Ask Slashdot: Where Do You Draw the Line On GPL V2 Derived Works and Fees?

First time accepted submitter Shifuimam writes "I downloaded a DOSBox port for Android recently to get back into all the games of my childhood. Turns out that the only free distribution available hasn't been updated in nearly two years, so I looked for alternatives. There are two on Google Play — DOSBox Turbo and "DOSBot". Both charge a fee — DOSBox Turbo is $3.99; DOSBot is $0.99. The developer of DOSBot says on his Google Play entry that he will not release the source code of his application because it's not GPL, even though it's derived from source released under GPL v2 — this is definitely a violation of the license. The developer of DOSBox Turbo is refusing to release the source for his application unless you pay the $3.99 to "buy" a license of it. The same developer explicitly states that the "small" fee (although one might argue that $3.99 is pretty expensive for an OSS Android app) is to cover the cost of development. Unless I'm misreading the text of GPL v2, a fee can only be charged to cover the cost of the distribution of a program or derived work, not the cost of development. And, of course, it doesn't cost the developer anything for someone to log in to Google Play and download their app. In fact, from what I can tell, there's a one-time $25 fee to register for Google Checkout, after which releasing apps is free. Where do you draw the line on this? What do you do in this kind of situation?"

Comments

Re:Request help from the FSF

[kiwimate]

Clear GPL violations, even this relatively small ones, should not be tolerated.

Whereas copyright violations, even major ones, should be not only tolerated but encouraged?*

* I don't know if doragasu is a copyright violater or not. This is aimed at the copyright infringing masses on /.

What kind of crazy world...

[PhunkySchtuff]

What kind of crazy world do we live in where someone can own a multiple hundred dollar smartphone made by a large, faceless corporation, pay for the plan that allows this device to connect to a network and send/receive calls and data and yet this person feels that a measly four bucks, the cost of a cup of coffee that they buy every day without giving it a second thought, four bucks is considered expensive for some software that took many, many man-hours for an individual person to develop (even if based on open source, the actual app didn't spring fully-formed from the source repository of DOSBox). Some software that allows them to relive their childhood, play some great games that they remember from the dawn of gaming and a measly four bucks is so expensive that it's a "small" fee?

Seriously, get a grip!