all an evil subliminal ploy by Del Monte.
Am I the only one craving a fruit salad after reading the article?
Next weeks software releases: SysMango with a side of KiwiX.
Assuming that he never actually accepts orders for CherryOS, is he still guilty of infringment?
hehe, code away you free software slaves. Don't worry about feeding yourselves, someone else will PROFIT!
Wired for not letting me down. Their half-assed reporting has now made CherryOS look almost legitimate and freeipods.com completely so.
What happened to journalistic integrity?
"I'm very excited about the prospect of monkeys flying out of UrgleHoth's nether eye," said Dr. Dew. "I'm just glad they're not going to fly out of mine."
Only on
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
My letter to the CherryOS people, dated 5 days ago:
----cut here------
I'm interested in Cherry OS but I need to know how well it stacks up against
PearPC (http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.pearpc.net/).
Two questions in particular:
1) what are the advantages and disadvantages of Cherry OS vs. PearPC? At a
minimum, I'd expect ease of installation, ease of use, and customer service to
be higher in a commercial product.
2) does Cherry OS use any PearPC code?
The latter is particularly important, because
1) I need to know if security vulnerabilities are likely to be common to both
products or are likely to be different.
2) Using widely-used open-source software in a commercial product is a
competitive advantage for you, in that bugs are more likely to be found and
fixed quicker.
If your product is based on PearPC, please note that, as with Linux, if I find
I use an open-source program heavily and come to depend on up-to-date
maintenance, I'm willing to pay for it.
I do expect that if your product uses any open-source code, you are complying
with the licenses. In the case of PearPC, this is the GNU Public License, the
same lincense that made wildly-successful companies like RedHat and SuSE (now
part of Novell) to earn billions of dollars.
Oh, congradulations on being Slashdotted. Even though it was a minor
inconvenience for you, it is a badge of honor.
----cut here------
Well, looks like I gave them the benefit of the doubt and they betrayed me. Sigh.
Thankfully, it looks like I was wrong about the "minor" inconvenience. The light of day scares the roaches away.
If only they'd come out and said "PearPC free, technical support and priority bug fixes, $50" that might sell.
CherryOS is down at the moment, here's Google's Cache. Enjoy.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This guys even built a 10 levels MLM scheme for that Gaim ripoff... I wonder if the ads would irritate me more or the people trying to convince me to join the MLM...
The GPL requires you ship the source, including any copyright statements that are there.
No need to change anything, the GNU lawyers did that work ages ago.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Is there any requirement for date? How do you know if it's public domain? Are you surpossed to assume that it's copyrighted _unless_ otherwise specified? That doesn't seam to be in the spirit of the law!
If there's no author listed, does the author need to register the copyright, so that it's still possible to work out who owns what?
Do you know the reason for why they got rid of the name/date requirements?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This is simple copyright violation. So a gross abuse of a GPL product would probably involve someone profiting off it. And then, hopefully, a law suit and monetary damages. Building a business and losing your assets because you violated someones copyright can't be *that* attractive a deal.
Quack, quack.
http://www.artworxinn.com/alex/arben.htm -- from PearPC Dev Mailing list
this all brings to question: how many closed source companies live only from ripping off open source? hiding the traces, adding some stuff, releasing wondrously written self-serving press releases, where they denigrate open source and claim their own 'ingenuity and briliiance'?
who's really checking on them?
----------------
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I'm reminded of the situation with medievia in the MUD community. Someone built a MUD using code that was restricted by a license, then claimed that the whole thing had been rewritten so that the license no longer applies. His code was leaked and shown to have a good portion of the original code intact, yet he continues to deny this and keeps breaking the license. Maybe someone on slashdot knows how to rectify the situation?
You're using the term "developer" pretty lightly there big fella.
FYI, in the same thread Alex Crouzen writes:
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
This two programs are completely different. I think you are all comparing pears to cherries.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Now that this seems to have been quite thoroughly debunked...
Will MacWorld and the other sites which reported on CherryOS do the Right Thing and pull the story?
Or perhaps even better, do a new story on PearPC instead and give the guys who do deserve credit some.
Oh, come on! The guy has changed the name from Pear to Cherry, hasn't he? Who would've thought that was not enough and anyone would ever interconnect those two projects?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
He gets to make a cheap prototype to dazzle his investors, then dash without ever facing the GPL issue.
When I'm thinking of variable names my mind often turns to thoughts of Spiro Agnew.
