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Sothink Violated the FlashGot GPL and Stole Code
ShineTheLight sends in news of two Firefox plug-ins: FlashGot, the original, and Sothink, the GPL-violating come-lately. "People at Sothink decided to violate the GPL by stealing a piece of core code from FlashGot and using it without even the decency of covering their tracks. It is an exact copy of a previous version of FlashGot. This deception came to light when users reported to the FlashGot support forum that their software was not working right. Some digging led to the discovery that the older module that Sothink stole and used verbatim was overriding the more recent engine on the machines of those who had both installed and it was causing the issue. It has been reported to AMO and the FlashGot developer is aware of it. The Sothink people have completely ignored and been silent on the subject. This is why most good programmers will stop contributing to the global community because there are those who will steal their work, pass it off as their own, never acknowledge or give credit, and then shamefully stick their head in the sand and ignore the consequences." The three most recent reviews of Sothink point out this plug-in's dishonest nature. A number of earlier, one-line, 5-star reviews — expressed in a similar style — sound suspiciously like astroturfing.
It's not like firefox extensions are compiled.
This is why most good programmers will stop contributing to the global community because there are those who will steal their work, pass it off as their own, never acknowledge or give credit, and then shamefully stick their head in the sand and ignore the consequences.
[citation needed]
I really don't agree with that sentiment. I mean, there have been a few recent cases (BusyBox) where the company is making money off of it but I don't think SoThink is making a ton of cash off of their plugin. I am not defending SoThink in any way and hope that FlashGot takes action but instead of opting to sue SoThink, I hope he first tries to force them to open up their own tool under the GPL if it is tangled into his code or at least realease all the modifications they have done to his code. He could always turn it over to the EFF for help if he really wants to prosecute to the fullest extent. I doubt that lawsuits are going to help this situation or deter others. They'll just get more crafty about it if they feel the need to.
My work here is dung.
Sic the RIAA on them, then they'll have to pay a million bucks too.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
To quote the quote; "This is why most good programmers will stop contributing to the global community because there are those who will steal their work, pass it off as their own, never acknowledge or give credit, and then shamefully stick their head in the sand and ignore the consequences." Bullshit. Show your source. The advantage here with open source... violators can easily be found. Since the code is GPL there is zero risk of legal repercussions.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Why would you even download this? Their web page and blog looks like it was created from an SEO program for selling viagra.
I love the double-standard so much. Piracy is fine but GPL violations ? OH GOD STOP THE PRESSES. "Yes but you see, it is not the same... Sothink as a company is making money off it." Yeah, maybe. In most case of GPL violations tough, the percentage of the new work work in violation is so small as to be insignificant. And still, if it were another freeware app, people would still complain and scream "TRIAL !" I wonder what the copyright abolitionist would say when copyright is abolished and the GPL stops to be enforceable... Oh well.
"People at Sothink decided to violate the GPL by stealing a piece of core code from FlashGot and using it without even the decency of covering their tracks."
Stealing? A digital artifact?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
If my code gets 'stolen', used without my permission, breaking the terms of the license; what difference does it make as to the license I chose to release it under.
"better ways of doing things eventually just replace the inferior things" - Linus Torvalds 09-08-07
Refactor, relicense.
They should rewrite the whole thing if they can be bothered, and use the BSD license; that way they get what they need, and it would help the rest of us out as well.
Remember, kids; GPL violation is only an issue with code that uses the GPL. If you don't use the GPL, you won't have its' drawbacks.
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement and plagiarism. It's not theft when the RIAA are the victim, and it's not theft when programmers are the victim. Two completely different illegal actions. It's also not a number of other offences - it's not murder, it's not speeding, it's not jaywalking, and it's not theft. Different names for different offences. Get it?
This is why most good programmers will stop contributing to the global community because there are those who will steal their work, pass it off as their own, never acknowledge or give credit, and then shamefully stick their head in the sand and ignore the consequences.
