The Open-Source Detector

Re:windows already has some by jeroenb · 2005-05-04 00:31 · Score: 3, Informative

Because the BSD license explicitly allows them to do this.

GPL violations! by jeroenb · 2005-05-04 00:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

appears to be the whole point of this tool anyway.

Re:GPL violations! by Jim_Callahan · 2005-05-04 00:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Fair enough, I guess. Way to streamline the process of flooding the nation with pointless lawsuits. Maybe between this and medical malpractice, we'll finally be buried under a mile of paper and preserved for future generations of africans to excavate, like in that children's book I read once. Forgot the title.

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...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~

Re:DLL encryption will render this ineffective by jdmetz · 2005-05-04 00:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

This tool is meant for commercial software companies to use, to ensure that they are not mistakenly using GPL code in their programs. It is not for open source developers to find misuses of their own code.

Re:windows already has some by Bill_the_Engineer · 2005-05-04 00:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why hasn't anyone gone after MS for this?

You have confused Open Source with GPL. There is nothing wrong with using Open Source in applications as long as the license permits it.

Why should Microsoft be singled out for it? Expecially when we had people taking GPL'ed code and selling it as closed source...

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These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...

I wonder... by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · 2005-05-04 00:38 · 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.

Re:I wonder... by FidelCatsro · 2005-05-04 01:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Glad to know im not the only one worrying about this.The tool has an anual use fee in the tens of thousands , now the only people using this are not going to be companys who worry that GPL code may slip in(most will have a fairly good clue if it has and not want it publicised) its going to be people who want to try and make some money with patent litegation.

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The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Re:I wonder... by McDutchie · 2005-05-04 01:28 · Score: 4, Informative

My employer already uses an internally-developed GPL-scanner tool which is required to be run across all sources before we release a new product version. The company also requires all developers to take yearly training on the issues of OSS and GPL. We do support the ideas of OSS and GPL, and put out OSS offerings of our own, but it would be financially devastating to us if our commercial products were forced to be open-sourced.

It's a widespread and unfortuate myth that your product automatically becomes subject to the GPL if you (accidentally or otherwise) violate the GPL by including GPL'ed code. In such a case, a copyright violation has been committed and you have to remove the code in question, and possibly pay damages -- but your product will not become open source (unless, of course, you choose to make it open source as a way of remedying the license violation).
Re:I wonder... by cahiha · 2005-05-04 03:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

I hear this argument a lot, and it's got one fatal flaw -- you cannot use GPL code legally without opening your source.

Correct.

This line of argument seems to be along the lines of "of course you can use GPLed code - just don't get caught", and it's always worried me. Correct me if I'm wrong, I frequently am!

No, that's not what it means. What it means is that the penalties and consequences of violating the GPL are not automatically that your source code itself falls under the GPL. In fact, placing your code under the GPL after the fact is not even sufficient as a legal remedy--it is simply not relevant to anything.

By analogy, if you park in a no-parking zone, the penalty and consequence is not automatically that your car gets towed; maybe you'll get a fine or maybe your car gets disabled instead. And it certainly isn't sufficient for you to say "my bad" and just drive away--you still got a ticket and will have to pay that.

How the copyright holder and how the courts deal with you if you violate the GPL depends on your behavior and on your product. You seem to think that forcing a company to GPL its code is the worst thing that can happen to it if they violate the GPL, but that's not true. On the other hand, that may be too severe a consequence. Either way, changes to the license of the code that was used to violate the GPL after the fact simply aren't relevant to the legal issue of the GPL violation. The only way they may enter is part of a voluntary negotiated settlement, if the copyright holder on the GPL'ed software agrees to accept that as a remedy.
Re:I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-04 03:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, that's not the point of the argument, the point of the argument is that illegally using GPL'd code is no different than illegally using proprietary code that you haven't properly licensed - it's a copyright violation, plain and simple.

