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Hosting Company Appears To Be Violating the GPL [Resolved]
palegray.net writes "A web hosting provider called Appnor has recently moved the network diagnostics utility WinMTR off of SourceForge, and is now claiming the program to be a closed source, commercial application (it was previously made available under the GPL). I emailed the current maintainer of the original mtr utility about this, and have been informed that this event most likely constitutes an overt GPL violation, as it is presumed that WinMTR contains mtr code. Appnor claims that they have the right to do this, as there have been no external contributions to WinMTR in over ten years. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think copyright law works that way." Update: 01/10 18:24 GMT by KD : The CEO of Appnor, Dragos Manac, has posted a response, claiming that no GPL violation occurred, and promising to revert the code to GPLv2 by the end of the week.
Update: 01/11 14:01 GMT by KD : That was fast. WinMTR announced that the code is now available under the GPLv2.
Update: 01/11 14:01 GMT by KD : That was fast. WinMTR announced that the code is now available under the GPLv2.
If the program hasn't been maintained or updated in 10 years, wouldn't it be classified as Abandonware (much as old PC games get classified by those who want to share them?)
UTF-8: There and Back Again
It's been extended to the ridiculous, remember?
So even if they've somehow removed all the GPL code contributed by others, then there's the whole 'derivative works' thing.
From what I know, the Software Freedom Law Center ( http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ ) provide pro bono legal representation to creators of Free and Open Source projects. Maybe you should contact both the SFLC and the maintainer of the mtr and see if there's any way of getting them together to file a GPL violation case or an injunction.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Somebody created a program called MTR, and a web company modified it to WinMTR and stole the author's labor without payment. Is that the general gist of it?
Sounds like something RIAA/MPAA, record, and Movie Companies would do.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
if it's that big a deal then maybe you should consult a lawyer?
They might actually have that right IF:
- It contains only code they have copyright over
- They have permission from (if any) all other copyright holders.
However they can't revoke the license they gave everyone who downloaded their gpl versions, these old versions and their license is still valid.
However if the code indeed contains mtr code and they have no permission from the copyright holders to distribute is under something else than the GPL.... Then they have a problem
But you have to prove that first.
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Unless everyone who originally submitted code to the GPL project has explicitly agreed to the relicensing, they're breaking the law. You don't "implicitly" agree to relicensing of code you've submitted just by not contributing any more for a while. The only time that a time frame comes into it is when the copyright actually expires and the project falls into the public domain, which in our era of life-plus and Mickey Mouse Copyright Perpetuation Acts, is basically never. This is the exact type of scenario the GPL was designed to prevent.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Does this depend on the version of the GPL? I thought you were allowed to hold-on to your source code except in cases where you provide a product with GPL'ed code in it (and in later versions a service with GPL'ed code), only then are you required to provide source access to those people on request. What the buyer does with it is after that doesn't apply.
Am I right in thinking there's no problem removing the source code and charging for a sale, but the authors would then (and only then) be required to provide the buyer with source?
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
Spare me, a network utility.... Must be a slow news day.
Legally, it depends on who is the author. If they didn't ask for CR assignment to them, all other contributions are GPL only (if contributed as such). For parts they wrote, they can change license any time (at least for their code). If their code is derivative on top of other contributions, then it depends on whether anything now in the code really is based on GPL contributions or not (while they could also ask or "buy" important contributors to agree with the license change...).
While Appnor could get away with this if they had, for example, rewritten all external contributions, the fact that the recent v0.9 was released after "only 8 years 11 months and 5 days of inactivity" (according to their own website!) makes it hard to believe they've actually done much in the way of rewriting during those 10 years mentioned in the summary.
While I'm not familiar with Romanian copyright law, the country has ratified the Berne convention, which I don't think allows as short a period of 10 years before copyright expires.
Since they've removed all downloads from SourceForge, it's a bit tricky to check the original copyright.
Why does sourceforge allow the removal of GPL'd projects in the first place? You'd think that would be something you can't take back...
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
If it didn't start off as a version of MTR, as discussed, then it's possible that this is a fork of a previous version. This is a pretty common practice.
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
It may be a GPL violation, but who cares? Those tools already ship free in every OS on the planet. Nobody's going to make any money off this. And the fact that nobody from the community contributed code in 10 years kind of tells us what level of interest there is.
Comment of the year
So it still is free, is it not?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Assuming company A is the copyright holder to a particular piece of software. Couldn't they license it out commercially and under the GPL. Perhaps some customers don't want the requirements of the GPL and are willing to pay for it.
