11 ms·

Cheat Engine contains GPL-licensed code but disallows commercial use

233 points by btdmaster 4y ago

jedberg 4y ago
I'm amused that the latest update in Github is a link back to this discussion as proof of their claims.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tombert 4y ago
Did this ever get resolved? It seems like the latest comment is from November of last year?
- Shadonototra 4y ago
  I doubt they care, they ship their installer with adware It's a nice software, but the people behind it are shady
- traspler 4y ago
  There is a longer/older issue with more recent comments here: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60
- cwkoss 4y ago
  I wonder how it would play out legally for someone to fork and relicense the codebase as GPL. Could cheat engine successfully sue to take down the new repository?
  - legalcorrection 4y ago
    Yes! See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084383
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Yes, just because someone violates the GPL doesn't give you rights to their code; it's just that the easiest way to unviolate is to release everything as GPL.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - chrisfinazzo 4y ago
      Although Stallman argues otherwise, the nature of the GPL is really incompatible with how business is done in the real world. If the GPL requires you to release source code, but the reason for your success is that you've found a clever way to do something that no one has thought of yet, doesn't that really put a damper on what people will try doing - because the invention is no longer yours and must be shared?
      - throwaway2037 4y ago
        I'm confused by this comment: Although Stallman argues otherwise, the nature of the GPL is really incompatible with how business is done in the real world. Red Hat deals heavily in GPL'd code that it writes and maintains. It is a major contributor to many, many GPL'd open source projects. Even where it cannot get patches accepted upstream, they maintain many year, massive patch sets to satisfy needs of corporate clients. How do you explain their success? The same is true, to a lesser extent, for SuSE, which has a major economic footprint in corporate Germany (and Austria and Switzerland). And how about The Qt Company or MySQL / MariaDB?
        JohnHaugeland 4y ago
        > How do you explain their success? Red Hat is a rare outlier. The vast majority of business related software is not GPL, and cannot be.
        lostcolony 4y ago
        Certainly consumer oriented stuff. The thing notable about every company I've seen relying on GPL code is that what they sell are services/support. People pay Red Hat to be able to email someone when they have a problem. That's it. That's the business mode. Same with MariaDB (MySQL is a little unique in that it was purchased by Oracle, and I can't speak to Qt having no familiarity with it). That works for B2B positioning, since the cost of support staff scales well when each new customer is worth thousands of dollars in revenue...and doesn't work well for B2C where the cost of support staff won't scale well when each new customer is worth a few bucks.
- Rexxar 4y ago
  There is nothing to resolve apparently. Someone claiming there is a license violation doesn't mean there is a license violation. Even if it's true, it just seems to be mislabelled headers and code in tcc and that have been cleaned up in next versions of tcc so just updating the dependency resolve the problem.
- jjri 4y ago
  Check now
legalcorrection 4y ago
Let me clear up a huge and very common misconception: an (alleged) GPL violation like this doesn't mean that you, the recipient, suddenly has the right to demand that the rest of the code be released as GPL. All it does is give the copyright holder of the GPL'd code a legal claim against the developer of the infringing product. It's unlikely that even the copyright holder could get a court to award anything but monetary damages. Courts are very reluctant to order specific performance (i.e. release all of your code as GPL) of a contract instead of just granting monetary damages. (Like a reply points out, the copyright holder is likely to win an injunction against further infringement.) Importantly, the new code in the infringing product is still copyrighted, and that copyright is owned by the person who wrote that code even though they also violated the GPL license of other code. Edit: Good point about the SFC/Vizio case. I would be surprised if the SFC wins, but it's a clever argument. It would be a major earthquake for the free software world, but maybe not an earthquake in their favor. No one is going to touch GPL code with a ten foot pole if it gives the entire public standing to sue you.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  I now see how the Software Freedom Conservatory's lawsuit against Vizio is notable in that it seems to do most these things.
- colejohnson66 4y ago
  Correct, However, assuming this is all true, the developers (whose work is being infringed[a]) could get an injunction saying Cheat Engine can't release the infringing versions anymore, and must remove the infringing code going forward. And if Cheat Engine refuses, they could get an order against GitHub to remove the infringing works (the releases and possibly the entire repo). [a]: According to a comment on issue #60[0], this would be any of: the FSF, Fabrice Bellard, Timppa, Martin Waldenburg, Jean-Franois Goulet, or Bo Brantén [0]: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
