As everyone knows, this has been done before and we've (including actual lawyers involved) already years ago concluded that this company has no copyright on the gameplay or concept or anything. What they have is trademark(s) so staying out of actually using their name(s) is probably a clever idea.
Old data from 2006 when Tetris LLC sent mail to the Rockbox project: http://lwn.net/Articles/200179/
As others have mentioned: a common practice that seems to be going on when some of these law firms contact you and are going out on a limb, is that they attach a contract which they want you to sign and agree to things, as if you actually go ahead and do that and you wouldn't stick to that agreement, you're suddenly violating contract law.
As the main author of libcurl, I've apparently been mentioned in the About box of Virex and now people have started emailing me feature-requests for Virex...
Getting yourself an Archos box allows you to completely replace the stock crappy firmware with a new all-shiny and beautiful GPL-licensed rewritten-from-scratch firmware named Rockbox!
And if you get the Recorder 20GB model, it runs USB2 and functions as a usb-storage device perfectly well under Linux (just get the USB2 patches if you run the 2.4.X series).
That said, I guess Archos isn't the best device for actually *running* with as hard drives are a bit picky about tough bumps.
It is indeed true that Rockbox 1.0 lacks most of the feature every sane user wants. No one said it is more feature-complete or better in any way than the original firmware at this early point.
Still, this is a proof that our effort is going in the right direction, that it works and it helps getting attention and more developers onto the project. We meant the 1.0 release to be this.
Adding the missing features is now only a matter of time. If you join up, we'll have them available even faster.
A couple of years ago, the swedish company named Terracom (owned by the swedish government) created a system for show-off/demo purposes. They used 20 mbit DTV for downlinks and a whopping (*grin*) 9.6 kbit GSM for uplinks, and was created for mobile connections.
They had to adjust the TCP/IP layers to have the uplink not get choked by the ACKs as a ~1 second roundtrip is a lot with a 2000 to 1 download ratio...
This system was (and this still applies) however not legal to put to use in Sweden due to regulations in the swedish "Rundradiolagen" that says something about how public broadcasting systems may (or may not) be used for personal communcations. I'm not very much into the details.
I figure other countries may have similar.
This system was shown at some fair a couple of years ago.
If the companies find bugs or extend the core, you can be almost certain that they will post changes back to the maintainers even if they aren't forced to do that by the license. Lagging behind the official releases and updates will otherwise put an increasing load on the developers that they want to avoid.
Using BSD will get you more commercial users, thus a wider audience and more people that are likely to use it and find bugs.
The Fear of Exploitation is often greatly exaggerated.
Lots are being said about cURL in these discussions, both favourable and some things not so favourable.
Feel free to stop by and make your own opinion.
We host our project web pages at http://curl.haxx.se/ and we welcome your contributions!
I just patched my 2.4.8 kernel two steps to 2.4.10 and look what I got!:-O
ld -m elf_i386 -r -o sounddrivers.o soundcore.o es1370.o es1371.o ac97_codec.o
es1371.o: In function `gameport_register_port':
es1371.o(.text+0x5ea0): multiple definition of `gameport_register_port'
es1370.o(.text+0x5cd8): first defined here
es1371.o: In function `gameport_unregister_port':
es1371.o(.text+0x5ea4): multiple definition of `gameport_unregister_port'
es1370.o(.text+0x5cdc): first defined here
make[3]: *** [sounddrivers.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [first_rule] Error 2
make[1]: *** [_subdir_sound] Error 2
make: *** [_dir_drivers] Error 2
What do you need in AppWatch that Freshmeat didn't provide?
AppWatch figures out about updates automaticly.
As users, we may not care, but as developers, we think that service is priceless. I don't have to announce my new releases, just upload them and all is fine!
So here's my question: How long before you get sued by curl.com?;)
... well, you wait and see.
First of all, I'm the main author and developer and I'm based in Sweden. AFAIK, curl.com does only have a registered trademark on curl in the US. There's no registered "trademark" ("varumärke" in swedish) on the word curl.
Secondly, we used the name curl already *before* curl.com registered their trademark 'curl' in may 1998 (we released curl 4.0 in march 1998).
Thirdly, we've used the name curl widely, extensively and openly all over the internet for three and a half years. It would be a little late to claim any exclusive rights to it. Wouldn't it? (When I use google to search for 'curl', the first two links I get are related to our project, with curl.com coming as the third link.)
Further, we're a friendly bunch. We won't sue anyone and I don't think they'll do that either.
I wonder if there are any trademark issues pending with libcurl?
No, there aren't any such issues.
The names curl and libcurl have been used by our project (curl.haxx.se) for more than three years now, which should make any claims on trademark infringements look silly.
The last time this "news" was brought up here on slashdot, one of the curl.com employees even said he was sorry about this name clash but that they were too far in the process to turn around, when they discovered our projected was already present and named identically.
[deja vu, this was also dealt with the last time this was around]
What will the fine folks who made cUrl ("the client that groks the urls") say of this ?
We say we've named our project curl since 1998, but we weren't the first 'curl' even then so you won't see us complain or rant about curl.com walking in with the big boots on.
If I had a chance to sue some vaporware e-bullshit company out of existence, I'd sure jump on the occasion:)
You won't see that happen from the main cURL crew. We have really nothing to gain nor do we have a good case. We won't whine, we'll continue to improve.
curl and libcurl, transfers those URLs from command line and now feature APIs for at least nine programming languages.
I am the lead developer and maintainer of curl. More than 60 people are remembered for non-trivial changes. This is truly free software/open source (yes, both!)
As noted in this article, GPL forbids cooperation with numerous free software licenses while we hardly ever see the opposite. Most free licenses today affect only the program/parts they're set to cover. GPL doesn't.
LGPL is said by many to be the more liberal choice if GPL is too strict for you, as it allows you to link with closed source. Yeah, sure, but paragraph three (of the LGPL) says anyone can turn a LGPL project into a GPL one at any time. Also, paragraph six says that in order for you to be allowed to distribute a closed-source program built with a LGPL library, you have to offer your program as object files as well to allow people to rebuild it with new versions of the free library.
Both those paragraphs, no matter how ignored and misunderstood they are in the general pro-GNU community, effectively will prevent a lot of companies to go near GPL and thus LGPL code.
The true open and free source licenses don't spread. They're BSD, MIT/X, MPL and similar. They allow fully cooperation with any other license. Closed or open.
For those of you who might have a hard time remembering exactly when EFnet was born, from which network undernet forked off or similar stuff, try my old IRC history page over
here.
Obviously, the examples used are lousy and you have never been authoring an open source project.
No open source or even free software project has succeeded without a huge part of collaboration. Have look at a few of the absoluetly biggest ones: BSD, Linux, BIND, emacs, gcc. They all have a very large part portion of collaboration attached.
Yes, most projects have a more or less strict dictator that runs the show, but without the support of the masses the project will never get ported to enough platforms, get all those shallow bugs fixed, get the nifty ideas, receive the cool support scripts, have support sites with various unsupported patches and more.
If you're alone, your software will take ages to reach the state you do when collaborating.
Comparing this with the atomic bomb or Newton's discoveries don't really apply.
Interesting stuff I thought at first. Very interesting indeed.
Then I started to check into details. Being the author and participator of at least five projects listed on freshmeat (all of them included in this "report") I checked them up to see what they had to say about me and the projects I've contributed to.
They had no clue at all. Lots of people got a lot of code submissions they've for sure never made, while it was very obvious that some of the major authors did not get as large enough amount acredited as they have done to the projects. Many names were very confusing and mixed up.
Seeing how badly wrong they are on the few projects I have in-depth knowledge about, how can I trust any conclusions they make in general on the whole context?
I say scrap the whole thing, do it all from the start. This is not the truth.
Slashdot Mirror
As everyone knows, this has been done before and we've (including actual lawyers involved) already years ago concluded that this company has no copyright on the gameplay or concept or anything. What they have is trademark(s) so staying out of actually using their name(s) is probably a clever idea.
