23 ms·

What do you claim they copied? The GUI, the features?

by fabiensanglard 7y ago

mmastrac 7y ago
Code from the open-source nprof project made up a good chunk of dotTrace (confirmed via decompilation at the time).
- wldlyinaccurate 7y ago
  Which licence did you distribute the code with? Surely there's solid grounds for a legal case if the licence didn't permit commercial use?
  - mmastrac 7y ago
    I wasn't really clear on licensing back then and it looks like I had a few GPL headers in the source. EDIT: it was clearer than I thought - v0.4 [1] has an explicit GPL 2.0 COPYING.txt in the root. [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/nprof/files/OldFiles/nprof-0.4-alpha-src.zip/download https://sourceforge.net/projects/nprof/files/OldFiles/nprof-...
    - zmzrr 7y ago
      So this is the usual "I'm peeved that I chose the wrong licence and someone made money off my project". Aha.
      - ncallaway 7y ago
        This seems wrong. It turned out that they specified GPL, and so the redistributor is violating the license. However, if they hadn't specified a license, then the product would be unlicensed. Which would make the redistributor directly violating their copyright. If source code doesn't come with a license, that doesn't make it fair game. That makes it unusable by any third-parties.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      GPL is GPL. If their thing isn't, they are in violation. They now have deep pockets. For anything that had no license spelled out, they had and have no license to use it at all. To be clear: they appear to have no license to distribute your code today, and owe you damages for all the distribution they have done thus far that was not licensed.
      - dannyw 7y ago
        To add, if they are still selling it today then it may reset any statue of limitations. I would recommend that you talk to a lawyer, and get them to draft Jetbrains a letter.
        ncmncm 7y ago
        There is no statute of limitations for copyright violation, to my knowledge. I gather Germany imposes some pretty draconian time limits for initiating enforcement, but have not heard of others.
    - zenhack 7y ago
      As others have pointed out, if they weren't distributing source and passing on the license, this is a blatant copyright violation, and what they were (still are?) doing is illegal. If you're at all interested in doing anything about it, copyleft.org has a bunch of useful resources.
- chris_wot 7y ago
  That sucks. Are you just looking for an apology?
  - mmastrac 7y ago
    Given that it's 15 years later, I'm sure that would be fine. It was really just disappointing for a me in his mid-20s.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      No. Contempt should be accountable.
    - xnyan 7y ago
      If they've done it to you, it's very possible they've done/do it to others. You should post your story. JetBrains is not a little operation and should to be held to account if they've done what you've said.

What do you claim they copied? The GUI, the features?

mmastrac 7y ago

Code from the open-source nprof project made up a good chunk of dotTrace (confirmed via decompilation at the time).

wldlyinaccurate 7y ago
Which licence did you distribute the code with? Surely there's solid grounds for a legal case if the licence didn't permit commercial use?
- mmastrac 7y ago
  I wasn't really clear on licensing back then and it looks like I had a few GPL headers in the source. EDIT: it was clearer than I thought - v0.4 [1] has an explicit GPL 2.0 COPYING.txt in the root. [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/nprof/files/OldFiles/nprof-0.4-alpha-src.zip/download https://sourceforge.net/projects/nprof/files/OldFiles/nprof-...
  - zmzrr 7y ago
    So this is the usual "I'm peeved that I chose the wrong licence and someone made money off my project". Aha.
    - ncallaway 7y ago
      This seems wrong. It turned out that they specified GPL, and so the redistributor is violating the license. However, if they hadn't specified a license, then the product would be unlicensed. Which would make the redistributor directly violating their copyright. If source code doesn't come with a license, that doesn't make it fair game. That makes it unusable by any third-parties.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    GPL is GPL. If their thing isn't, they are in violation. They now have deep pockets. For anything that had no license spelled out, they had and have no license to use it at all. To be clear: they appear to have no license to distribute your code today, and owe you damages for all the distribution they have done thus far that was not licensed.
    - dannyw 7y ago
      To add, if they are still selling it today then it may reset any statue of limitations. I would recommend that you talk to a lawyer, and get them to draft Jetbrains a letter.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        There is no statute of limitations for copyright violation, to my knowledge. I gather Germany imposes some pretty draconian time limits for initiating enforcement, but have not heard of others.
  - zenhack 7y ago
    As others have pointed out, if they weren't distributing source and passing on the license, this is a blatant copyright violation, and what they were (still are?) doing is illegal. If you're at all interested in doing anything about it, copyleft.org has a bunch of useful resources.
chris_wot 7y ago
That sucks. Are you just looking for an apology?
- mmastrac 7y ago
  Given that it's 15 years later, I'm sure that would be fine. It was really just disappointing for a me in his mid-20s.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    No. Contempt should be accountable.
  - xnyan 7y ago
    If they've done it to you, it's very possible they've done/do it to others. You should post your story. JetBrains is not a little operation and should to be held to account if they've done what you've said.