From the summary (I don't even intend on RTFA), sounds like they are the copyright holders.
Are you sure Appnor is a hosting company? If so, it's not exactly a great advert that their site is slashdotted already.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
It's 8:30 Monday morning after a night of insomnia. DO we REALLY need to deal with GPL this early? Can't we do something simple like create world peace?
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Everyone else can do exactly nothing (well not use it and rant on the interwebs about it I guess).
winmtr_src.rar
I think there is a need for some clarifications:
1) The company has rights over the entire source code, bought from the original maintainer. There is NO other code from contributors.
2) The whole thing is written from scratch for Windows. No MTR code is used.
3) The binary is available for free. We just thought nobody cared too much having it Open, since there were no contributions in almost 10 years.
Again, we are not trying to violate GPL and we will make sure there are no licensing issues. We are checking this with our lawyers.
Dragos MANAC
CEO Appnor MSP S.A.
Presumption does not matter. What matters is whether or not any GPL code REMAINS in WinMTR after 10 years of non-external changes.
If not, then they can make future versions proprietary if they wish, since they presumably hold all of the copyrights. OTOH if there have been outside (community) contributions, then they can only take it proprietary if everyone who has touched the code consents. So we still don't know enough to say whether this is a violation or not.
Note that the above has absolutely no bearing on past versions; you can't "take back" existing code after it has been distributed under the GPL. If they are trying to go after people for distributing old versions (or derivatives thereof), then this is indeed a blatant GPL violation.
But honestly, Monica...
Appnor claims that they have the right to do this, as there have been no external contributions to WinMTR in over ten years. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think copyright law works that way.
It does if "over ten years" means "since long enough ago that the copyrights have expired."
Scenario: I develop a product today and it is community-maintained until 2020 then maintained by a private company until 95 years after the last non-corporate copyright owner dies, and there are no changes to existing copyright law.
Sometime in the 22nd century that company can claim "have been no external contributions to [product] in over [95+] years" and fork off a version and make all future changes closed-source.
Now if they tried to close-source their contributions for the 95+ years that they were using GPL code copyrighted by others, they might have a fight on their hands. I didn't RTFA so I don't know if that's what Appnor is trying to do.
if I were Appnor I'd backpedal quickly, fork off the "existing" version as open-source that they are no longer contributing to, create a new version that is either excised of all GPL code or which has all GPL-code re-licensed with the copyright owners under a closed-source-compatible license. Anything less is asking for a legal and public relations nightmare.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
http://winmtr.net/slashdot.html
Dear visitor,
You have reached us trough a Slashdot story that is a bit malvolent.
The story goes like this:
"A web hosting provider called Appnor has recently moved the network diagnostics utility WinMTR off of SourceForge, and is now claiming the program to be a closed source, commercial application (it was previously made available under the GPL). I emailed the current maintainer of the original mtr utility about this, and have been informed that this event most likely constitutes an overt GPL violation, as it is presumed that WinMTR contains mtr code. Appnor claims that they have the right to do this, as there have been no external contributions to WinMTR in over ten years. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think copyright law works that way"
Our response:
1. Our company has rights over the entire source code, bought from the original maintainer. We are the current maintainers. There is NO other code from contributors.
2. The whole thing is written from scratch for Windows. No MTR code is used.
3. The binary is available for free. We just thought nobody cared too much having it Open, since there were no contributions in almost 10 years.
Again, we are not trying to violate GPL and we will make sure there are no licensing issues. In the unlikely situation in which there are some licensing issues, we will make all the required changes/updates to the product, in good faith.
We think the license change is within the boundaries of GPL. We are double checking this with our lawyers.
Thank you for reading the full story.
Dragos MANAC
CEO Appnor MSP S.A.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
They aren't saying that MTR hasn't been updated. They have sometime in the past created WinMTR, hosted it on SourceForge as GPL and OpenSource, but in the past ten years never had anyone but themselves making changes. So... they decided to convert to a commercial license! Now I'm not arguing that this is right since original MTR source likely still exists within it but the ideas that they are denying MTR as having been updated is incorrect.. This is sort of like how other products have gone from OpenSource to closed in the past when no one was helping out except the original developers... except that in this case they aren't the very original developers having converted someone else's code some ten years in the past. It's not clear if they have continued to use updates to the original MTR code or not.
