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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.
I don't know, it probably wouldn't be because there's no such thing as an Abandonware "classification". It's just a feel-good term made up by people so they feel less bad about blatantly distributing games with still-active copyrights.
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/
Doesn't make it legal. There's still copyright on Abandonware, the idea though is that the original authors will make no/cannot make an attempt to litigate, hence it being "abandoned". The classification doesn't usually come from the author, but people who find great software that's (typically) no longer available, then make an effort to keep distribution of that software alive.
Don't just take my word for it: Wikipedia on Abandonware.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
Perhaps before going in with guns ablazing, some tact would be helpful. Their webpage doesnt exactly scream "hostile", as they are still offering the utility free (provided you sign up for a newsletter). They may be violating the GPL, but it may be entirely unintentional or out of ignorance-- could the author of MTR simply email them, informing them of the situation? He will eventually have to contact them anyways, I believe-- wouldnt any eventual lawsuit have to come from an author of MTR anyways?
I mean, its GOOD that someone is updating this utility; going after them with a lawsuit right off the bat doesnt exactly make "lets update abandoned GPL software" look like a good idea.
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'
I finally managed to pull a copy of the v0.8 source from archive.org, and it seems that you can still access the CVS repository even though it seems to be missing from the SourceForge page. I can find references to contributions by Vasile Laurentiu Stanimir (the main developer) and Silviu Simen in the source code and Teodorescu Cristian in the commit logs. The latter is interesting as he seems to have started work on WinMTR 0.9 in 2004, contradicting Appnor's statement of inactivity.
Sorry to be such a noob, but I did man up, and the man pages for that command are completely useless in the context of this discussion.
I'm running Debian lenny if that helps.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
And what you don't see in shittypedia is what any ass-hat with admin powers, an axe to grind, and no common sense decided to "blacklist" off of the page. Wikipedia is basically worthless.
If they reverted YOUR edits, it can 't be all that bad.
Actually based on their reply at http://winmtr.net/slashdot.html it makes more sense....
Quoted directly from the link,
"Dear visitor,
You have reached us through 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. The license changes we made are justified by the fact that we own the copyright for the code.
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.
The license changes we made are justified by the fact that we own the copyright for the code, nothing else. A good reason was the lack of interest for the project in the OSS community.
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."
With this information it is quite well within their rights assuming they are the owners the source code and have no outside contributions.
Thus you could still obtain a copy of the code which was released under the GPL and fork it. However, since no one touched it in a while I really doubt there is much interest.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra