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The Open-Source Detector

Posted by timothy on from the lie-detection dept.

McDutchie writes "With open-source related lawsuits on the rise, a market is developing for automated tools that detect the presence of open-source code within larger application development environments. Palamida Inc. stepped in with IP Amplifier 3.0, essentially a search tool and a database that consists of more than 38 million of the most commonly used open-source files. Something Google-inspired called CodeRank is claimed to match code against the database. Hmm... maybe someone should run it on this, or even this." Of course, some open source code is perfectly welcome in commercial software, even if that software's code is not itself open; it's no secret or surprise that Microsoft, for instance, has taken advantage in some products of BSD-licensed code.

15 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Re:windows already has some by imemyself · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Can't people use BSD code in non-OSS projects?(Why I don't like BSD licenses personally, because they will be abused.)

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  2. I wonder... by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could this tool be used in reverse?

    For example, one could write a bug-filled line of code, perhaps something with a buffer-overflow. This could then be matched with open-source projects and projects with buffer overflows are found. Of course, this could also be used to find vulnerabilities and so on.

  3. The BSD license argument by marcovje · · Score: 5, Interesting


    >Of course, some open source code is perfectly >welcome in commercial software, even if that >software's code is not itself open; it's no secret >or surprise that Microsoft, for instance, has taken >advantage in some products of BSD-licensed code.

    This example (socket code) often pops up, and is often used in GPL advocacy.

    Note however that the TCP/IP work was done under a DARPA grant, paid for by the US government, so it is not only legal, but even moral right for Microsoft to use this code.

    1. Re:The BSD license argument by WNight · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Considering that most of Microsoft's money comes from the US, and most of the software they sell has cheaper and often better equivalents, you could instead say that they've been a huge drain on the economy.

      What have they contributed? How has any Microsoft product ever made a business run better than the average competitor's product? But they certainly charge more, restrict more, lie/cheat/steal more, sue over invented infringment more, and hold back the industry more.

      It's in everyone's interests to commoditize their complements, as an economist would put it. Hardware companies like free software (IBM, Intel, etc) and software companies like cheap hardware (Microsoft, etc). We the people, being neither hardware or software companies (usually), would benefit from cheaper hardware and software. Microsoft not only doesn't provide this, but goes out of their way to prevent anyone else providing it. They don't even have any confidence in their products themselves or they wouldn't be so busy locking people in with patent-encumbered data formats and just plain lies and obfuscation.

      I submit that Microsoft is one of the biggest drains on the economy.

  4. high costs? by moz25 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Palamida charges $50,000 to $250,000 for an annual subscription to IP Amplifier. Cost depends upon the size of the customer's development environment.

    That seems rather steep. Are they doing something really complicated or is this something that a well-maintained (open-source?) project could do? Of course they are storing a major amount of information (i.e. all of sourceforge/freshmeat).
    This might in fact be a feature that sourceforge might want to implement (for a fee): doing a search in their database.

    On the other hand, it might make more sense to check against proprietary source, data and images. They are, by their nature, harder to find.

    Also: when outsourcing parts of a project, wouldn't a contract have to state explicitly conditions such as not stealing/borrowing code from elsewhere? It would be a minimum requirement that the licensing of any (sub-)code would have to fit the overall product.

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  5. This sounds like a nice idea, BUT... by PenguinBoyDave · · Score: 0, Interesting

    There are too many things that this won't do, as already pointed out in the thread. The problem I see here is how someone, somewhere will use this tool once or twice, find something and that looks like infringing code and "AH HA! THERE is the REAL offender" taking something out of context or not understanding in full the hows or whys of how the code got there in the fist place, and run screaming to whoever will listen. There are a lot of issues surrounding Open Source code and mixing it with proprietary code. While this may help, I only fear this will create more problems.

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  6. Lets do it the other way: the "de-OSS'ifier"... by torpor · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Just today on the way to work I was wondering what it would take to write a C pre-processor which takes as input a set of .c and .h files, and spits out a re-formatted, 'changed' version of the same sort of code .. effectively 're-writing' the OSS into something still functional, but unrecognizable from the original.

    This would be an interesting challenge, and not entirely above the capabilities of most compiler writers. With such a tool, the motivation for releasing OSS software would be decreased; OSS writers would be de-moralized, since their original code isn't being used, only the outline/framework ..

    I'm a big fan of OSS, really. Have been for years. But I think tools such as these loom on the horizon .. and if I had the spare time (I don't), I'd make one myself, and .. of course .. release it under the GPL.