This is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's a good thing that code can be borrowed from one program and used in another. Why re-invent the wheel after all? I thought that's why we wrote open source software - not to receive credit, but because we want to share our work with the world.
The crime here is not that one programmer "stole" the work of another. The crime is that one programmer took advantage of an open resource, but kept their modifications closed.
This is why most good programmers will stop contributing to the global community because there are those who will steal their work, pass it off as their own, never acknowledge or give credit, and then shamefully stick their head in the sand and ignore the consequences
It's not stealing, it's a copyright violation :P
Let's tell these thieves what we think about them. Not just online and by mail, but by phone and fax as well.
TEL: +86(27)67848991
FAX: +86(27)67848990
Ok here is the correct URL to slashdot Sothink. Don't bother the Mozilla server linkeded above.
Inquiringmindswanttoknow !!
If it's okay to download movies and CDs and herpes, what is all the hoopla about gpl ?? Either it's okay to STEAL or it's not okay. If you want it both ways, just say you're BI and get on with the rest of your life.
Fact is, NO CODE WAS STOLEN !! It still exists right where it was before. Only, maybe, somebody has a COPY of this. NOTHING WAS LOST !! IP is a figment if COPYRIGHT HOLDERS imaginations !! NOTHING TO SEE HERE !! Move along !!
There are all kinds of unscrupulous people who will happily take other people's work and pass it as their own. For example, there's an entire bunch of websites devoted to bundling free Wii homebrew utilities with warez-loading apps and a torrent client and selling it as the ultimate Wii softmod get-all-your-games-for-free package. Examples: homebreware.com, playbreware.com, homebrewinstaller.com, mywiidownloads.com... the list goes on. They have sales numbers that are a sizable chunk of total homebrew users and mainly cater to the clueless, earning large amounts of cash for basically nothing.
Our "core" software (specifically, the Twilight Hack, Homebrew Channel, DVDX, BootMii, HackMii Installer, etc) is mostly distributed under a closed-source restrictive "download it from our site and use it, don't redistribute it" license precisely due to these kinds of websites. For example, ordinarily we wouldn't care at all about people mirroring these apps, but one of the favorite excuses from the aforementioned scamsites is that "they're just linking to some third-party mirror". the I've tried to get some of them taken down but it's damn near impossible and their payment processors (Plimus and ClickBank typically) move very slowly and do nothing at all (which is not surprising; after all, they get a cut of the profits). These sites tend to work on affiliate programs and therefore there are dozens of "affiliates" happily buying Google Ads and setting up spam blogs just to promote the scams.
What's even worse is that the warez utilities work backwards too - they let the scammers "pirate" our freeware and sell it for money. For example, our installer includes a large full-screen "if you paid for this you were scammed" warning, but the scammers have now used tools for Wii Channel piracy to distribute the Homebrew Channel without the installer, bypassing that screen. Every time this happens they get a nice 3-6 months until Nintendo puts out another update that would force them to use updated hacks and tools.
This is one of the reasons why I gave up on Wii development. And I don't have plans to touch any console or system where piracy might become a big incentive to run homebrew. Piracy brings in hordes of clueless idiots who just want free games, generally poisons the homebrew community, divides it due to the differing opinions on it, and also comes with dollar-eyed scammers who want to make a quick buck of it all.
That's rather a bold statement. It might even be true if there were no possible redress. But publicizing the wrongdoing and ousting the offenders is quite a powerful part of the community. Of course any similarly-wronged author, proprietary or open-source, also has the law on their side. Hardly an abject situation.
Anybody want a peanut?
Mod parent up. You're absolutely right. No code was "stolen". Code can't be stolen. This is just a small license violation. Not a big deal. The perpetrators are at best ignorant, and at worst, selfish, yet the summary paints them out to be the scum of the earth.
No, the perpetrators committed a crime much worse than theft -- plagiarism. Don't believe me? Go ask any tenured professor at your nearest university.
