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GPL Violations of Miranda IM
Eesh writes "The Miranda project developers have recently posted to their development blog about two GPL violations of companies using their code - vBuzzer and StarMessenger. Today, they also posted that vBuzzer are taking steps to correct that violation. Hopefully this will work out fine. Miranda 0.401 stable was released recently"
IT looks like star messanger made good. Their source code is on their front page. http://www.starmessenger.net/StarMessenger_src.zip
The Starmessanger program is in violation not because they used GPL'd code and don't make source available. They are completely up front that Starmessagner is actually Miranda, but they screwed up and punted the Miranda copyright information. Thus, it appears that this program is copyrighted/developed by someone other than the actual dev's.
Our copyrights have been removed, this is a violation of the GPL as well as copyright law
Kudos to the Miranda folks for explaining all of this really well.
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One very simple way to at least detect potential similarities is to use strings. In certain situations, you can figure that it should not be likely that two programs would have such identical strings output.
Taking code from a GPL'ed library, though, for example, and integrating that into your $10K+ enterprise application, will most likely not be noticed, even though it is just as illegal.
That would be illegal only if the software package was distributed under non-GPL license. You can sell free (GPL or otherwise) software for $$$ but you have to give the users the same freedoms that you have.
IMblaze , an instant messenger thats main "feature" is it will spam your contacts with crap, was notified by myself and others at least a year ago that its a blatant rip from gaim. The company refuses to send me source.
I informed the devs of gaim, and they aparently wont act (or cant afford to). But aparently are NOT happy about it.
http://www.imblaze.com/screenshots.asp
Someone needs to stop these creeps.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The short answer is: you can't be sure. In practice, however, people who write programs keep abreast of other software in their field (e.g. people who write an IM client quickly hear about other IM clients). Hwoever, it usually takes an alert user to notice suspicious similarities to existing software. It seems the first tell-tale sign is the directory structure. In almost every case posted to slashdot, it was noted that the directory structures were the same.
If you become suspicious, the next thing is to extract the strings utility. The first thing to look for is the error message strings, but if the executable is not stripped then you can see your function names and source file names.
Finally, there's the question of proving that they "stole" your source code, wher your legal claim will usually be that they violated your copyright. Most of the time, they know they are in the wrong and just contacting them is enough. However, not all offenders cooperate. Harald Welte has successfuly won a preliminary injunction in a German court against a company which violated the GPL when using code form the ipfilter/iptables firewall project.
The FSF can't sue anyone unless you assigned your copyright to them or you stole code from their libraries. They just write the license, they aren't the copyright owner.
mkdir download
:back /Q
..\wget -r http://www.imblaze.com/
cd download
del *.*
goto back
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
That appears to be a regular batch file, just install wget for windows
Why should software be free, there's no open source supermarket, no open source houses, no open source cars etc. why should software be free and open source?
Because software can technically be copied at no cost, and therefore has the potential of empowering all people. While your computer is a file copier, have you ever seen a supermarket copier, a house copier, a car copier? No. Each "copy" of a car takes much costly resources. The day we are able to copy these things as easily as files, I'll be a huge proponent of free (as in freedom) cars and houses.
The other aspect of software freedom, namely that of open specs so you can learn from it and improve it, are mostly already present in cars and houses. You can open the lid of a car or tear open the floor of your house to see how it was built and maybe improve things.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
This explanation is where the argument falls down. The new BSD license (or the MIT X11 license which is quite similar) still have requirements for those who distribute derivative works. The requirements are not many, but they are not zero either.
In particular, you may certainly not "do whatever you want" with the source code or any derivative works. The only way to have that power is to either write your own code or base your work on something in the public domain. And even then you cannot "do whatever you want" with any code which implements patented ideas (one of the significant shortcomings of the new BSD and MIT X11 licenses) for which you don't have the appropriate patent license(s).
Furthermore, stealing is not copying. What we're discussing here is not theft, but copyright infringement (I also brought up patent infringement). Those who have the power (yes, power not freedom) to sublicense are not stealing anything, even if the derivative distributor does something that is against the copyright license.
Digital Citizen
The Software Freedom Law Center does exactly that, and is headed up by Eben Moglen himself...
From their page:
You only gave them access to it, given the terms that if they redistributed it, they had to provide source.
...
... well, uh, why give it to them for free, too?
They are getting something from you, you are asking something in return from them. It's kind of like agreeing to buy a car for a set ammount, and then simply never making a payment. Contracts are contracts.
Is there real harm in taking delivery of a car and never making a payment? Not really, I mean, banks have lots of money, right?
As far as fiscal damages, I think you're looking at it the wrong way. If 20 developers work on a piece of GPL'd code for a combined total manhours of 2,000, it would cost $developer_salary X 2,000 hours for the company to reproduce for its own purpose. If they violate your contract, wouldn't it make sense to go after them for the time you spent working on what they claim is their code? You only agreed to give it away for free to people who thought free code was a good idea (basically), if people don't agree with you