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GPL Kerfuffle Takes Xbian For Raspberry Pi Offline
tetrahedrassface writes "Rasbmc developer Sam Nazarko is reporting that Xbian had violated the GPL and stolen his installer code without providing attribution and not releasing their source. His breakdown of events is interesting, and currently the Xbian project has been taken offline with several tweets saying Xbian development is terminated."
Someone posting a link to a project that "has been taken offline" needs their head examined.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Clearly you don't spend much time in New York, or around jewish people.
Its a pretty common term in Australian English. No idea if it came to us via Australian or foreign Jews though.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Actually, it's of Gaelic/Scots origin and means "disturbance in the force"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kerfuffle
Actually from a quick google it looks like the term comes from Scottish Gaelic dialects. :)
I'm not going to bother linking because it was the first 5 results for kerfuffle
My guess is that they didn't want to release the code because, perhaps, they didn't have any, or perhaps because it was all chewing gum and bailing wire and they didn't even have it under source control.
And this reads a little like one developer trying to use the GPL to prevent a fork.
But, given the seeming quality of the distribution and level of response from the XBian people, I do not think that in this case it is any great loss.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
OH NOES! I've been forced to expand my vocabulary! The pain in my head is killing me, please make it stop!
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
You don't need permission to fork a GPL project and Nazarko is wrong to demand that he be asked.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I don't see why Kerfuffle shouldn't be used in the post title. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Much like the Jabberwocky poem, you don't need to know what it means to know what it means.
Nuked it from orbit.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
^ He speaks the truth.
The disputed code is not licensed under the GPL. The actual License can be found here:
http://svn.stmlabs.com/svn/raspbmc/LICENSE
Maybe you are just trying to read at too high of a level? ;)
Perhaps you should start with fox news and work your way up to coloring books, and tackle slashdot later on
Seems you are correct: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=kerfuffle&searchmode=none ~ At least according to a dictionary of etymology
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Just because you needed to google the term does not mean that the poster did.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
any cached copies?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
OH NOES! I've been forced to expand my vocabulary! The pain in my head is killing me, please make it stop!
Amen, brother.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
"The problem is that XBian doesn’t release any source code, claiming that it is all ‘available’ via Raspian’s archives and XBMC’s website."
I'm not sure XBian is wrong. All they did is take an installer from another project and use it for their own project. If they didn't functionally change the source, why can't they say "here's the code" and just point to where they got it from.
According to this site "This doesn’t account for all source code however, such as their plugins, their method of building images or their updating scripts. Thus, XBian is not GPL compliant and does not release its entire source."
If these things are separate executables or modular plugins, why can't they be closed source? Maybe I don't know all the technical details or all the nuances of the GPL, but this sounds more like a project trying to badmouth a competing project than a huge GPL issue.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
A sentence stating that Xbian was supposed to be an XBMC port to the Raspberry Pi would probably have been too much.
Hell I'm in the middle of the deep south and even i knew those words and kerfuffle is used down here as well. I think some words just end up common language, like putz or schmuck.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That's sort of a silly requirement since any programmer can easily create a separate executable that interfaces with any DLL and then post messages between two executables, which does the exact same thing.
In other words, everything on a computer is at some level connected to everything else. Divisions between executables and DLLs are rather arbitrary, especially since with the source of both, it is trivial to make one into another. No program is an island.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
I have no idea.
Am I the only person you wants to know what xbian is? A single sentence description would be nice, rather that lots of links to a single dead site. How can this be news if the xbian is so unimportant, what ever it is, that it doesn't even have a wiki page?
maybe you should learn to english
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
double posting for awesome: why should he take your ignorance into account?
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
This is the case from XBians side:
http://frambozentaart.com/xbian/sotu.html
To summarize:
1. XBian did NOT steal code.
2. XBian DOES live up to the LGPL license.
3. XBian is doing everything possible to get everything solved.
The summary is two lines and doesn't explain what the referenced projects are about (and it's not something that you would know by default).
It's also factually wrong, since - reading the linked content - the dispute is specifically over XBian installer, which was packaged and posted by a forum member not otherwise associated with the project, and the offending bit is said installer. The post had a link to Dropbox where the actual installer file resides. The original author who claims LGPL violation demanded that the post be taken down, which it was.
Why this is even a front page story is beyond my understanding.
The bottom line is that the stuff you wrote is probably derivative of other code, which you say is "exempt" from your license, but that's not enough, you must use a GPL-compatible license. And I don't see from that license text that you would understand what was derivative and what was not.
Bruce Perens.
There's an ancient Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China.
Bruce Perens.
Scots, not Gaelic.
No. You misheard. Indiana Jones seemed to have caught a bit of a sniffle . But it's easily misunderstood, what with the scots accent and all.