Some people try to paint the GPL as even more dangerous by claiming that unlike proprietary code where you'd only have to pay damages, the GPL would force you to open up all your code and "take away" all of your "intellectual property".

The point isn't that corporations would be deliberately using code that they don't have a right to use, the point is that a large enough corporation can never trust all of its employees.
Re:I wonder... by zootm · 2005-05-04 04:14 · Score: 2, Informative

That's a fair enough argument -- but it always seems that people's queries are formed in the way "My company would like to (purposefully) use GPLed code, but we can't because we'd need to open ours" and people jump all over it as a fallacious argument, which it's not.

The BSD license argument by marcovje · 2005-05-04 00:41 · 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.

Re:The BSD license argument by mshiltonj · 2005-05-04 00:55 · Score: 2

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.

Granted. However, if they do so, their horse isn't so high when they harp on and on about having strict intellectual property controlls. *They* benefit from the work of others, how can they call it a cancer?

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Software Wars
Re:The BSD license argument by Spoing · 2005-05-04 01:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

No one licence -- BSD, GPL, other oss, or any of the closed source licences -- are always ideal. Anyone who thinks there is one true licence isn't very smart. Advocate what is appropriate.

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Re:The BSD license argument by drsmithy · 2005-05-04 01:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

*They* benefit from the work of others, how can they call it a cancer?
Because the GPL spreads out to affect more than just the GPLed code that was originally introduced and its subsequent modifications.
Re:The BSD license argument by WNight · 2005-05-04 02:04 · 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.
Re:The BSD license argument by drsmithy · 2005-05-04 02:29 · Score: 2, Informative

No it doesn't. It only affects code that is combined with the GPL code and released. You can use the code with your own code to your heart's content, but if you want to distribute GPL code then any code combined with it needs to be GPL (or GPL compatible) as well.
Indeed. Of course, "combined" in GPL-speak can mean "linked", so you can end up with code completely unrelated to any GPLed code having to be GPLed because it's magically become "combined" with the GPLed code.

As I said, the problem is the GPL can spread to "infect" code that has no relation whatsoever to the GPLed code. Hence, some people call it "cancerous".

But of course you accepted the license when you used the code so that shouldn't cause you any problems. It's entirely voluntary. If you decide you want to release your code, but not GPL it, you can just replace the GPL code with more of your own.

There are few things more reliable than the GPL zealot's tendency to dismiss anything remotely critical of the GPL with the "but it's voluntary" spiel. Hell, it's practically the Godwin's Law of the 2000s.

So it doesn't affect any code unless the author of that code wants it to. How's that for freedom?

Like your lines about it being "voluntary" above, completely irrelevant. The original poster wanted to know how "they" can refer to the GPL as "cancer". The answer to his question is because that's precisely what the GPL is *designed* to do - generate more GPLed code by "infecting" other code.
Re:The BSD license argument by WNight · 2005-05-04 17:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

But you're just parroting the Microsoft line. They didn't make hardware cheap - the Apple2, C64, and a host of other computers were cheaper than any IBM clone you could buy for quite a while. Did Microsoft make the IBM clones cheaper? No, they charged for what had always been free in the PC world - an OS, that made computers more expensive.

They didn't make the office suite mainstream, that was already happening. Sure, it kept happening while they were around, but it's not like they made something happen that wouldn't have otherwise.

OLE and similar technologies aren't bad, but they're nothing the market wasn't exploring at the time. Apple's OS does the same things.

As for the IDE, they do release the most popular, but that's a function of market share. They didn't invent it - the first I used was Borland C in the early 90s and it was a pale copy of what commercial IDEs were on big iron. As for mainstreaming rapid application development... whoa - where to start?

And I'll take issue with your taking issue with my comment on prices. Microsoft's sole price advantage has always been working on commodity hardware. Arguably this is Intel's doing - the cross licensing they did to be a military supplier and the "clone" market this caused made the x86 the defacto standard. Microsoft just rode the cheap Taiwanese hardware market.