Steal something from a lab where you work, you'll probably lose your chance at tenure and the job. Commit plagiarism and you'd best start looking for a new career.
...but has the copyright owner confirmed that this was not done with permission? I doubt that it was, but you really should make sure before making accusations of copyright infringement. After all, enforcement is entirely up to the copyright owner.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You just have to go back to the primordial soup to find their most recent common ancestor.
*joke*
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Over the last few years a lot of companies have sprang up using ffmpeg as a backend while shoving some putrid gui over the top which somehow justifies the pricetag (in this case "Video Encoder Engine for Adobe Flash" costs $600!).
They tend to fall into two camps, those who attempt to use the lgpl parts of ffmpeg and publish the license; and those who outright ignore the gpl or pretend they've followed it.
ffmpeg keeps a "Hall of shame" for these violaters but sothinkmedia have not yet been added.
I downloaded their videoconverter and ran it through wine. It gave me a eula with some non-gpl/lgpl terms which I duly said yes to "You may not make or distribute copies of the Software, or electronically transfer the Software from one computer to another or over a network. You may not recompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or otherwise reduce the Software to a human-perceivable form".
Program installed what's this, avcodec.dll oh dear. Compiled in with x264, xvid etc. so GPL rather than LGPL. For a token gesture it created a folder called xvid with the GPL placed in there even though they violate most of it.
Stealing code from flashgot is a minor issue compared to that of ffmpeg.
When he said refactor it, I read that to mean study it, learn how it works, and write new, fresh code that has the same end-user outcome.
You may have read "refactor" to mean move bits and pieces around, unwind loops, change some orders of operations, but by and large re-use the low-level code as written. While that is a legitimate use of the term "refactor" it doesn't work in the context of "how can we stay legal without having to comply with this messy license."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
FlashGot is made by the same author that writes NoScript. The same NoScript that had malicious code that interfered with AdBlock Plus' functionality. Karma is a bitch, basically. I am really not feeling any sympathy for him. Flame on!
So you think whoever made Flashgot is fuming right now, saying "HOW DARE THEY TAKE CODE OF MINE WITHOUT GIVING ME PROPER CREDIT FOR CREATING IT?" Honestly, I'm sure they care more about their code being closed than whether or not they got credit.
It's different in the academic world, where your job depends on your reputation. If people discover that you plagiarized a journal article, they won't be able to trust anything you write. How can you be sure a source is credible if the author can't even be bothered to do their own research? On the other hand, reputation plays little role in firefox extensions. I don't care who programmed it. I only want it to work.
You're right, it's not exactly the same as other forms of stealing. But the general term for this is stealing. Presumably this would be listed as another definition in a dictionary.
If you can steal someone's heart, if you can steal a kiss, if you can steal cable, if you can steal an identity, there's no reason this cannot be stealing also.
It has been this way a long time too, stealing cable started in the 70s.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Fifty comments in this thread and no one has mentioned the Software Freedom Law Center? Amateurs!
The lead developer for FlashGot needs to contact the SFLC. Right. Now. The SFLC has lawyers on staff who eat companies like this for breakfast. Or at least, you know, they'll give them a very stern talking-to.
He shouldn't contact the supposed violators (that could cause legal murkiness), he should not go fishing around for evidence of the violation (again, more lawyerly problems), he should not pass Go, and in no way shape or form should he try to collect $200 from anyone.
Once he talks to the lawyers then he'll know what steps he should take to document the violation and then to approach the violators. By putting his ducks in a row first and by communicating with a lawyer, he'll have a much easier time approaching the Sothink company and getting the violation resolved.
Pro tip: The last time I emailed the SFLC it took 13 days for them to respond, so in order to get the ball rolling on resolving this problem I'd suggest picking up the phone and calling them.
coding is life
Commit plagiarism and you'd best start looking for a new career.
Didn't Joe "I 3 the media companies" Biden have a big problem with commiting plagerism?
I think your presumption is tenuous at best.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/ GPL compatible or gtfo.