The reference
Listening to the sides I'm left with an overwhelming feeling that someone (whose project starts with an 'X'), got lazy, took short cuts, rationalized a whole bunch of cheesy decisions as within the spirit of Open Source, if not in fact by the letter. This is a cautionary tale of how people find themselves in a tight spot by cutting corners. You start with 100% integrity and everything is plugging along like gangbusters. But its a lotta work, and you're a busy guy, so you shave a few points, because hell, who's gonna notice. So now you're running at 96%, but that's still great, you're playing with way more integrity than a lot of guys out there and you're proud that for the most part your work is solid. Only that 96%, becomes your new 100%, and before long, you figure hell it worked fine last time so I'll shave a few more points and cut a few more corners. Before long you running at 7% integrity, nothing is happening when you say it will, or if it does its because you lied, cheated and stole to do it. Worse when someone confronts what a sleaze you've been, you have to demonize them. because you've built this who complicated rational to justify all the cheesy crap you've been pulling.
By the way, any one of us could get all preachy, but this behavior is as human as squirting our young'ns. Common as dirt. So, at one level, our intrepid slacker can say, hey, everyone else is doing it, and he's pretty much right. Only its why things suck in the world. No integrity. Not even like integrity as a moral state, but simple integrity like functional, complete, workable. Our political leaders, corporations, school administrators, dedicatedly self devoted are all cutting corners. Pointing fingers and exclaiming, well I'm not as bad as he or she is, and only a tight-ass would care anyway, right?
Being a person of integrity is like being pregnant. You are or you aren't. Do whatever little monkey dance you want to camouflage your behavior to high heaven, what you did was cheesy, then you tried to cover it up, then you tried to work around it, and finally you white washed it with jailhouse lawyering, and still, not a bit of it washes, not a bit of comes clean. The answer is you stop and begin doing the right thing. You honor the GPL. You acknowledge the code author. You share your source. You do it straight by the numbers. Or you don't, but don't try to justify yourself, just be honest and admit you're lazy and a little bit larcenous. There are worse things. Right?
For your use of the word cromulent, may I offer you my most enthusiastic contrafibularities!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08
So, Han Solo was feeling a kerfuffle?
No, Obi Wan, Luke and Leia can as can all the Jedis and Siths, however Han Solo can cause a kerfuffle as demonstrated by his hasty departure from Tatooine :)
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
If I have to google a term, don't use it in a post title.
FTFY (Fixed That For You)
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I bet you're anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctious to have cause such pericombobulation.
bang goes my karma... again...
And it's back: http://www.xbian.org/
The blog post seems well thought out, but it's still an asshole move to have the other site taken down.
Unfortunately, I tried to talk to the author Koen Kanters about this and avoid this situation, but he did not leave much choice
AFAICT, the choice was to leave the site up and go public or go to someone like FSF, or to play hardball and take it down. The other guy seems like an amateur who doesn't like dealing with legal issues, and thus comes off as an asshole too.
Also, I find it hard to sympathise with someone who uses "stolen" to describe unauthorised copying (or should I just give up on that one?)
When this conversation comes up, someone always makes this post. and it's always modded funny. an "in joke" isn't funny for its own sake. This stopped being funny a decade ago.
wrong as hell.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kerfuffle
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I always mean what I say and say what I mean.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Microsoft changes their terms of service, no doubt. But the terms of service that you agree to when you click on the "I agree" button are what you have agreed to and can't change if you go into litigation. If you update the software often there will be a new contract which you much "agree" to in order to install the software update, but that is also when the terms change. So no, Microsoft doesn't just change the terms arbitrarily.... you know when they change and you must agree to those changes first. That few people ever bother to read what those changes actually are is a travesty, but the opportunity to read those changes to the terms is always presented including the ability to reject such changes.
What this clause says essentially is that the terms of the agreement can change at any time at their discretion with no limit. That means the terms can be anything they want and those terms can even change (in theory) even in the middle of a trial and certainly the day before they decide to shut down anybody else using their software. It is such an open ended clause that it might as well simply say "All rights reserved" and be done with it.
Actually "all rights reserved" would be a much more honest approach to a license of this nature. At least you would understand that any duplication of content under such a license gives you absolutely no rights for redistribution.
The "evil" part of what Microsoft throws into their EULA is that they feel they can go beyond controlling redistribution and immunity from indemnification if their software causes problems with your computer and moves into attempts to control what you can and can't do with their software as an end-user... moving beyond copyright law to pure contract law. The GPL, on the other hand, demands no contract but it does give terms and conditions for how you may be permitted to perform redistribution.
This particular license for the boot loader goes well beyond even controlling redistribution but also can be used to control how the end user even operates their computer and other practices that make the Microsoft EULA seem tame in comparison. It doesn't matter if it isn't being used in this fashion, just that it could be done that way. No matter what way you cut it, this particular boot loader license is no by any stretch of the imagination an open source license and it should never be seen as one either. It is also poorly worded in a number of ways that I don't think would hold up in court, but then that would simply throw out the license altogether and turn it into a pure copyright situation.
In other words, all the author needed to say was simply "All Rights Reserved". I wonder why this author decided to get fancy?
For those that are interested or whatnot
you can still get it on torrent