Sure, many Microsoft products are now cheap, and many people who couldn't have had an office suite in the 80s now have one, but they'd have one on whatever hardware and OS existed - every type of product Microsoft makes was already around on other platforms. It might have been WordPerfect or Appleworks, but they were already around in the mid 80s and seem to

You simply miss the perspective you'd have gained if you watched the PC revolution unfold instead of listening to Microsoft tell the story.

Seeing as how Microsoft hasn't brought us anything that other companies wouldn't have bought (likely with less criminal actions involved), their anti-open source policies, and their format and licensing lock-in, I stand by my statement that a PC is more costly today and the market worse off than it would have been if Microsoft hadn't become an OS monopoly and illegally leveraged that into market share dominance in other areas.

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by Speare · 2005-05-04 00:41 · Score: 4, Informative

This tool can't possibly ensure that some binary wasn't made by someone who looked at the open source version, and just reimplemented the same ideas.

Um, last time I checked, this is a quite reasonable approach. You can paraphrase your book report in school, you can paraphrase your predecessor's speech, you can take photographs from famous vistas, and you can rewrite your own closed code inspired from Open Source algorithms.

Source code is protected by copyright-- that is, literal or near-literal copies containing the essence of expression. Open Source code doesn't require that reverse engineering must be done in a clinical clean-room black-box methodology. That's kinda the POINT of Open Source: show people how it's done.

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[ .sig file not found ]

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by kagemaru · 2005-05-04 00:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

Usually the key to things is not the actual implementation used, but the algorithm behind it.

That's fine. Algorithms cannot/should not be copyrighted or patented.

Re:DLL encryption will render this ineffective by FooBarWidget · 2005-05-04 00:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Mistakenly using GPL code"? How can anyone use GPL code on accident? You downloaded a tarball, you extracted it, you opened it in a text editor, you copied and pasted the code. And then you tell your boss that you did that "on accident"?
Can anyone explain this to me?

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by Jim_Callahan · 2005-05-04 00:43 · Score: 2

Heh. Soon someone will write a 'Gpl encrypter' that does this automatically. Whee, a new version of encryption wars!

--
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~

high costs? by moz25 · 2005-05-04 00:43 · 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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see a Text Widget

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by Erwos · 2005-05-04 00:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

"This tool can't possibly ensure that some binary wasn't made by someone who looked at the open source version, and just reimplemented the same ideas."

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Reputable colleges and universities do exactly that sort of check in CS courses - there are any number of tools designed to check for cheating, and they are not fooled by anything so trivial as changing variable names or swapping a couple statements. They are pretty good at catching cheaters, too.

You are correct in that it can't check "some [random] binary", but this tool was made to run against source.

I'm trying to remember where I'm not allowed to reimplement other people's ideas to begin with, though.

-Erwos

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Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.

Be careful of FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-04 00:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

The whole advantage of open source is you are not tied to the whims of the original developer.

This seems to be a resurrection of an old attack strategy, pretend that open source is such an burdensome onerouse license that you have to hunt open source code down like a virus.

Its not something to be encouraged!

sigh by Turn-X+Alphonse · 2005-05-04 00:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

The whole concept of code seems to scream "Some will be the same". Very basic things will look very similar between several things and with the current "justice" system and ignorance of most people this is going to screw OSS.

I just think it's pathetic that we live in an era where people trying to do something nice gets stabbed in the back for it..

--
I like muppets.

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-04 00:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

> This tool can't possibly ensure that some binary wasn't made by someone who looked at the open source version, and just reimplemented the same ideas.

What the fuck are you talking about ?

GPL is a based on copyright. You can't copy/paste the code.

Re-implementing the algos is fine, and have always been.

