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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..."
read the mirrored thread. it's well worth the time to examine it.
Seems like the slashdotters in this thread figured this out first.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
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.
if they removed any of the copyright information from the souce code files, and if they don't release the source code or make it available to the public, then they are in violation of the GPL.
.... THE GPL USES COPYRIGHT, IT DOES NOT IGNORE COPYRIGHT.
you're incorrect about naming provisions... GPL is a license, and to use copyrighted GPL code, you need to attribute the copyright holder. You may distribute/use/modify, etc... however, the original code must still be attributed to the copyright holder.
Once again -
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
He hasn't, but due to the linking clause his part of the code has to be GPL too, and then everybody can freely trade copies of CherryOS without paying a cent. So who would buy a copy?
He'd have to make any and all changes he made to PearPC (including any anti-copying code or the like) available as well. But yes, rebranding GPL code and claiming it as your own, so long as you redistribute it as GPL is totally legal. I don't htink thats what he's doing though (I don't think he released code).
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
You can rebrand it, but you cannot claim it as your own. You must list the original authors of the code.
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
You can rebrand it, but you cannot claim it as your own. You must list the original authors of the code.
You're thinking of the old-style bsd license. The GPL does not require listing the original authors. I just reread the license again, and it seems it does allow taking someone else's gpl'd program and claiming it is entirely your own.
The article says:
The complex system was ostensibly written in four months by Kryeziu alone, who claims it performs at about 80 percent of the speed of the PC host's hardware.
So he is saying he wrote the entire program.
The GNU GPL http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html says:
2.a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
It goes without saying if he claims to have written it he did not include this information, and he is in violation of the license in which PearPC was released.
I, and this is just my opinion here, interpret the GPL as encouraging developers to take others ideas to a new level, not stealing their code in attempt to make a profit.
Yes. The copyright code was intended to nail people that intentionally rip off copyrighted works and sell them for profit. Originally that was to stop books from being copied and sold. I believe that predates the music industry. That is still the big distinction: if you commit infringement but don't profit by it, that's one thing (fair-use at best, a civil matter at worst), but sell it and make money and you can end up in criminal court, if the amount you make exceeds certain specific limits set up by the law. Then it gets ugly. Hundreds of thousands in fines, years in the pen, that sort of thing.
As an aside, one of things the RIAA would like to do is remove that distinction, and thoroughly criminalize any copyright infringement of any kind. There are those here on Slashdot that see nothing wrong with that, I've noticed, and they won't until they end up arrested for copying a few pages from a library book.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That's utterly false. Every distribution gives credit to the base system GNU and the Linux kernel. You sir, are not up on your facts.
http://www.kernel.org/ and http://www.gnu.org/ are good places to start.
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...
The GPL does not require listing the original authors.
That is only true technically.
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
So no, you don't have to list the original authors, but you do have to list the copyright holders. In most cases these are the one and the same, so while you are technically correct, in practice you are almost always wrong.
(Before anybody tries to redefine "appropriate copyright notice", please point out where the GPL transfers copyright. Hint: it doesn't.)
A simple search would have answered that... http://www.werewolves.org/~follies/
This was one of my favorites:
Kryeziu said the CherryOS site was often unresponsive because of attacks from crackers and traffic. The site was unavailable most of Thursday because a cracker changed administrator passwords and key settings, he said.
"It's getting hacked like crazy," he said
So they're admitting that they don't know how to secure their web server very well then? Cuz I've run a number of web servers, and it's really not that hard to keep them from "getting hacked like crazy".
<obligatory MS bash>Well, assuming you're not using IIS, that is...</obligatory MS bash>
Place sig here.
To give Wired a bit of credit, they actually continued to follow the story (including trying out a copy of CherryOS and then investigating and assisting in proving the fraud claims). See the article posted today.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
http://cherryos.com was running Microsoft-IIS on unknown when last queried at 12-Oct-2004 16:11:57 GMT :)
FYI, in the same thread Alex Crouzen writes:
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
Yes, and while you're at it, also catch the entry for 'irony' as that is probably more like it :)
Sarcasm and irony are similar, but not quite the same thing.
O make me a mask
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
I worked at a small software company that made an corporate email management program. We sent out a press release with screen shots of a very colorful GUI that we abandoned before we ever got actual working code. Months later we sent out copies to various PC magazines to review. A bit later we won some sort of comparison test ( I think we had a longer list of features than anyone else , thus more bullet points ) including praise for how easy it was to install.
The funny thing was, the installation instructions were something like 1. Install IBM DB2. 2. click on install icon and wait for authorization key window to open. 3. Call xyz-tech for an install key.
At that point we would talk them through some godawfull install and configuration process that could go on for days. But the reviewer never called, never got a key, and presumably never installed it, and the review was illustrated with the press release screen shots.
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.
Yes, well, as one of the major developers of PearPC, I'd think he'd like to have my name and address. So he knows where to send any apologies that might occur to him to be necessary.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
And yet, this attitude magically disappears in an MP3 or movie piracy article? Suddenly, THAT kind of piracy isn't "theft?"
The difference is, if I rip the newest britney spears CD (purely hypothetical example) and put it on the internet, I don't claim I was the artist.
Well, I worked for a software house that developed a web-based collaboration program, which, due to very browser-centric Javascript coding, would only work on IE 4.0 (it was some time ago). I was responsible for testing and supporting this thing.
They released press releases to various UK trade magazines claiming various apects about this product, many of which were clearly not true. One was a list of client platforms that the product ran on, and this included various Windows, Mac and UNIX browser clients that had not been officially tested in any way. All were simply fabricated. Other claims about the product, such as the list of platforms that the server ran on, were equally false and untested, and due to a certain core third-party library only being available as a Windows DLL at the time, not possible to implement for at least another 6 months, if at all.
All the UK press printed the release notes without one even bothering to review the software.
I walked out of the company in disgust a few days later. They ceased trading a year or two later, after concentrating exclusively on the product at the expense of other core revenue streams.
In this case I think the real moral difference comes when you represent someone else's work as your own, not whether you make money from it.