Here's the post from their page in case it's still Slashdotted...
========
Present (2010-2011)
WinMTR is managed and developed by Appnor MSP.
The current version is 0.9. We plan to roll out a new version each quarter. More in the Development section.
License: Commercial. We changed it from GPL since in the last 10 years there was no external development. Still, we plan to offer it for free.
WinMTR has got a new home, moved out of Sourceforge on to WinMTR.net!
Past (2000-2010)
The WinMTR project was started in 2000 by our good friend Vasile Laurentiu Stanimir.
Timeline:
* 20.01.2002 – Last entered hosts an options are now hold in the registries. Home page and development moved to Sourceforge.
* 05.09.2001 – Replace edit box with combo box which hold last entered hostnames. Fixed a memory leak which caused program to crash after a long time running. (v0.7)
* 11.27.2000 – Added resizing support and flat buttons. (v0.6)
* 11.26.2000 – Added copy data to clipboard and possibility to save data to file as text or HTML. (v0.5)
* 08.03.2000 – Added double-click on host name in list for detailed information. (v0.4)
* 08.02.2000 – fix ICMP error codes handling. Print an error message corresponding to ICP_HOST_UNREACHABLE error code instead of a empty line. (v0.3)
* 08.01.2000 – support for full command-line operations (v0.2)
* 07.28.2000 – first release (v0.1)
Future (2011-2038)
We plan to further develop WinMTR, keep it running on newer platforms and add the requested functionality. Find out how you can help by reading the Development page.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
For the sake of clarity, I'll reproduce my earlier reply to that statement here:
"As others have noted, several people have apparently found mtr sources in WinMTR. This means either (1) you've been misinformed, (2) you're deliberately lying, or (3) they're lying. Given that people have posted actual code excerpts to back up their claims, I strongly suspect you're lying."
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
"We just thought nobody cared too much having it Open, since there were no contributions in almost 10 years." --Dragos MANAC
This is exactly one thing that open source licensing is supposed to help the user with. Old programs that have been abandoned by the company or developer are not a closed vault. It is still possible to go back and for instance see how a file format was laid out or fix a long standing bug.
http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/
This used to be open source on Google Code, but now the company 'changed the license' of the source code.
What if I am a user of some GPL'd piece of software, and the GPL license was the reason for adoption. Let's say switching to an alternative is costly. Can it really be yanked from public domain at any time if say, contributors got paid off to give up their rights?
What about rights of users who adopted it counting on it being open-sourced and around in the future?
Doesn't seem to me that simply taking a project off of SourceForge could ever be a very effective way of making something that is GPL'd proprietary. Nobody had a backup? I understand that some clueless person may *think* this would work, but really, how can it be effective?
I was wondering when some company was going to do this.
The problem with copyright violations is that unless you have the money to sue the thief, you effectively cannot enforce it. As far as I know, this is and has always been the critical problem with GPL and similar licenses. It looks good on paper, but there is no unified group or organization with deep enough pockets to do anything about it. And who exactly would the plaintiff be?
Ownership has its privileges. Anti-ownership has virtually none in a legal sense.
Not even the original author and single owner of a work that was released under GPL has to power to reverse the licensing of what was released. The GPL license is perpetual and non-revocable by anyone, and only ends (on a per-recipient basis) when a recipient fails to comply with the terms of the license, and such an occurrence would not terminate the license possessed by anyone else for that released work.
The original author and single owner of such a work can at most relicense FUTURE VERSIONS of that released code. The specific program version that was previously released under GPL remains under GPL, and its sources must always remain available on demand by recipients past or future.
Not any more. It's now criminal, therefore the government can persue. Since this is DEFINITELY for-profit piracy, the case here is a shoe-in for criminal prosecution.
While WinMTR was one version, and some people were able to make it disappear from SourceForge, there is another version for Windows call dotMTR (http://sourceforge.net/p/dotmtr/home/), that seems to be worth looking at.
The copyright on binary code is not different from source code. Not in US law anyway...
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#what
"What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section "What Works Are Protected.""
Interestly computer software is NOT specifically named in the berne convention For that the berne convention is extended witht the wipo theaty of 1996">
"Such protection applies to computer programs, whatever may be the mode or form of their expression.4"
(I read this a source and binary are both covered in the mode or form)
Sounds like Nipper all over again.
While it is still there, run:
rsync -av winmtr.cvs.sourceforge.net::cvsroot/winmtr/* .