Old data from 2006 when Tetris LLC sent mail to the Rockbox project: http://lwn.net/Articles/200179/
As others have mentioned: a common practice that seems to be going on when some of these law firms contact you and are going out on a limb, is that they attach a contract which they want you to sign and agree to things, as if you actually go ahead and do that and you wouldn't stick to that agreement, you're suddenly violating contract law.
I thought Rockbox was the coolest accessory anyway, and Apple sure can't take over that! ;-)
As the main author of libcurl, I've apparently been mentioned in the About box of Virex and now people have started emailing me feature-requests for Virex...
Getting yourself an Archos box allows you to completely replace the stock crappy firmware with a new all-shiny and beautiful GPL-licensed rewritten-from-scratch firmware named Rockbox!
And if you get the Recorder 20GB model, it runs USB2 and functions as a usb-storage device perfectly well under Linux (just get the USB2 patches if you run the 2.4.X series).
That said, I guess Archos isn't the best device for actually *running* with as hard drives are a bit picky about tough bumps.
It is indeed true that Rockbox 1.0 lacks most of the feature every sane user wants. No one said it is more feature-complete or better in any way than the original firmware at this early point.
Still, this is a proof that our effort is going in the right direction, that it works and it helps getting attention and more developers onto the project. We meant the 1.0 release to be this.
Adding the missing features is now only a matter of time. If you join up, we'll have them available even faster.
How weird. My 20GB Archos Recorder had just that when they shipped it to me.
Rockbox comes optional though! ;-)
The Archos MP3 player series at least have this ambitious crowd of hackers working on replacing the firmware with an open source alternative:
http://bjorn.haxx.se/rockbox/
A couple of years ago, the swedish company named Terracom (owned by the swedish government) created a system for show-off/demo purposes. They used 20 mbit DTV for downlinks and a whopping (*grin*) 9.6 kbit GSM for uplinks, and was created for mobile connections.
They had to adjust the TCP/IP layers to have the uplink not get choked by the ACKs as a ~1 second roundtrip is a lot with a 2000 to 1 download ratio...
This system was (and this still applies) however not legal to put to use in Sweden due to regulations in the swedish "Rundradiolagen" that says something about how public broadcasting systems may (or may not) be used for personal communcations. I'm not very much into the details.
I figure other countries may have similar.
This system was shown at some fair a couple of years ago.
If the companies find bugs or extend the core, you can be almost certain that they will post changes back to the maintainers even if they aren't forced to do that by the license. Lagging behind the official releases and updates will otherwise put an increasing load on the developers that they want to avoid.
Using BSD will get you more commercial users, thus a wider audience and more people that are likely to use it and find bugs.
The Fear of Exploitation is often greatly exaggerated.
Is the almost identical names here a coincidence or not?
Dancer web page
Lots are being said about cURL in these discussions, both favourable and some things not so favourable. Feel free to stop by and make your own opinion.
We host our project web pages at http://curl.haxx.se/ and we welcome your contributions!
Hm, this worked out if I removed the 1370 driver when having the 1371 enabled... Odd.
I just patched my 2.4.8 kernel two steps to 2.4.10 and look what I got! :-O
ld -m elf_i386 -r -o sounddrivers.o soundcore.o es1370.o es1371.o ac97_codec.o
es1371.o: In function `gameport_register_port':
es1371.o(.text+0x5ea0): multiple definition of `gameport_register_port'
es1370.o(.text+0x5cd8): first defined here
es1371.o: In function `gameport_unregister_port':
es1371.o(.text+0x5ea4): multiple definition of `gameport_unregister_port'
es1370.o(.text+0x5cdc): first defined here
make[3]: *** [sounddrivers.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [first_rule] Error 2
make[1]: *** [_subdir_sound] Error 2
make: *** [_dir_drivers] Error 2
AppWatch figures out about updates automaticly.
As users, we may not care, but as developers, we think that service is priceless. I don't have to announce my new releases, just upload them and all is fine!
First of all, I'm the main author and developer and I'm based in Sweden. AFAIK, curl.com does only have a registered trademark on curl in the US. There's no registered "trademark" ("varumärke" in swedish) on the word curl.