Firefox should step up and remove the plugin from the plugin page, i believe it is against the GPL license to distribute binary copies / ripped source in the first place.
Afaik, all firefox extensions are just zipped javascript files, therefore it is impossible to violate the gpl.
I should have said 'a new career outside academia'. Politics, of course, is the sort of cesspool where plagiarism seems perfectly normal....
If there is no native code in Sothink, then it's effectively source-available. So, the only question is one of license. But if it incorporates GPL code, it automatically falls under the GPL.
One of the reasons I've never been a fan of the GPL -- you can use GPL code and get in trouble over it; software isn't truly free until anyone can use it freely, without worrying about legal trouble. The forced reciprocation, IMHO, has hurt the open source movement severely. Companies actually have good reason to fear "free" GPL software, because unlike speech, GPL comes with strings attached.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Wait just a minute!
Let me get this straight - a company well known for their REVERSE ENGINEERING tools,
decides to take someone else's code and re-release it without even changing a darned thing?
I'm shocked, I say! Shocked beyond all belief!
http://www.sothink.com/product/flashdecompiler/index.htm
The difference that you are not seeing is that:
in one case the theft is occurring for personal non-profit use, in the other, the theft is occuring for profit.
Its the difference between downloading a movie from the internets to watch at home, and downloading a movie on the internets and getting people to pay to come over and watch.
But, but, but, he didn't mean to and you're calling him a thief!!!! You have no understanding of how humans operate! You stupid, nooby asshole!
$80,000 per line.
Le français vous intéresse?
It has been this way a long time too, stealing cable started in the 70s.
So that's when the "stealing by copying" bullshit started. I'd rather kill off the incorrect use of the word than try to justify it with the "been happening a long time now" excuse.
Yes language evolves, but this isn't evolution, it's corruption by those with a vested interest.
As the GP said, this is copyright infrigement and plagiarism, not stealing. If someone made a clone of you without your permission, would it be murder?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
hi,
And again an outcry of wrong doing, regarding knowledge, copyright ( or left), patents, in fact wordings ( I mean in a way communication, or reason, the fact human race says distinguishes us from animals, although everybody has to face the fact we are one ). In the old days, every idea, story, or just an artistic expression, was regarded with praise and subsequent reward. The base ground, always granted by leaders or majority, because we humans are like sheep ( although many claim we are so much more intelligent, it does not always prove that way ), contradictory I know, but yet prove me wrong. We do follow power, may it be strength, intelligence, charisma or EQ, resolving in personal gain, like social status or material, or being the minority which has the potential to grow to be the majority. It has never meant to let individuals OWN ideas, thoughts, deductions, expressions of the wordings ( as explained above), but yes always was meant to govern them, and in that sense we stripe or give as a community.
Is this case is it special? No happens all the time. Is it special then? Yes, it caught attention because it was proven not original by the same mechanisms, knowledge, copyright (or left) patents, in fact wordings ( mmmmmmm discussion here, in a sense expression in base form, what is base after 25000 years of evolution, non biblical sense ), the spartan way, there's nothing wrong with wrong doing (even if the wrong is arbitrary), unless you get caught. There's democracy for you, or public openness.
So my point as a sysadmin/programmer/manager, one time would be musician, be glad the world knows your work, and can attach your name to it (history fades, I don't think Bach or Mozart would care, but I'd like to think they smile knowing their work played with and without recognition ), but do not try to own that, because you are a expression of what was and what is to come, just make a living telling the story so he future might know and learn.
greetz,
No theft is ocurring at all. Copyright infringement is not theft.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
ShineTheLight muses that people will take another person's work, without credit, and pass it off as their own. I would propose the GPL encourages this type of behavior rather then discourages it.
By creating a license model that is so legally toxic, the GPL pushes code reuse underground. Even if the copier wanted to give credit or contribute code back to the community, they could not because to do so would be to effectively sign a legal confession that they are using the original code at all. The effect of the GPL is that it says, "Give us every last byte of your code, hide all of it underground, or completely reinvent the wheel from scratch (which may cost you your job if you don't have enough time)". It's only reasonable that someone put in such a position would simply choose to hide the infraction.
