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

Misleading summary

[CogDissident]

So, its a software violation on windows, but really its just one program thats not terribly popular that happens to have broken the GPL. I really don't think this is a "windows specific" issue at all. They can, and likely do, violate the GPL on linux or mac all the time. Infact, said company sells software for the iPod.

Windows devs don't know much about GPL

[Shados]

I used to work for a very large (not software) company (somewhere in fortune 20) that was using GPL stuff left and right without complying to the terms and redistributing.

I personaly don't care much for the GPL, but I do care for complying with licenses and copyright, so I mentionned it to them. Their answer was "GPwhat? No, its free code people give away on the net!". My reply was a long explaination of the difference between "free to do whatever" and the GPL, and even repeating several time, I'd literaly get the same answer: "But...its free! What conditions could there be?".

Eventually I got through by explaining to a project manager, who essentially said that the day someone asks for the source, we'll give it, and that will be that. I still don't think they realised what it meant considering the amount of trade secrets that were in the code, but...

Rentacoder & others

[drspliff]

I've noticed that on a lot of the rentacoder style sites where people are asking for clones of this or that or just a general program (e.g. I want a DVD writing application), in order for developers to remain profitable they cannot write everything from scratch - like Nero and others have have done (just an example).

On a few occasions when I used to freelance, I've warned people that in order to deliver something on time they'd need to buy-in external components, and to deliver something on budget they'd need to use existing GPL/LGPL or BSD licensed components along with some suggestions and a full rundown of the licensing requirements.

In response to atleast one of these I was just told to strip the copyright from a GPL component and hide it in the application.

The problem isn't really in the violations themselfs, but in the commercial commodity software ecosystem (mostly Windows) where people build up software portfolios as fast as possible for the lowest cost just to try and get market share (and profit). In this desparate effort to get products to market most are just a re-branded combination of existing software, which usually end up violating source code licenses.

Basically when consumers start caring about ethical software the industry will start changing. Until then we still have a problem :)

patent and GPL?

[pruss]

I wonder if they have the proper mpeg-2 visual patent licenses for mpeg2enc. They may be caught in a bind. If they obtain the patent licenses for mpeg2 encoding, then they may be violating the GPL since they are not allowing their users to pass the patent licenses on (they can't allow that, as the mpeg2 encoding license won't allow them to allow them that). And if they don't obtain the patent licenses, they're likely to get sued. Since I suspect they're more likely to get sued by someone with money for good lawyers for patent violation than for GPL violation, they may be making a shrewd--though immoral and illegal--decision to pay for the patent licenses but to violate the GPL.

Or they're just careless.

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Re:Clarifying copyrights

[radish]

I often see the intent of GPL as "we prefer that there were not copyright laws but if you insist there are then you have to obey them with regard to this code".


Then I think you see a different intent than most people. What you are describing is much closer to BSD - here's the code, do what you like with it but just don't claim it's yours. The GPL makes use of copyright to ensure that you can only do certain things with the code - most notably that you must share the source of any modifications you make. Note that if copyright law didn't exist I could still quite happily give you a binary but keep the source to myself, which is now what the GPL wants.