Secondly, we used the name curl already *before* curl.com registered their trademark 'curl' in may 1998 (we released curl 4.0 in march 1998).
Thirdly, we've used the name curl widely, extensively and openly all over the internet for three and a half years. It would be a little late to claim any exclusive rights to it. Wouldn't it? (When I use google to search for 'curl', the first two links I get are related to our project, with curl.com coming as the third link.)
Further, we're a friendly bunch. We won't sue anyone and I don't think they'll do that either.
No, there aren't any such issues.
The names curl and libcurl have been used by our project (curl.haxx.se) for more than three years now, which should make any claims on trademark infringements look silly.
The last time this "news" was brought up here on slashdot, one of the curl.com employees even said he was sorry about this name clash but that they were too far in the process to turn around, when they discovered our projected was already present and named identically.
What will the fine folks who made cUrl ("the client that groks the urls") say of this ?
We say we've named our project curl since 1998, but we weren't the first 'curl' even then so you won't see us complain or rant about curl.com walking in with the big boots on.
If I had a chance to sue some vaporware e-bullshit company out of existence, I'd sure jump on the occasion :)
You won't see that happen from the main cURL crew. We have really nothing to gain nor do we have a good case. We won't whine, we'll continue to improve.
curl and libcurl, transfers those URLs from command line and now feature APIs for at least nine programming languages.
I am the lead developer and maintainer of curl. More than 60 people are remembered for non-trivial changes. This is truly free software/open source (yes, both!)
As being the main person behind the curl they "could shut down" I think I could answer to this:
I named my project curl back in 1998. They came marching in a lot later.
There already is a project at MIT named curl, they were already in game before me. I didn't take proper notice until way later.
As curl and libcurl grow bigger and more popular, I expect this could cause some not so amusing mixups and confusion...
http://curl.haxx.se
Hi
As noted in this article, GPL forbids cooperation with numerous free software licenses while we hardly ever see the opposite. Most free licenses today affect only the program/parts they're set to cover. GPL doesn't.
LGPL is said by many to be the more liberal choice if GPL is too strict for you, as it allows you to link with closed source. Yeah, sure, but paragraph three (of the LGPL) says anyone can turn a LGPL project into a GPL one at any time. Also, paragraph six says that in order for you to be allowed to distribute a closed-source program built with a LGPL library, you have to offer your program as object files as well to allow people to rebuild it with new versions of the free library.
Both those paragraphs, no matter how ignored and misunderstood they are in the general pro-GNU community, effectively will prevent a lot of companies to go near GPL and thus LGPL code.
The true open and free source licenses don't spread. They're BSD, MIT/X, MPL and similar. They allow fully cooperation with any other license. Closed or open.
Send flames to someone else.
Obviously, the examples used are lousy and you have never been authoring an open source project.
No open source or even free software project has succeeded without a huge part of collaboration. Have look at a few of the absoluetly biggest ones: BSD, Linux, BIND, emacs, gcc. They all have a very large part portion of collaboration attached.
Yes, most projects have a more or less strict dictator that runs the show, but without the support of the masses the project will never get ported to enough platforms, get all those shallow bugs fixed, get the nifty ideas, receive the cool support scripts, have support sites with various unsupported patches and more.
If you're alone, your software will take ages to reach the state you do when collaborating.
Comparing this with the atomic bomb or Newton's discoveries don't really apply.
Interesting stuff I thought at first. Very interesting indeed.
Then I started to check into details. Being the author and participator of at least five projects listed on freshmeat (all of them included in this "report") I checked them up to see what they had to say about me and the projects I've contributed to.
They had no clue at all. Lots of people got a lot of code submissions they've for sure never made, while it was very obvious that some of the major authors did not get as large enough amount acredited as they have done to the projects. Many names were very confusing and mixed up.
Seeing how badly wrong they are on the few projects I have in-depth knowledge about, how can I trust any conclusions they make in general on the whole context?
I say scrap the whole thing, do it all from the start. This is not the truth.
Am I the only one around that doesn't know what kind of a machine a "Netfinity 256" is?
In fact, I took a glance on the IBM web site and I couldn't find any such machine...
Am I blind or simply stupid?