In sharp contrast the BSD license encourage compliance, credit, and open contributions by throwing away the GPL's ridiculous assumption that "whatever is mine is mine and whatever is yours is mine too". Developers want to give proper credit; Adopting code from respected sources is a display of intelligence in software, and showing respect by giving credit gains mutual respect. Developers want to contribute code; Show and tell to the world again, is a time honored way of displaying skill and gaining respect. The GPL however, puts developers into an entirely unreasonable position with no good answer (no, drinking the koolaid is not a reasonable answer most of the time) and so forces developers to take the least unreasonable of the available (practical) options.
My
Dead Slashdot. Please put the space back in between "anonymous coward" and "on" it is not posted by "anonymous cowardon at 12:00" damn fools!
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
And at my old job the worst crime was "slacking off". It depends who you ask. Stop talking nonsense.
No, the correct way to have said this is "People at Sothink decided to violate the GPL by plagiarizing a piece of core code from FlashGot." This requires you to actually use your vocabulary you were taught in school. And none of those is correct grammar or vocabulary either. You can't steal someones heart without them dying. The "steal your heart" is a aphorism. "Its means to fall in love while resisting" And you aren't stealing cable, unless you are actually taking the coax, you are illegally accessing the service. You aren't stealing an identity, you are falsely representing yourself. By definition stealing means to remove and deprive the owner of a physical object. This means the owner loses possession of it. Anything that is not physical can't be stolen.
Wow. Amazing...
Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I have been from time to time, and because I've misread posts here and there, but I believe the assumption you are making here is that a person has a right to use any published source as they see fit simply because the source is published. Here is why I make that case:
If there is no GPL implementation of a particular bit of code I need for my project, I'm "up shit creek" as they say from around my parts. I have to "invent the wheel" as it were, or at the very least, pay a licensing fee to a company who already has invented the wheel to save myself the trouble. If there is a GPL implementation of a particular bit of code I have two options. Abide by the licensing terms of the GPL or fall back to buying a 3rd party library, feature, etc. I fail to see how anyone is worse off under this scenario than the previous. Hell, I can probably convince the developer of the GPL code to license me the code if I throw enough money his way, and it probably will be cheaper than the proprietary code that is my alternative. The final scenario where a BSD implementation exists and makes the argument moot; copy at will, and everybody is happy.
The parenthetical that I bolded struck me as the most outrageous part of your post. That phrase implies that any developer has the right to use existing code in any way, shape, or form if they are up against a deadline. Christ almighty, man! Procrastination on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine!
Putting the shoe on the other foot, lets say that the BSD license is too strict for my needs (to be realistic, lets say it's a 4-clause BSD). Does the fact that the source is out there give me the right to just use it as I see fit? Apparently so. What if I absolutely need public domain code? I might lose my job if I don't strip out the copyright notice of this BSD library. Maybe if you disclaimed the copyright to your code, I wouldn't have to violate the BSD license. Your license is so strict, that I had no choice but to hide my transgressions.
What you're really saying is:
The GPL is too strict, so developers have no choice but to hide their use of it. The BSD license should be used, so developers don't have to hide anything.
Someone releases some code that they think might be useful to someone, code that they were under no obligation to release at all, and you have the audacity to berate them because their license isn't the license that is best for you? Please tell me this really isn't what you're saying.
It's theft of the ownership of the code.
If I copy "Poison" and play it, I'm not saying I sang it. Britney Spears still sang it.
But if I were to take credit for the song itself, I would be stealing the artists' rights.
That requires more than just copying a song. I have to say I own it and I made it. I have to say it's mine. Not the copy, the entire song in all its manifestations.
That depends on your definition of theft.
