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Maui X-Stream at it Again?
Goyuix writes "In their latest commercial venture, Maui X-Stream, the now infamous company behind Cherry OS, has recently launched a suite of tools that once again takes advantage of GPL'd code to get their dirty work done... This time it is a set of video encoding, streaming and display tools. A choice quote from SourceForge: 'There are boundled dshow filters, string, toolbars, dialogs, command line switches, etc..., which can be verified easily by just running the applications and taking a look, or a bit harder by analysing the memory dump'. Is the situation getting worse or is community just getting better at finding the violators?"
as 'free' software pops up on the radar of increasingly unscrupulous people, more violations are taking place. At the same time, as the community gains more experience with people unfairly taking advantage of GNU software, they are becoming more vigilant.
Not really an interesting question, to me the interesting question is...what the hell made them think they wouldn't get caught again?!?!
You also have to give the source code to anybody that you've given the binary to, if they ask. However, you are not obligated to give the source to everybody.
You are allowed to sell the software. You are not allowed to keep the source to yourself. Somebody could re-sell GIMP for $200, and as long as they gave the source code to their customers it would be legal.
Dang, someone better tell RedHat, SuSE, Lindows, etc., etc., on and on and on!!!!!
I can sell compiled binaries of grep for a billion dollars each if I can find someone willing to pay that for them. The GPL allows it. AFAIK, I just can't relabel it as FrepSearchIncredible, withhold the source code, and pretend it's my own unique product.
Start a happiness pandemic
I recently discovered that Acquisition (a popular Mac OS X gnutella client) is using GPLed Limewire code. It's not anywhere on the main Acquisition website, acquisitionx.com. The website implies the whole thing is written by David Watanabe. It's shareware with nag screens. Most users will never know there's Limewire code used. The most obvious place it's mentioned is the fine print of the "About" box.
There is some source available, at AcquisitionX.org. (There are no links from the other site. Found it through some googling.) This is the "core" of Acquisition, a modified version of LimeWire's core code. But the actual UI code is not released. The developer claims this is "full and complete compliance with the LimeWire GPL", but it's not. The key characteristic of the GPL is that you have to release applications that use GPLed libraries under the GPL themselves. He's following the terms of the LGPL instead. If they'd meant to release it under that license, they would have! He's profiting from other people's work without following their license or giving them proper credit.
(Sorry for making people click through. I deliberately have no links to either Acquisition site because I don't want to increase his PageRank.)
Actually, now that the GPL has been shown to be valid in court, it should be getting easier to have a lawyer represent you in court. Donations are then not needed because all you have to do is to make sure your lawyer gets paid when the money is collected from the people who have stolen/misappropriated/converted your GPL'd code into their applications.
;-)
This is NOT to say that you can just go down to your local street corner and have lawyers rush towards you with open arms, gushing with enthusiasm about wanting to represent you in court. But any lawyer who deals with copyrights, patents, and such should have a very good grasp on how to go about dealing with people who misappropriate computer code. In many cases, all it really takes is for a lawyer to write a halfway decent letter to the offender for them to back off. Thus, for less than $300.00 you can probably find a lawyer willing to write the letter to the company.
This is also not to say that the person to whom the GPL'd code belonged could not write a letter by just getting one of those Business Lawyer CDs and using the template letter to send a cease and desist letter.
But I would use a lawyer. Mainly because it gives more force to what you are saying and/or doing.
(And yes, IANAL! Not all of the time mind you - sometimes I'm just a normal person - but right now IANAL!)
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Well considering Spyglass Mosaic was a commercial browser and was not GPL'ed. It was an enhanced version of NCSA Mosaic which was also not GPL. MS licensed Mosaic from Spyglass in 1995 in a lucrative deal for Spyglass where they would receive a quarterly fee plus a percentage of Microsoft's revenues for the software. We all know what happened next. All in all Spyglass got screwed now worms rule that thar intrweb thing.
So basically you have no right to the IE source code(not sure why you'd want it).
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
NCSA Mosaic licensing information
Seriously here their number: 1-808-661-5699
I just gave the guy a piece of my mind, if we all do it...well they'll just change the number - but its fun! lets hear some recordings!
He can sell it for a billion dollars each...provided he makes the source code available on request (and this presumes that customers are notified of the presence of GPL code, and their rights to request the source). The GPL does not prohibit the binary distribution of a piece of GPLed software - but the source must be available upon request (and even to recoup the cost of duplication/mailing, if applicable).
Specially with a dedicated website for posting these frauds.
You can charge as much as you want. It's the SOURCE CODE that you cannot charge for (other than reasonable transfer fee. like for the CDR it's on)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I don't understand why the community has a problem with this in the first place. The original source code is still under the GNU license.
People who release code under the GPL are perfectly entitled to 'have a problem' with people breaching their software licence of choice.
Anyone who thinks it's OK for others to take their programs, close the source and release modified versions shouldn't be using the GPL - try the BSD licence instead.
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
There are two basic ideas in the GPL.
The first is that you cannot prevent people from sharing. So, if you sell someone a GPL program, you can't prevent them from handing a copy to a friend under the GPL.
The second is that you must allow people to make their own modified versions of the software. In order for this to work, they have to have the source code to the software. So, you must provide the source code if asked, and you are not allowed to charge extra for source code.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
They took the BSD networking stack for Windows '95 (and NT?) but then there was a bug found in the BSD networking stack and Windows wasn't susceptible, so it'd diverged enough by then (which was around 98/99 or something).
They sold GPL Unix toolkit software for a while, but now they give it away.
Any other examples of BSD/GPL licenced software in Microsoft?
That's not true at all:
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
"any third party".
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
GPL violators are all over the place.
Check out http://www.clicksandlinks.com/
This "software developer" charges $1000's for OpenCMS GPL software licences, claiming that it develops it itself.
Their "Roundabout" product is just OpenCMS with the GPL licence and source removed. They are scamming public money and no-one is challenging their violation.
BSD doesn't allow you to close the source, just to distrubute it with closed source as long as the BSD code still has source available.