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Years ago I wrote a p2p file sharing program and open-sourced under GPL. Soon a group contacted me for forking the project; I gave them my blessing and wished
by ww520 5y ago
Years ago I wrote a p2p file sharing program and open-sourced under GPL. Soon a group contacted me for forking the project; I gave them my blessing and wished them luck.
Later I looked at their fork. All they did was adding their names to the copyright and the new project name to the comment section for all the hundreds of files. I was frustrated as this was a clear case of taking copyright ownership for the software. I asked them to remove their names from the copyright unless it's new changes by them but they said GPL allowed it. I contacted FSF for clarification and FSF replied that it's allowed as changing the comment constituted a new change. It's a bunch of BS. It took the rosy glasses off my naive self and soured my view on open sourcing my software in the future.
- beprogrammed 5y agoThat's a dirty move.
- deathanatos 5y agoIANAL, and this is not legal advice, but I am surprised at the FSF's view here. I believed (and believe) that copyright requires a substantive change to form a derivative work, and I would rather doubt that changing the comments counts. (Now, I think that precedents in the court have set the bar for "substantive" pretty low, but not that low.) I would also say that "legal" is not always the same as "ethical", particularly in this circumstance.