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Beware of "Backspaceware"
SubLevel writes "Since conception in 2004, Paint.NET has been generously been offering the software community the taste of successful freeware, by allowing anyone to download and decipher the entire working of their extremely popular photo editing program. As posted in the Official Paint.NET blog by Rick Brewster, "Backspaceware" as he has so coined has become a tremendous issue. "Paint.NET's license is very generous, and I even release the source code. All free of charge. Unfortunately it gets taken advantage of every once in awhile by scum who are trying to profit from the work of others. I like to call this backspaceware*. They download the source code for something, load it up in to Visual Studio (or whatever), hit the backspace key over the software's name and credits, type in a new name and author, and re-release it. They send it to all the download mirror sites, and don't always do a good job covering up their tracks.""
I been have been good at proofreading.
to the solution to your problems.
The majority of copyright licenses used for popular free software applications require people who redistribute the software to preserve the original author's copyright notice. Failure to do so is plagiarism, and the license treats plagiarism as copyright infringement.
This is a good reason to implement obfuscated C for things like the program name and author.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
His "solution" to this seems to be to close the source for parts of the program, which is a major overreaction to this joker.
I don't think he should be worried - as long as his (the "genuine") program appears higher up in Google for the name and the important search terms, people will ignore the plagiarist.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
I've seen this a number of times, shady people who only want to make a quick buck or have entirely unrealistic expectations of what software development costs or how it's done. At the root of this problem are either the shady people trying to make a quick buck, or the shady freelancers trying to meet the requirements on a non-existant budget.
Lets take the average scenario:
- Shady person sees a piece of software and thinks they can make some money if they made their own.
- Shady person has no programming knowledge, so posts on rentacoder or similar.
- Because they have no idea of what software development entails, or in order to make money it must cost next to nothing.
- Shady freelancer or outsourcing business wins the bid.
- Shady freelancer re-brands an existing piece of software in a day and the job's complete.
Quite a few times this is down to freelancers knowing they can just re-brand an existing open-source project, or even the shady business knowing they can get it cheap if freelancers do that.
Some times they get lucky and their "product" gets more success than the original project, but it's origins are now hidden and will be forever because you can't just come clean 6-12 months down the line when it's making money.
I've long called this pump and dump software, companies or individuals trying to build up a large portfolio of software under a common brand covering the widest market possible in the remote hope that they'll profit from some.
That isn't a feature of capitalism, it's a feature of human nature. Yes, it does mean you can't blindly trust a capitalist system from sorting everything out, but it is the very same principles which causes communist countries to go corrupt, and it is also why extreme liberalism will be taken advantage of by those who have the power/influence/money whatever to game the system.
Corruption isn't a matter of how governance is organised or how you set prices in your economy, it is a matter of transparency, openness and people being held responsible for their actions. If that does not apply it matters fuck all what economic system you use, you will just get different people screwing you over.
Now before people start suggesting direct democracy or some far-fetched ideal about having every company democratically controlled by the workers, you need to take into consideration that for democracy to work you need a transparent electoral system you can trust. Thus it still boils down to government transparency and people being slapped when they break the rules. There is no way around that.
As a freeware author, reputation is all you can expect to get in return for your work. It's bad enough that so many ad-laden download sites exist which make users jump through hoops to get the actual file or find a link to the homepage, all the while bombarding them with banners and popups. Never mind that the file is usually available from the well-sorted homepage without a hitch. But now some people even rip you off for the attribution. Quite frankly, be thankful for every piece of freeware that is still out there, because most authors wouldn't take that kind of shit if they got paid for it.
WRONG! The MARKET solves ALL problems! Communist!
I've had this happen to projects I lead. Adware/spyware is almost always bundled (it's distribution is the primary motivation for Backspaceware), and this definitely causes harm. Fortunately, sites like download.com have a review process and they found my email address buried in the 'about' dialog, I guess the backspacers missed one...
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
Better not give that prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor any ideas. They might try to put CentOS out of business.
Sometimes there is a direct loss when work is plagiarised. Also, Google has odd algorithms for determining how high one should place in their rankings. I release all my data under the GPL and often legitimate copies and absolute ripoffs both rank higher than I do for most search terms I would expect people to find my site with. Monetary loss aside, the fact that someone is trying to pass off another's hard work as their own is simply despicable.
I spend a lot of time writing a PHP script for myself and decided to release it to the public. I think I threw a GPL notice on it but the source was included either way due to it being PHP. Well I put it up on my website and a few months later go back to update it. I search online and find someone selling it for $50. He refused to take it down when I asked him to which really added insult to injury. (He claimed he downloaded it from limewire therefore its fair game? wtf?) Considering he was actively advertised "his program" (mine with my name and stuff backspaced) he got a lot more people to download it then I did even though mine was free. I eventually got him to take it down by sending a cease and desist notice. (Thanks for the template RIAA)
That's fraud: the "backspacer" is lying to every person who downloads the modified software from him (and probably infecting them with spyware too). Many Slashdot participants, like myself, believe that copying and redistribution should be legal with or without the author's permission, but that doesn't mean we approve of fraud. Sharing copies of Star Wars is not the same as telling everyone you're George Lucas.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Here's the thing:
1. Various people in this thread cannot see the harm in distributing software without giving credit for it.
2. The Author of the software sees this practice as harmful, whether as a material loss, a potential to lose copyright by not defending it, The principle of the thing or any number of other reasons. The only thing that matters is the author believes he has been harmed by this copyright infringement.
3. These are contradictory viewpoints, and amount to little more than opinion when placed in a vacuum. The rational, logical discussion you think you're looking for is impossible. We are forced to look at how disputes like this have been settled in the past, an appeal to the majority in the form of looking at established laws.
Therefore, the law IS relevant, and is pretty clear cut in this circumstance. Society judges harm has occured.
If you want to make an arguement without considering established law, all you're doing is intellectual masturbation. If you want to make an arguement about how the law should be changed, by all means, make it.