It is 100% FUD to pretend that code become tainted because you looked a GPL source. Don't spread this. Microsoft would LOVE people to beleive that. It would end up like this in interviews:

- Did you contributed to an open-source project ?
- Well, I once fixed a bug in mozilla
- Sorry, our lawyers said we can't hire you
- Why ?
- You would contamine our IP

Repeat after me. GPL is COPYRIGHT. There is no IP involved. There have NEVER been.

Re:Bah... humbug. by asliarun · 2005-05-04 00:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

This sounds more like an auditing software. It looks like this tool would allow you to scan an existing codebase to check for the existence of open-source code nuggets. Considering the licensing minefields that exist today, it's probably a good thing for a release manager to do before a "release to production". This is especially so because a lot of developers routinely copy-paste code from the net and usually don't read the license accompanying the code.

IMHO, this is quite an innovative tool, and would save a release or a project manager a lot of headaches in terms of legal compliance.

something about this dosn't make me as happy as .. by FidelCatsro · 2005-05-04 00:48 · Score: 3, Informative

The company has some other bussiness such as , outsourcing

For companies engaging outsourced developers, Palamida: * Reduces your exposure to inadventant IP risksTake hold of software outsourcing by quickly assessing the origins of software IP sourced from contractors. * Helps the origins and ownership of third-party code. * Gets the most of out open source and externally developed tools. * Increases efficiency, consistency and understanding.

Now its wonderfull theat they help people get the most out of OSS software but i dont like the fact they are making outsourcing easier .This is not so much a problem where i live but in the USA as i understand it many people are loosing their jobs in the tech industry thanks to companys trying to save a fair bit by outsourcing to cheaper areas .

The Outsourcer: A Best-in-Class Tool for Best-in-Class Processes Outsourcers are playing an increasingly crucial role in global software development. Large, medium and small companies are looking to tap developers in the hopes of advancing their own software IP and business opportunities. <ecode> Again , I wouldnt want to do bussiness with a company that promotes this behavious , i am all for globalistation , but not for screwing people over as the companys seek to hype profits by exploiting cheap labout , Now safely aparently.. Perhaps i missunderstand the term outsourcing in this sense , though to me it always say "Contracters so we dont have honour the workers rights, localy or globaly". <ecode>For M&A teams, Palamida helps: * Identify and quantify IP issues early in the deal. * Improve certainty before closure, increasing your closure rate. * Reduce your legal exposure. * Immediately value software innovation and intellectual property. * Tap into the most up-to-date software IP database available. * Secure the best possible valuation.

<b>* Speed your assessment of open source and third-party code.</b>

Again my second problem is there strong patent support here .It just makes me as someone who uses and contributes to OSS uneasy.(just my opinion and how i feel , not a statment of fact )

IP Diligence, Compliance Enforced

On to the legal section ,Their bussines model is basicaly that of enforcing IP rights , sure that may help us find companys abusing GPL code , but it also swings both ways and can open up a whole host of patent cases against GPL software.

For counsel, Palamida: * Improves the timeliness and quality of legal diligence * Automates compliance processes. * Provides real time information on your code base. * Adapts to your business processes and workflow.

Fair enough this can be usefull in this day and age , allowing you to pay them to make sure your not infringing on any patents , But this just dosn't work on 90% of the OSS projects out there , i am betting it costs a fair whack.Most people using this on OSS are IMHO going to be looking to enforce a patent case ala SCO.The potential minefield here is not fun.

or the open source community, Palamida: * Supports and evangelizes on the use of open source software. * Boosts productivity by spending time developing and not worrying. * Pushes forward in unison with legal and business staff. * Materially reduces open source compliance concerns. * Creates new business by proving the merits of open source technology

Now that is alot better ,I can strongly respect what they are doing here .Still i dont like that they keep harping on about IP compliance..

I am probably just being paranoid an

--
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though

Re:windows already has some by DrSkwid · 2005-05-04 00:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

How can a perfectly acceptable use of BSD code (BSD code in non-OSS projects) be abuse ?

The BSD goal is good code, not open code.