You are aware that "Spiro Agnew" is an anagram for "Grow a Penis" aren't you?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Downloaders don't pass the music/movies off as their own work.
But samplers who use without attribution or payment sure do. It's exactly the same.
Specks
Batteries not included
The link between MXS and SCO is uncanny. They both are 1. Acronym Companies 2. Making accusations that they can't back up 3. Deny lying 4. Have been proven lying 5. Have a front man (McBride and Kryeziu)
please mod up.
Lot of open source projects are being ripped off.
Go here and tell me how many projects you recognize?
http://www.software995.com/
Rip-offs of:
Image magic
GIMP
Ghostscript
and others...
Well, isn't that as valid a metaphor as any for the process of software creation? :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Favourite quote (paraphrased?) from a recent article: "Cherry OS is nothing like PearPC. PearPC is way slow."
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
ROFLMAO!!! You forgot to check the Post Anonymously checkbox! Lamer!!! LOL!!1!
.
Spiro often refers to spironolactone, a diuretic drug with the well-known side effect of inhibiting testosterone.
"Grow a penis", heh, not likely...
I think someone got pwned!
But seriously, I wanted CherryOS to be true. But yet again, way too good things don't tend to happen!
The hip way to get your IP. No ads, ever.
From what i read, everything reated to this albanian guy and kartes is hoax or infringed code. what about this vx30?!?!? anyone recognize it is their code or from a familiar project on probably sf.net? i am curious...
F/OSS & IT Consultant
You're not sorry to whore your site. You bitched, whined and complained when Maccentral was finally formally absorbed into Macworld and your so called hard earned posts would disappear from the public eye (taking the link to your website with them). You're such a dipshit.
It's funny that point number two is just as true as point number one, but everyone on Slashdot seems to forget that when someone "steals" open source code. Well, I say if the music companies get no sympathy for people "stealing" their music, then open source coders deserve no sympathy for people "stealing" their code. "Get a better business model", right?
How is Arben downloading PearPC even significant without this particular revelation? If I were having a problem and needed a solution, and I found out about a possible solution, I'd download it to see if I actually needed to write my own solution, or if what was out there was good enough. If I were in the middle of a project and discovered a competing project I'd want to see whose was better. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor-John.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
we couldn't do a thing about it since the BSD license doesn't protect the freedom of the software and your freedom to have access to any modified versions of the source you contributed.
Thank goodness it's under the superior GPL license.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
But ghost's functionality is NOT a difficult concept for any Unix. I mean, it's all UI and calling commands like fdisk, dd, gzip, etc.
Why do you even need a program? Just tell someone to boot off a rescue CD and use DHCP, dd over the network to a server, what's the big deal?
Mountain out of a molehill.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
If you're not Jack, you're now guilty of plagiarism. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
The IBM stuff comes as an SDK/dev kit he could wrap or configure to make it look like his own technology.
The vxmPlayer JAR is stripped of all identifiable text or symbols.
But the performance and quality suggests the IBM tech demo using an H263 stream.
I can't easily verify the stream either: the player takes a parameter which contains a URL which is encoded somehow (probably with a key within the player itself)... and I'm too lazy right now to set up ethereal and capture it on the fly....
Someone else wanna try and see?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
So, we're all up in arms because some guy stole GPL code (note the use of the word "taken" and "stole" used throughout the article and discussion).
And yet, this attitude magically disappears in an MP3 or movie piracy article? Suddenly, THAT kind of piracy isn't "theft?" Honestly, what's the difference? In both cases, someone else's copyrighted materials are taken and used for their own purposes.
I don't get the Slashdot double standard. Copyright only ever matters when some person's GPL code gets taken. Then, all the sudden people have morals. If you pirate movies and music, would you get up in arms if someone took your GPL code and did what they wanted without giving you credit? Would you realize how much of a hypocrite you'd be if you did?
If you guys, the Slashdot crowd, are going to argue that it's "okay" to download copyrighted materials on P2P networks and argue against copyrights, you also have to allow for others taking copyrighted GPL works since to do otherwise would be hypocritical.
All's fair.
506. Criminal offenses
Release date: 2004-04-30
(a) Criminal Infringement.-- Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either--
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement U.S. Code, Title 17 Criminal offenses
in other legal news, a thief does not escape prosecution for grand theft auto by giving away his stolen car.
...when an anti-RIAA/MPAA article gets posted, ripping off someone else's materials is a-okay by this crowd. Funny how that works.