    (Just coz.)

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  7. Will probably find many blatant violators. by putko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I worked at a ruthless company. Part of the culture was to get results as fast as possible and completely ignore things like licenses, rules and laws, if it helped to make money.

    We certainly would have violated the GPL in a second, given that one couldn't really prove damage to the other party (aging idealist hippies with beards who were naive enough to give away software with a silly "license").

    The ripoff of commercial software was driving me nuts though -- it seemed quite wrong, esp. given that we were raking in the dough and were not paying just because we could easily avoid it through technical measures.

    However, part of the "culture" was that we were so busy that we were sloppy about the misdeeds. We wouldn't have had time to cover our tracks.

    Such tools would have caught us, so I'm guessing such tools will lead to finding many similar violators.

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    1. Re:Will probably find many blatant violators. by Dogtanian · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We certainly would have violated the GPL in a second, given that one couldn't really prove damage to the other party (aging idealist hippies with beards who were naive enough to give away software with a silly "license").

      That's interesting. I wonder what the legal position would be if it was transparently obvious that, rather than being an honest mistake or result of one lazy/crooked employee, the inclusion of GPLed code was quite deliberate, as a consequence of (what would be obvious when one or more violations was investigated) unofficial company policy to infringe licenses.

      Damages aside, if one piece of GPLed code is inadvertantly included, a court is likely to demand that it is removed, but not that the whole product becomes GPL.

      If this is being done as a matter of course (and regardless of whether or not there was any written evidence, it sounds like a consistent pattern of violation at your company would have presented almost incontrovertible evidence that this behaviour was sanctioned as unwritten policy), the court ruling may well be different.

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  8. Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by Chris+Kamel · · Score: 1, Interesting

    decided to read the "hidden" replies first before replying myself and found it's all been said already.
    But why is the dumb comment being replied to at +5 while the truly insightful AND correct replies are at +3 max

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  9. Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by tolan-b · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As far as I understand it, the GPL has a clause saying that any patents that cover the code being distributed must be licensed for everyone's free use. That's not the case with Microsoft's shared source.

  10. Re:Stop thinking small! by WNight · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Microsoft has lobbied to keep the US government from using open source and has done their best to hurt open source and the people involved in it.

    I'd say that's a good argument for them being prevented from using any open-source of public domain project. After all, it is communism...

    But yeah, the point of the BSD license is to get closed-source companies like MS to use the standards. They in no way deserve it, but it's in everyone's best interests that they do.

  11. Re:Trolling by submitter by Secrity · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "For the submitter to assume that Microsoft has GPL code is nothing short of trolling. Internally, Microsoft has a strict policy against GPL code.""

    The submitter's article did not state that the submitter assumed that there was GPL'd code in MS products.

    "On the other hand, what I would like to know is how many OSS projects reverse engineer Microsoft products to implement functionality"

    Why do you believe that any laws or the EULA were broken by people implementing any funtionality in GPL'd software? If there were laws broken, do you not believe that Microsoft would have the people who broke the laws or the EULA in court?

    "Did anyone notice that the Firefox popup blocked notification changed to look like the IE 6 SP2 blocker?

    Did you notice that MS Windows looks alot like a windowing system that Xerox invented, or that MS Windows looks like the windowing system used on the Apple Lisa and the Apple Macintosh -- all of which predate MS Windows. Did you notice that Excel looks like VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3? Do you feel that it was wrong for MS to have copied the look and feel (and possibly even the name) of products invented by Xerox, Apple, and VisiCalc?

  12. Re:windows already has some by DJCacophony · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No, the GPL is more free because it does not permit anyone to take away anyone else's freedom. Being able to take away somebody's freedom is a freedom in itself. The BSD licence provides this freedom. The GPL does not. Therefore, the BSD license provides a freedom the GPL does not, meaning it is more free.

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  13. You know it's copied when... by Shazow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For one of our second year programming assignments, our lecturer posted a bunch of example code that she used during lecture.

    It was sockets in C. The code was very poorly written, it actually contained a couple of GOTO statements. One of the files contained a typo in the commenting, so I figured... Let's google it!

    And wouldn't you know it, several hundred results.

    I'm not sure what I was angry at: Our lecturer not giving any indication that she didn't write the code, or not citing her sources, or giving us such crappy code to start with...

    But needless to say, I was angry. :D Still am! *shakes fist*

    So, to tie this to the topic, nothing works better than searching for typos! :D Google does a decent job for those who don't have access to a fancy OSS database.

    - shazow