--
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter

Re:DLL encryption will render this ineffective by Vo0k · 2005-05-04 00:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Except decrypting the code before running it takes significant portion of CPU time, effectively making the "open source alternatives" much faster. Hiding, obscuring, obfuscating, all that creates a lot of overhead...

And of course it can be done by examining the memory dump instead of executable file. It must be decrypted to run.

--
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"

Re:DLL encryption will render this ineffective by cortana · 2005-05-04 00:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Maybe you farmed it out to Elbonia, and got back thinly-veiled rip of some Free Software code.

Re:Bah... humbug. by graywolf001 · 2005-05-04 00:54 · Score: 3, Funny

You dont get the point of the whole thing at all. This is not for searching open source code that you could use.
This is so that you can detect OS code in your own source code. Presumably if you're managing a commercial software company you'd want to know if your developers have simply been copying code from some OS project.
It can do binaries too if you actually read the thing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some code I need to obfuscate ;-)

Will probably find many blatant violators. by putko · 2005-05-04 00:55 · 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.

--
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html

Re:Will probably find many blatant violators. by Dogtanian · 2005-05-04 02:28 · 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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Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by MartinG · 2005-05-04 00:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

This tool can't possibly ensure that some binary wasn't made by someone who looked at the open source version, and just reimplemented the same ideas.

Good. So long as all they are doing is gathering ideas there is nothing wrong with that. Its like me reading harry potter and then writing a book about wizards. Of course I should be allowed to.

Next you'll be telling us that someone could just look at an application working and then write their own implementation incorporating some of the same ideas. Should they be stopped from that as well? Oh wait, they can be. That's what software patents are often used for.

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Re:windows already has some by FidelCatsro · 2005-05-04 00:55 · Score: 3, Informative

Actualy thats a bit wrong , the nature of the BSD license allows people to do what the hell they want with it , so in essence you cant abuse the BSD license.
This is why some people love the BSD license as they see it as total freedom and i have much respect for it myself .
I just prefer the GPL way as we get back any changes and thats gaurenteed by the license(if the software is released , i belive its ok not to feed the changes if its an internal tool only)

--
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though

Simple... by Kjella · 2005-05-04 01:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

...seriously, have you looked at how well people respect copyright? Do you expect employees to cease being human when they walk in the door? All it takes is one worker to "download a tarball, extract it, open it in a text editor, copy and past the code", then tell his boss the task is done.

Kjella

--
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by tolan-b · 2005-05-04 01:23 · 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.

Re:windows already has some by shrykk · 2005-05-04 01:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

The GPL is less free than BSD because it does not grant the licensee as many freedoms.

No, the GPL is more free because it does not permit anyone to take away anyone else's freedom. Say I write some GPL code. You are free to use it, modify it, sell it if you want, but you may not tell any later user or developer that they can't enjoy the same freedoms you have enjoyed.

Scenario 1: Person A writes some GPL code. Person B uses it and modifies it, and releases the code. Everyone else is free to use that code as they wish, as long as they don't try to restrict anyone else's rights.
Scenario 2: Person A writes some BSD-licensed code. Person B uses it, modifies it and starts selling it as a shrink-wrapped product. All his users are restricted by EULAs. They can't have the source code, they can't legally share the program, and they're stuck if B discontinues the product.

In which scenario do you think the licensees have more freedom? It's free as in liberty, not free as in 'free ride'.

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#define struct union /* Reduce memory usage */

Stop thinking small! by argent · 2005-05-04 01:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Not only that but whenever I've been present when someone has asked the people who wrote the code if it's OK for Microsoft to use it, they didn't say "we can't stop them", they said "we want them to use it".

I don't see how you can possibly come up with a more ethical or moral justification for it than that.

Re:Stop thinking small! by WNight · 2005-05-04 01:56 · 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.

Re:windows already has some by cortana · 2005-05-04 01:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

The reason I said "regardless of whether you think it is good or bad" was to ignore discussions such as this.