kop316 4y ago
The git issue is hard to follow. They reference having GPL'ed license code, but the author claims there is only LGPL code in it. The issue poster then says at one point GPLed code was used....but then doesn't show commits where it was added or removed? There is an additional git issue that is referenced, but this only talks about the original license of the repository. I could just be bad at following what is going on too, since this is the first time I have seen this.
- exikyut 4y ago
  Following the link to issue 60 posted elsewhere, I found someone posted exactly that type of list in a comment: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
- naoqj 4y ago
  https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
  - kop316 4y ago
    Ahh, that helps a bunch. Thank you!
  - lawl 4y ago
    Just checked one of those at random: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blame/master/Cheat%20Engine/tcclib/tcctools.c https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blame/master/Ch... > modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public > * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; LGPL, not GPL. No shady stuff going on either, https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/tcctools.c https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/tcctools.c sais the same thing. Edit: texi2pod.pl however does seem to be GPL, and not LGPL: https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/texi2pod.pl https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/texi2pod.pl however, perl isn't linked, so there's probably a way out there. il-opcodes does seem to be GPL2+, and the header arguably would end up in the binary thus forcing everything to be GPL? https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/il-opcodes.h https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/il-opcodes.h Edit 2: I think I've resolved this: Fabrice Bellard already agreed to relicense under a permissive license, see: https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/RELICENSING https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/RELICENSING Thus, I think it would be really hard to argue that there's any problem left, since the only file here that could be in violation (il-opcodes) is authored by fabrice bellard and arguably already permissively licensed. Case closed.
jdrc 4y ago
are you saying they are cheating?
- capuno 4y ago
  underrated
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- __michaelg 4y ago
  Thank you. Someone had to.
Decabytes 4y ago
The FSF has a page called The Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement^1. In it they talk about the GPL. But they make it very clear that they don't want to go about suing people who violate the license, and they would like to educate people on why they are violating the license. The zealotry does not help anyone. > Legal action is a last resort. Compliance actions are primarily education and assistance processes to aid those who are not following the license. Most GPL violations occur by mistake, without ill will. Copyleft enforcement should assist these distributors to become helpful participants in the free software projects on which they rely. Occasionally, violations are intentional or the result of severe negligence, and there is no duty to be empathetic in those cases. Even then, a lawsuit is a last resort; mutually agreed terms that fix (or at least cease) further distribution and address damage already done are much better than a battle in court. TLDR: Legal action is a last resort. Most GPL violations occur by mistake, without ill will. 1.https://www.fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles https://www.fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles
rob_c 4y ago
please stop feeding the trolls, yes there may be mistakes but threatening legal action and lawyers when it's not sorted in a week is being a bad actor and this _should_not_ be encouraged.
- uwuemu 4y ago
mytherin 4y ago
The provided evidence for a GPL violation by cheat-engine seems extremely thin. Here is a list of the supposed violations, as per this comment [1]: ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/texi2pod.pl copyright Free Software Foundation via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/il-opcodes.h copyright Fabrice Bellard via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/tcctools.c copyright Timppa via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/lib/libtcc1.c copyright Free Software Foundation via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/bin/tcclib/libtcc1.c copyright Free Software Foundation and Fabrice Bellard via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/SynHighlighterAA.pas copyright Martin Waldenburg via GNU GPL v2+ (and MPL) ./Cheat Engine/LuaSyntax.pas copyright Jean-Franois Goulet via GNU GPL v2+ (and MPL) ./DBKKernel/obsolete_ntifs.h copyright Bo Brant via GNU GPL v2+ * libtcc is licensed under LGPL, as can be verified by downloading the source [2]. The bulk of the alleged violations come from the vendored version of this project. * il-opcodes.h [3] is included in libtcc, but has a GPL license in the header. As the GPL license author is the author of libtcc (Fabrice Bellard), this seems like a mistake in that single header and the general license of the project should take priority. An author of source