You can either see theft as
1) taking what is not yours. (eg stealing a kiss from your buddies girl)
2) depriving someone else of what is theirs. (eg theft only requires a loss - an anonymous coworker throws out your lunch from the cafe fridge - your lunch was stolen)
3) both. (eg theft requires both a loss and a gain - getting your buddies girl to dump him and date you - you stole his girl)
4) either. (eg theft is either a loss or a gain or both a loss and a gain)
defining copyright violation as theft implies that the definition of theft is 1||4. (taking music, movies, patterns of 0s and 1s)
defining copyright violation as not theft implies that the definion of theft is 2||3. (owner still has their copy)
Most people view theft as #4, but a valid argument can be made for #3.
I'm curious. When people discuss illegal downloads via bittorrent or other P2P, numerous pedants jump on anyone who dares say the downloads are "stealing" music. They are quick to point out that making copies doesn't deprive the copyright owner of his song, unlike the situation when someone, say, steals a car. Calling downloading "stealing" is just propaganda from the RIAA to brainwash people, yadda yadda yadda.
Interesting how the same standard doesn't apply when the copied item is source code.
If (say) Pixar were the only people who had halfway-decent 3D software that no-one else did- or had the prospect of developing in the forseeable future- then they could either exploit that to make their own animations miles better than anyone else's.
Without copyright, everybody would torrent Pixar's animations anyway. Then how would Pixar make any money for Disney?
For fuck's sake, Slashdotters.
steal
verb
[ trans. ] take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it : thieves stole her bicycle | [ intrans. ] she was found guilty of stealing from her employers | [as adj. ] ( stolen) stolen goods.
dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own : accusations that one group had stolen ideas from the other were soon flying.
.
.
There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
And you know sometimes words have two meanings
In the tree by the brook there's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are mis-given
Yes, they stole , hours or perhaps days/months of work. Also others work as they reported issues, donated etc.
It is stealing. They stole a digital artifact, they stole "information", "knowledge". They took something without doing something required or giving something required (credit). It is 2009 already and you people have issues with understanding the difference between "virtual" and "real" things. Virtual things can cost money, time and even health and they don't really differ from real things you can hold with your hand.
In fact, Flashgot people could even sell their completely open source extension and could also have right to blame users who doesn't "buy" it. Just as explained there: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
It is not a movie, don't go into "but it is not stealing" mode immediately. Oh yes, pirating a Hollywood movie is stealing too... Like I explained above. I don't really care if producer is Satan himself.
Meanwhile, one of our upright citizens took the initiative and created a user account on Sothink's forum today just to post a link to this very article on /. On behalf of FOSS users everywhere, let me congratulate you on helping to enforce those negative stereotypes about us that hang like an albatross around our neck. Thanks a lot, bud.
It's a very dark ride.
If there is a GPL implementation of a particular bit of code I have two options. Abide by the licensing terms of the GPL or fall back to buying a 3rd party library, feature, etc. I fail to see how anyone is worse off under this scenario than the previous.
I actually agree with most of what you wrote, but I couldn't help but see the irony in the parallel context of illegal file-sharing, which several posters have at least acknowledged as something to be addressed. If someone publishes music on CD and/or online, and does not give permission to copy/redistribute, law abiding citizens have the same two options, correct? Abide by the terms of the publisher, or fall back and find a substitute work of music (or no work at all).
But instead of admitting this, people tend to resort to all types of gymnastics to explain why the two situations are fundamentally different: consumer infringer vs. business infringer (so what!!? Now really!), music executives allegedly screwing over the musicians (so what!?), crappy product (then just walk away!), nobody is hurt in file-sharing (sure -- that's why Tower Records, Virgin Records, Sam Goody's etc. are doing great business these days). It's all just goofy - these are distinctions without a difference.
I think music copyrights need to be respected and the GPL needs to be respected, and lawyers (unfortunately) are sometimes needed to enforce these terms.
"Copyright 2007-2010. www.sothinkmedia.com All rights reserved."
Just because you say it isn't so doesn't make it not so.