Just saying.
How can Slashdotters argue that copyright should be abolished, or that piracy is okay?
Copyright and ethics apparently apply in one situation and not the other (in this case, GPL theft, which seems to be the only bit of piracy that Slashdotters suddenly are against).
2. Steal that product's code.
Remember, according to Slashdot, it's not theft! It's "infringement," like a parking infringement.
Microsoft was a two person company . . . But I guess back in the dos days . . .
On their site they also list another product called Ad-Stats which is a doctored version of phpAdsNew complete with screen shots which identicaly match phpAdsNew interface, again with no copyright attribution. The preferences settings are all identical, the general layout is unchanged, except the graphics have been doctored a bit and a whole lot of prompts have been slightly renamed from 'campaign' to 'clip'. Way to go.
This is clearly un-possible!
If there's one thing Slashdot has taught me over and over and over and over and over again, it's that it is completely impossible for an x86 to emulate the glorious power of a PPC processor!
Now, I used to be one of those losers who believed the church-turing theorem, and thought that any CPU could emulate any other CPU. But Slashdot showed me the light! I now know that it's completely un-possible!
This whole story must be a hoax!
That's awesome. In 365 days, I can easily collect a halfhour's worth of questions I would pay $25 to have answered. Thanks!
Gentlemen, we are witnessing the birth of a new slashdot meme. [FX: Jupiter from the Planets Suite]
No, the thought that they are passing me by in favor of Tom Cruise is what disturbs me!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mod this up, +5 Sarcasm ;-)
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
Cherry OS is a pipe dream. Even if remotely true - meaning that it WOULD work, more or less (which it doesn't!) - Cherry OS hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell to survive: it's very existence would immediately create 2 mortal enemies: Micro$haft AND Apple. That, in itself, is a death sentence!
How much investigation did the Slashdot 'editors' do into this before ejaculating it forth? Is there some reason why you think that they are exempt from this Journalist's Code that you seem to believe exists?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I smell 'em a mile away, these days. Remember "http://www.siliconfilm.com/"? Check it out: they haven't even bothered to take down the website. It's still there. The press releases of THAT digital miracle came out every 6 months for 5 years running. And got plenty exposure through such "professional" journalists as Peter Cohen from MacCentral/MacWorld. Yes, indeed! The same guy. He did it again! He fell for this one too. Some people clearly never learn... Either that, or even worse: Peter Cohen is part of the scam . . . (which wouldn't surprise me). So what scam are these Cherry OS hoaxsters trying to pull? My guess is they're trying to get people to 'invest' in the further 'development & engineering to get it ready for the mass markets'. In other words: it's probably a scam. Once gullible 'investors' have invested, they'll probably never hear about it again! Wanna bet?
I was just wondering what does actually drive this guy to do this? I would imagine publicity seeking but it just seems too stupid to be real. What's the fucking point really?
I would like to see a 60 min episode where the 'guy' whips out a shotgun and shoots the interviewer & camera guy during live broadcast, and then you would see the camera drop to the floor, Blair Witch Project style :-). hmmm, reality tv.
At least there would be an excuse for re-running the story.
Woo, reserect Geeks In Space, but video.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Piracy is different when you start selling pirated works online.
In civilised countries, piracy *begins* when you start selling the works. That's what piracy *is*.
Copyright infringement without monetary gain is just called "copyright infringement".
Because sourceforge has the records and date when he downloaded PearPC - it shows 4 months ago.
It also shows that he downloaded an opensouce video player and then whatta you know - comes out with a video player a few months later.
Further, he is expressly denying that he used PearPC in any way whatsoever. The PearPC developers have found specific code that is stolen - you would think he would have wanted to be anonymous.
And... it's not an issue of "seeing whose better" - PearPC is only viable option to see.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Woot !!!
If you want to pay your $600 to BusinessWire, you too can post a press release announcing that "monkeys will shoot out of my nether eye in my office at midnight tonight." Yahoo will pick it up and run it in its financial news section
/.er contributes a dollar, we can do this hundreds of times..
Come on, if every
We *have* to do this!
Send Ali G to interview him.
What do you think cheap outsourcing companies do - write the code themselves? No, they STEAL IT FROM OPEN SOURCE. And no-one will ever know because they keep it closed-source. Forget GPL, it hasn't been tested in court and ISN'T WORTH A DAMN!!!!