It is very simple: the BSD license is more free, because it grants more freedoms.

Yes, to take this to its logical extreme means that anarchy is maximum freedom. No, this would not be a good thing; but by trying to argue that the GPL is more free (when you should have said that it is better for the user of Person A's software) you have already accepted that unlimited freedom isn't such a good thing anyway.

Re:DLL encryption will render this ineffective by mr_z_beeblebrox · 2005-05-04 01:47 · Score: 4, Funny

You downloaded a tarball, you extracted it, you opened it in a text editor, you copied and pasted the code. And then you tell your boss that you did that "on accident"? Can anyone explain this to me?

Muscle memory?

For those in the dark side of the force, by Pastis · 2005-05-04 01:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

this tool can help you to make sure you change just enough the stolen implementation so that the tool won't detect the similarities, giving you an approval stamp without too much work :)

--
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game

Re:DLL encryption will render this ineffective by fishbot · 2005-05-04 02:00 · Score: 3, Informative

It's not as hard as you make out to use GPL code by accident, especially library code. Consider the plight of a poor developer, forced with unmeetable deadlines and a fire-breathing boss with a P45 waiting (I've been there, it happens).

He needs to implement a specific piece of functionality and fast. He searches the web and finds some 'sample' code and thinks "just the job".

Copy.. paste..

You now have GPL code in your application, copied and pasted direct. Why? Malicious and callous hatred of free software? No, an accident. Carelessness. A quick fix in a tight spot.

It happens. I've seen it.

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by mzwaterski · 2005-05-04 02:01 · Score: 3, Informative

For students, paraphrasing is a part of learning. If you can read something that someone else wrote and rewrite it in your own words you probably know the material. If you go and photocopy a page in a book all you've learned is how to make photocopies.

Further, not everything that takes time is wasteful. Copyright is intended to protect the expression of ideas, not the underlying ideas. Thus, you don't protect the idea of love or even the words I love you, but you can protect the expression of love and the words I love you in the context of lyrics to a song possibly with a musical score.

Re:Ouch. by GigsVT · 2005-05-04 02:32 · Score: 4, Informative

They can demand you open-source any application that contains GPL'd code.

No, they can't. Stop spreading this myth.

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Re:Trolling by submitter by Secrity · 2005-05-04 02:48 · 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?

Re:DLL encryption will render this ineffective by cortana · 2005-05-04 02:50 · Score: 2, Informative

OH NOES TEH DLL ARE ENCRYPTED!!1one

The code must be decrypted at some point in order to be run. If what you said was true, we would have uncrackable copy protection.

Your scheme is a variant of DRM, and like all DRM schemes is fundamentally flawed, because the person you are trying to keep the data from, is the exact same person that you are making the data available to.

Re:windows already has some by DJCacophony · 2005-05-04 02:55 · 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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You know it's copied when... by Shazow · 2005-05-04 03:39 · 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

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by cahiha · 2005-05-04 03:42 · Score: 2, Informative

Frankly, that's why I never really understood the point of copyright.

The point of copyright is to let people derive commercial rewards from the expression of ideas; copyright does not protect the ideas themselves.

(I apply this word here to code as well as other textual material) is alright, even though fundamentally it's the same thing, only more time-consuming;

No, it's not "fundamentally the same thing". There have been thousands of Mary-with-baby pictures. It's the expression--the actual painting--that is the work. If you create a new painting yourself, it contains the same ideas, but the work is, as you observe, in the actual creation of the painting. That's what copyright is supposed to do.

Patents are designed for protecting ideas themselves; patents are deliberately harder to get and more limited.

Re:No Gurantee Against reimplentation by shaitand · 2005-05-04 06:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

The reason you are tainted from looking at shared source is the two headed. First the license itself prevents you from utilizing the knowledge with contract law. Second, everything there is software patented.

Copyright does not require a cleanroom implementation. Patents do. Open source code is not patented.

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