You want to declare you control the definition of the very "to steal" and then tell others how to use it. Well, you're not in control of the language, get over yourself.
Go look in a dictionary, there are a lot of forms of stealing that don't involve physical objects.
'to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.'
'to gain or seize more than one's share of attention in, as by giving a superior performance: The comedian stole the show.'
and yes, even
'To give or enjoy (a kiss) that is unexpected or unnoticed.'
The problem here isn't that people are using words incorrectly. The problem is you, you have a narrow definition of the word and you want to tell others they can't do what you wouldn't do in their stead.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
we should turn around such violations so developers would become happy if someone try to do it again. Go and complain to http://gpl-violations.org/ or similar. I suspect they know how to deal with it, how to win the case and make some money possible.
Mine comes from the 1918 Oxford English dictionary. You are not the first nor will you be the last to abuse the actual definition of the word. Or failing to understand (as does the author of that supposed dictionary) what an aphorism or a colloquialism is.
I hate globalisation. I am not a global citizen.
But I do give to FOSS projects (albeit a modest amount) because I believe in freedom and software freedom.
The author drops marginally-related words like global in his editorial like a politician. (In practice they seek to redirect our attention and slightly redefine existing concepts.) STOP TELLING ME HOW TO THINK!
GPL requires that you ship code with the delivery, and that the package is licensed under a GPL acceptable license. That's _it_. It does not require you to perform any advertising, nor acknowledge where the code came from. You want attribution? Use the old BSD license, or the new Apache one, not the GPL.
I would say that plugin address spaces aren't kept separate (thus avoiding the issue entirely) is a Firefox _bug_ (or perhaps it's designed that way on purpose), rather than any GPL violation.
So far, nothing in the summary (nor any of the articles) points out the GPL violation.
Additionally, if you're saying that plugins that are GPL'ed can't coexist with plugins that aren't GPL'ed, that's an interesting statement. If that were true, I would hope that the GPL is _banned_ as an acceptable plugin license in order to prevent all Firefox users from being copyright violators.
The GPL also specifies that derivative works (such as Sothink) must be distributed under the same license. What is the Sothink license? Can anyone find that out (I am having some trouble finding the exact license...)?
Palm trees and 8
Free as in freedom, not as in free beer. I thought that the world had moved past that misunderstanding, but now I see that it was just my circle of friends.
Palm trees and 8
The analogy isn't really correct. We're talking about "free" software, intended to be reused w/o monetary compensation. For the music analogy we'd have to be talking about closed source, commercial software being copied into another product.
Music performances and computer source code are also fundamentally different things. Again we'd need to change the analogy from recorded music performance to written sheet music to even begin to be equatable (the exception are "remix artists", but frankly they are more makers of sonic collage then musician).
That all can be reduced to ones and zeros does not make them all the same thing.
My
/me being new here and all.
FlashGot developer sez:
There's no components/SWVDService.js in their code, nor there is any mention of "flashgot" or "maone". We perhaps need a more up-to-date version of the claim.
I think I speak for a lot of slashdot when I say the following:
I don't pirate or otherwise violate licenses, and I don't enter into contracts that would lead me to violate them. Some of this may be passive aggression; I believe that pirating encourages the bastards to make and market more schlock. Windows and Photoshop, for example, would die without piracy.
No it doesn't. It requires that you ship the offer of code with the binary.
Please actually read the thing before making ADAMANT BUT COMPLETELY WRONG CLAIMS IN ALL CAPS.
That goes for moderators too, at least those sucked in by posters relying on authoritative sounding claims.
No, that it is licensed under the GPL license. (or if >=, then >=)
Section 2a. of the GPL2 is 4 lines long. The entire license file is 339 lines long. i.e. that's not just _it_ at all.
Sure it does. You must both advertise to the downstream user their rights under the license, and in some circumstances the No Warranty text should be shown. This is Term 1, it's not exactly buried in the text.
The original copyright statements must remain intact. (Term 1.)