Non sequitur!
The original reply posts point still stands. If you are going to invest time and effort into a product, you investigate the competition, even if there is only a single competitor. It's good business practice. You have no link between him downloading these products and his products other than the time frame.
That's all circumstantial evidence, weak circumstantial evidence at that. The key is proving that his product uses PearPC, which the string analysis does (though not entirely conclusive). Proving that he downloaded it shows nothing. NOTHING. Engage the brain.
That said, I think the guy is a bull shit artist and did rip off PearPC, but your "proof" is not proof.
Stealing someone's art is one thing, stealing their art and claiming it to be your own is another.
I had an imaginary sig once, he said I was a loser and ran off.
Some said the guy just wanted to stress test his streaming solution, and server.. well now with the slashdot posting I think he got EXACTLY what he wanted.
I suppose that the first attempt to crack cherryos's site would be-
username: Arben
password: Kryeziu
or better yet-
username: CherryOS
password: PearPC
to SPIRO MULTIMAX 3000... can't you see it? First you make it into an acronym, so you've got SM30... and then.. and then... well, it's obvious to any genius software engineer how SM ~= VX.
Apparently, Arben Kryeziu is really no deveoper of any kind.
As people already suspected, he stole the PearPC code for CherryOS, he most likely stole Java code for his VX streamer (see posts above). And now I have reason to suspect that he also did not develop the bumpnetworks.com website.
He posted an outsourcing bid for one of his web site developments (bumpnetworks.com?). Search on that page for the string "Hello Arben Kryeziu" and "Hello Bumpnetworks" to confirm this. Now scroll to the winner's bid (will say "AWARDED" on the left). His location Donetsk, UA (Ukraine -> Russia). Now, go to bumpnetworks.com and follow the menu: "Company -> Partnerships." You will discover Site-Mechanics to be a partner. Go there and visit their clientele references. You will notice that most of the clients and work done was in Russia(n). Could it be that that guy developed bumpnetworks.com (and many other)?
That leaves us with the original question: what did he really develop or did he "outsource and share code" (LOL) for everything. He seems to be good at talking the language of "the suits" and seems to be better at being a manager than doing the actual work.
Well here is the answer, which is also my GRAND FINALE!!!
if you visit his Elance Feedback profile and scroll all the way to the end you will notice TWO bids he put up:
#1 "Web Programming pdf to html conversion Beaux US$1,500.00"
AND...
#2 "Application Development PowerPC Emulator comsdev US$2,700.00"
If you visit both bids (bid 1 and bid 2 you will notice that he actually paid OTHER teams at Elance.com to do the dirty work for him.
I have very strong reason to suspect that he never wrote ANY part of any code of any kind! Instead, the people that actually STOLE the code from PearPC and PDF2HTML (read to verify) are the actual perpetrators!!!
How come nobody else established this connection?!
W.
Arben Girlfriend's Private web site w/ photos!!!.
Be sure to check out Mr.Goofy with his new Porsche
What's really SAD is the fact that he could not even do his girflriend's site himself. He gave that "project" to others
W.
The guy claimed he had not used any PearPC code - it IS proven beyond a shadow of a doubt he did.
The guy also claimed he hadn't even really fooled with PearPC until a couple weeks before CherryOS's big release - it shows he downloaded it 4 months ago - and whatta you know, says he's been working on it 4 months!
Further, his M-XStream Java Video player is the same - it's being promoted as a revolutionary video application and claimed to be used by major companies, yet no company examples are given on the site and there are at least a dozen java apps just like it.
I have started receiving spam on the unique email address which I gave CherryOS :-/ ...another one to add to the block list.
Journalistic integrity?
Research?
You must be new here.
Mmmmm....Rose....
"Red Beach" on Maui, where some of these photos were taken, is an "unofficial" nude beach. I have been there numerous times on vacation. It is accessible only by a short hike on varying terrain and hills; not entirely difficult, but definitely out of the way. The people in those photos were likely the only ones on that beach for a good part of the day. Hmm... Rose... woulda liked to see her nude.
Arben is a thief and a liar. He is living high on the hog off other people's money from his illicit "software" ventures. It takes load$ of ca$h to do the type of things depicted in these pictures in Hawaii and to stay at these hotels (on Lanai, Molokai, Maui, etc). To say nothing of living on Maui period. Many people have to work two or three jobs just to stay afloat there. Any fool stupid enough to send money to this crook deserves what they get.