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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.

3 of 445 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Richard Stallman... by ScrappyLaptop · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Thanks, AC. I actually had a visceral reaction to that mental image and now my morning coffee just doesn't taste as sweet.

  2. Re:Well.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "Agnosticism is the absence of decisiveness." -- WTF?

    Many years ago I decided to be an Agnostic, because:
          a) I decided that I did not have enough information about the existence of a deity to reach a valid conclusion for or against such existence.
          b) Based on what everyone else seems to accept as evidence, I decided that no one else has enough information to reach a valid conclusion on that issue, either.

    I reaffirm that decision every time I hear someone try to justify their belief for or against the existence of a deity, because no one ever manages to come up any sort of realistic evidence, either.

    Today I decided that you don't know what you're talking about.

  3. Re:Well.. by WNight · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The thing is that there's as much proof of a deity, any deity, as there is for the crazy concept of an invisible pink unicorn, space nazis, or literally any other fiction. Technically Star Trek might actually be a true story, cast backwards in time and disguised as just a TV show to avoid tipping off the klingons. But should we give that viewpoint equal weight in schools?

    Eventually you must admit that it's common sense to say "If there's no evidence, it's likely not true" simply because of the infinite number of "it" that we could be talking about.

    Atheism is just the common sense to say that because agnostics are right, and there can't ever really be any actual evidence, that any conclusions people draw are drawn without evidence and therefore worthless.