GPL Violations On Windows Go Unnoticed?

Scott_F writes "I recently reviewed several commercial, closed-source slideshow authoring packages for Windows and came across an alarming trend. Several of the packages I installed included GPL and LGPL software without any mention of the GPL, much less source code. For example, DVD Photo Slideshow (www.dvd-photo-slideshow.com) included mkisofs, cdrdao, dvdauthor, spumux, id3lib, lame, mpeg2enc, and mplex (all of which are GPL or LGPL). The company tried to hide this by wrapping them all in DLLs. There are other violations in other packages as well. Based on my testing of other software, it seems that use of GPL software in commercial Windows applications is on the rise. My question is how much are GPL violations in the Windows world being pursued? Does the FSF or EFF follow up on these if the platform is not GPL? How aware is the community of this trend?" This new method of detecting GPL violations could help here.

Comments

Well..

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Did you try to contact the company? If not, that would be the first step.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, GPL software does not need to be accompanied by the source, but it does need to be accompanied by an offer to give you the source. The original article suggests that there was no such offer.

Re:fsf is a fair weather friend

[kebes]

I have a hard time with the concept of creating something, keeping a copyright in force, and then signing the copyright away for no benefit to myself

No benefit to yourself? If you're putting code under the GPL, it's usually because you believe in the principles of the GPL (keeping code open source, encouraging freedom, etc.). In such a case, the benefit of signing copyright over to the FSF is that they will take care of enforcement on your behalf.

If I'm not going to hold my own copyright, why not just specifically disavow copyright and let it enrich everybody via the public domain?

If you want your code to be public domain, then you would release it to the public domain in the first place (or use a BSD license). Using the GPL is not a substitute for public domain: it is a license which guarantees certain things, namely it guarantees that the code will remain open and shareable ("free"). If you don't care about code remaining open and shareable, then don't license it under GPL. If you do care about it being open and shareable, then license it under GPL. If you further don't want to deal with the hassles of protecting said license, sign over the copyright to the FSF, who have much experience in such matters.

This is the root of my problem with GNU in general: why show everybody how you achieved and developed a certain technological capability, without letting people actually use that method? ... I think it's just a bit petty to show the code but not authorize its use.

You are basically saying that you prefer BSD to GPL. That's fine. (So, go ahead and license your code that way.) However, understand that the purpose of the GPL is to encourage all code to be "free," where free means: open source, shareable, and guaranteed to remain so.

You appear not to care about the "guaranteed to remain so" part. That's fine. But understand that many among us find closing the source of code that was freely distributed to be rather unfriendly... and we're using copyright law as a tool to help guarantee that the code remains free. This guarantee helps encourage more people to create and to release (because many people would not release their code if they knew that others would commercialize/extend it without giving back). That is, copyright law is achieving, in this case, its stated goal: to encourage the production and dissemination of content.

That, in my mind, is the brilliance of the GPL: it co-opts copyright law, uses it in an unconventional way, and thereby achieves the fundamental purpose of copyright law: to give an incentive for creation and free distribution of creative works.

Re:What's the issue here?

[tinkerghost]

Are you seriously saying that if I bundle mkfsiso with my app and shell out to call it, I have to release my source code too?

No, we are saying that you have to include a copy of the GPL & an address/url where they can get the source of mkfsiso. Your code is your code, but msfsiso isn't yours so you have to follow the rules it's authors established on how it can be used.

Now assuming that the violation is only with the lack of a copy of the GPL & the URL, it's a 2 minute fix to add those to the liscense.txt file that nobody reads for the next run of CDs. I don't think that anyone would argue that that type of fix is an excessive request by the copyright holders in exchange for the volumes of work put into creating mkfsiso.

This reminds me of the big argument the founder of Slackware got into, when he announced he was going to sell distributions. Yes, sell! Oh my god, the horrors of actually charging for somehthing!

Funny doesn't seem like that at all to me. Charge for the work he put into building the distro vs require that he follow the licenses on the works he included in the distro. Two very distinct issues at hand. Seeing as I am almost certain I have seen that software & I believe it comes with a copyright notice on it declairing copyright belongs to the company selling it, I do feel this is a touch different than selling a distro with notices that the copyright belongs to the individual owners.

Legal vs Legitimate

[NeutronCowboy]

I have no idea where you got the idea that people claim that copyright infringement is not illegal. From what I can tell (ignoring the crackpots for a second), the distinction between theft/piracy and copyright infringement is made to remove the "hang 'em high!" component of the piracy/theft argument. No one for a second is arguing that it is not illegal.

However, another point you may have missed is the distinction between illegal and illegitimate - or, conversely, the distinction between legal and legitimate. This is for me a critical aspect of the debate whether it is worse to copy mp3s from someone else or to ignore GPL requirements when redistributing software.

Personally, I think that copying mp3s is often a victimless crime (if I didn't have buy the mp3 at full price because I thought it was overpriced, but then download it later from a friend because he has it results in a zero loss for all involved parties), though can screw over people in particular circumstances. As a result, downloading mp3s is for me a crime on the scale of jaywalking. It might therefore be legal to sue someone for $100000 per infringement, but it doesn't seem legitimate to me. On the other hand, ignoring the GPL when distributing software is taking someone's effort to improve the world, reapproprating it and selling it as your own. Monetary gain or not, it's a shit thing to do.

Again, I challenge you to find me posts that say downloading mp3s is not illegal. I'll show you a post arguing about pre-set levies on blank media or a crackpot. Not only that, but on the more subtle point of whether it is the same thing to download MP3s or to break the GPL license, I completely disagree with you. Breaking the GPL license is to me like stealing candy from a baby - you're a complete jack-ass if you do it. Downloading mp3s.... meh, just make sure to not get caught.