An interesting commentary on the goals of the licenses and motivations of authors can be taken from this.
maybe that is a Firefox bug.
WTF are you talking about?? Please explain why it can not be both these unrelated things?
Once again, WTF are you talking about?? Except the part in the summary which says they incorporated the code of a GPL project without licensing their plugin as GPL nor letting their users know their rights under that license.
Technically a customer has to request the code and be denied it, but probably the failure to advertise that the code is available to end users under the terms of the GPL is enough to get them legally in the poop and get slapped with an injunction.
Where does this strawman come from? The problem here is not that 2 plugins of differing license sit side by side, it is that GPL code is being mixed with non-GPL code into a non-GPL product and redistributed as non-GPL. The fact that it is a for-profit company doing this doesn't change much beyond kill any innocent-mistake excuses.
All Firefox users are absolutely fine to use a mix of GPL and non GPL plugins at run time. What they can't do is redistribute the things together as a single monolithic program to others without relicensing the entire package as GPL. The GPL has to do with redistribution, not use. (ie the "copy" in "copyright")
Please RTF License! It's really not that hard.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Commit plagiarism and you'd best start looking for a new career.
Say I write a song, but then it turns out that a similar song had been published earlier. George Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord" and lost a lawsuit because it turned out that he had accidentally copied "He's So Fine" written by Ronald Mack: Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music . How do I keep myself from plagiarizing on accident?
I just entered my own review at the Sotthink site. I don't think they'll be happy.
"You _have_ read the Slashdot entry about your plagiarism [cough theft cough], right? Do you plan to respond, to defend the accusations that you stole code? Or will we just conclude you're the thieving GPL violating SOBs you appear to be?"
I suppose they might even sue me.
[shrug]
Who cares? It is just copyright infringement. Imaginary property and all that.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
WTF?
I'm now doing epistemological and ethical justification by believing _university professors_? I guess it's okay, if they're _tenured_. Let me know when you graduate.
We are talking about this specific instance.
In general, you are strictly correct. However, in this case, the source code is shipped with the release since plugins are source deliveries, therefore they are compliant.
Since they are shipping source code with their plugin, and the complainant themselves states that the files are unchanged, they again, are compliant. The advertising clauses in BSD 1.0 and the AFSL are very different, requiring the use of the software to be mentioned in any marketing materials. _THAT_ is an advertising clause.
There is no statement that their closed source plugin makes use of the GPL code. All we have so far is a developer complaining that their code was used without attribution. Something that the GPL does not require. It requires several things, but advertising where you got the code is not one of them.
The act of creating a running image of a software program is considered copying under current US statute and case law. This is why there is an argument around Linux closed-source drivers. If you talk to the FSF, they say that's a GPL violation. If you talk to Linus, he says that it's fine, with a specific exception to the GPL.
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39352584,00.htm
So, running software makes a copy, therefore is covered by the license. Since the license is the GPL, everything in the running image must also be GPLed. Congratulations you've just committed a copyright violation. This was covered in MAI Systems Corp. v Peak Computing. The law was later changed to cover copies made for maintenance. However, it still does not cover the violation made during execution.
This is why most good programmers will stop contributing to the global community because there are those who will steal their work, pass it off as their own, never acknowledge or give credit, and then shamefully stick their head in the sand and ignore the consequences.
Save your editorializing until you have stats to back it up. My impression is that the people who take their ball and go home like you suggest aren't that great for the community anyway.
For fuck's sake, anon. coward: "dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's ow" is called fraud, lying, not stealing, unless you are a moron (like the person who write that definition is).
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Just got the latest news from their Twitter. They wrote:
Sothink Web Video Downloader for Firefox released version 5.3, which is licensed under The GNU General Public License.
From SothinkMedia's Twitter: Sothink Web Video Downloader for Firefox released version 5.3, which is licensed under The GNU General Public License.
Sothink Web Video Downloader for Firefox software is licensed under The GNU General Public License (GPL) now.