Source: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/Backup%20your%20data
Sourceforge takes some time to actually delete projects, before it does so the backups are still available.
/* This pseudo code is GPL, blah, blah, blah... */
if (WinMTR source tree *ever* licensed GPL) {
if (current source tree include portions of the previous code) {
print "the current code is a derivative work, and is also GPL";
if (current source tree was purchased from original maintainer) {
print "does not matter";
}
if (current source tree was strictly written in-house) {
print "does not matter";
}
} elseif (current version is a complete rewrite of WinMTR) {
print "license the current code however you wish";
}
}
Luke, help me take this mask off
Just tried to DL the item. The guy has stated that he is the copyright owner by having purchased the rights.
BUT his site won't let you actually download it. He is requiring your email, name & phone number. But the page rejects every one of my phone numbers every time.
So despite his explanation and his promise to revert the license back to GPL v2, the program IS NOT AVAILABLE....
ugh... ???
The CEO has promised to revert the product back to GPLv2:
http://winmtr.net/slashdot.html
"Instead of dealing with this, I decided to take the blame and do the mature thing: revert to GPL v2. By the end of the week (January 16 2011) the updated sources (stating the new license) will be on Sourceforge for all to download and further enhance."
Please update the story. It seems like Dragos is at least trying to operate with good faith and fix a potential mistake.
As I understood, Appnor does not sell anything - winmtr was offered for free, so please let's not digress and/or troll.
They can thank Disney and Sonny Bono for the situation; they will not be able to offer it as closed source until 75 years after the last GPL contributor has died, unless they work out a separate distribution license with each and every contributor. However, even if they work out that license, the GPL version must still remain GPL, but what they can release at that point is a closed source/proprietary fork/derivative of the project.
Hey, that's pretty much how StarOffice/OpenOffice and MySQL worked!
However, after reading the "fine" article rather than just the summary, I learned that the maintainer insists there was one checkin from another contributor, and that the code has been removed. So, if the offending code has been removed, I fail to see the problem. However, since it was GPL and distributed recently, the source must remain available to any who request it for three years following the latest distribution (download, sale, CD sent via carrier pigeon, whatever) of the binaries. So, if they are refusing to provide the source upon request, they are still in violation of the GPL even if the "offending code" has been removed.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"Say hello to the Bad Guy! That's me, Dragos MANAC .. I decided to take the blame and do the mature thing: revert to GPL v2 " ...
Well at least your company Appnor, got some publicity out of the issue ..
Your uncontested right to fork is irrelevant to the question of whether they have commited a GPL violation.
I have written code to which no one else contributed yet and released it under the GPL and I would be really pissed if people told me that I was commiting a GPL violation when I released again under any license that I pleased to.
Of course, things would be different if I had followed the FSFs suggestion to assign rights to my software to the FSF, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
I sent Appnor the following Email:
> Dear Appnor MSP,
>
> It has come to my attention that you have taken the modified mtr
> sources called winmtr and made a closed source applicaiton out of
> that.
>
> You have always had access to those sources because they were
> distrubuted under the GPL. This allows you to modify and extend the
> program, provided that you distribute the your modifications with
> source code. (section 2b of GPL V2 states that your derived work
> still must be licenced under GPL.
>
> I have downloaded winmtr-0.9, which entitles me to ask you for the
> source code. Once you give it to me I will enforce my right to publish
> the source on the internet by doing so.
>
> If you chose not to honor my request for the source code, clause
> 4 of the GPL comes into action:
>
> 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
> except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
> otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
> void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this
> License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights,
> from you under this License will not have their licenses
> terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
>
> This means that you may no longer distribute copies of the program. You
> are violating copyright law.
>
> Roger Wolff.
>
And I quote from his reply:
> I will have our IP lawyer draft a response and clarification to your claim.
after which he explains no harm was intended (yeah right!) and that it will
take until next monday for a reply to surface.....
(I can't go quoting a full Email sent to me as that is copyrighted by the author,
when I'm claiming copyright violation on that person.... I think I can quote
1 sentence of a 5 sentence Email as Fair use.)
As promised, a new version of WinMTR has been published, under GPL v2, along with the code for the version that presumably infringed GPL.
You can download all source code and binaries from Sourceforge https://sourceforge.net/projects/winmtr/files/
Hopefully everyone is happier now.
Dragos
As of today, copyright is, in effect, a perpetual property right. We can debate that this is wrong (and it is), but that does not change the facts.