code is allowed to relicense their own code to whichever license they wish, after all, even if the original license used to be the GPL. * texi2pod.pl [4] is licensed under GPL, but as it is a single perl script it does not link to the main cheat-engine program, which means the GPL does not extend to the rest of the cheat-engine project. * LuaSyntax.pas and SynHighlighterAA.pas [5] are dual licensed under MPL, so are not violations to begin with. * The other linked file (obsolete_ntifs.h [6]) has since been deleted and was not in use to begin with (and hence never linked to the actual project). Unless I am missing something, none of these allegations seem to hold any water. It mainly seems to boil down to the author of libtcc making a sloppy license mistake in a header (likely copy-pasting licenses around incorrectly). [1] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue... [2] https://bellard.org/tcc/ https://bellard.org/tcc/ [3] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/master/Cheat%20Engine/tcclib/il-opcodes.h https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/master/Che... [4] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/8bdb7f28a9d40ccaa6f4116b13c570907ce9ee2e/Cheat%20Engine/tcclib/texi2pod.pl https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/8bdb7f28a9... [5] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/5d595d7fce94fdee876070d7ac0eca5cec0e9a89/Cheat%20Engine/LuaSyntax.pas https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/5d595d7fce... [6] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/e38c7997c9cbd29628cd0c31adaf9f0cb9247790/DBKKernel/obsolete_ntifs.h https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/e38c7997c9...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
make3 4y ago
why is this thread voted so high
- uwuemu 4y ago
  [dead]
mdb31 4y ago
For anyone asking why enterprises disallow any code with the letters "GPL" anywhere near the license, here is your answer... Is it GPL? GPLv2? GPLv2+? LGPL? AGPL? The majority will enjoy their absolute freedom... to stay far, far away from all that noise...
gwbas1c 4y ago
If I were running the project, I'd put a very firm comment like this: @Maniues: Please explicitly list all files in this project that violate GPL, or I will close this issue by (Some reasonable date.) Then, by that date, I'd double-check that none of the code violates the GPL. Why: I suspect that Maniues has a poor understanding of the semantics needed to determine if the project actually violated the GPL. It's quite common for people to raise a ruckus on something that they don't understand. Upon closing the issue, I'd state, "I checked all of our dependencies, including XXX. Nothing violates the GPL." If there's LGPL or similar, I'd say something like, "We use XXX, which is LGPL, not GPL, and we are in compliance with the license." Then I would close the issue. Issues like this shouldn't be left unresolved.
- cyberbanjo 4y ago
  > all files in this project that violate GPL This comment is in a different issue, not sure if it's exactly that: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
  - gwbas1c 4y ago
    "Go read XXX" is a non answer. (The link also doesn't list the files in violation.)
nerdjon 4y ago
So I know next to nothing about open source licenses like this. I have just never needed to deal with that world. I do find this side of things very interesting so I took at look at the thread. But 2 things stick out to me in particular: 1. The person who opened this ticket... their tone is. Strong. Especially for someone that claims to not have a stake but is threatening to contact those that do? What is the point? 2. I took a look at the history for this person and they open a lot of these tickets. So again... I am curious what their point is? What is the end goal of just spending all this time looking at repos and getting into arguments over licensing.
- kjs3 4y ago
  Everybody has a hobby. Some people do constructive things; some people pick petty fights with strangers.
noobermin 4y ago
I will say, having spent (wasted) a few minutes parsing some of those issue threads, the attitude of the comments basically trying to strong-arm the author into using GPL kind of sucks, it's approaching a realization of all those delusional blogposts I read in the mid 00's about how the "viral nature" of GPL code is a threat to muh precious code I've written myself. At the very least, tell CE to not use the GPL'ed portions (I mean, from what I found, the actual violations are simple things, one is a script to convert text formats, another is literally a list of op-codes) and have them use something else or roll their own, those pieces shouldn't be hard to self-write. I'm team free software and GPL code makes it more likely that people will GPL their code, but this sort of mobbing/bullying shouldn't be the way to do it. Let people make the decision because it is technically superior to do so, and sure ask people but bullying like this seems counter-productive. As an aside for the tcc bits, they're right, tcc is lgpl, but it is odd that parts of it are stamped GPL proper, so I'm not sure what the protocol is there...is that an improper inclusion of GPL'ed code into a LGPL project? That would be tcc's fault then...
AbraKdabra 4y ago
The level of entitlement of the issue creator is absolutely disgusting.

233 points by btdmaster 4y ago

jedberg 4y ago

I'm amused that the latest update in Github is a link back to this discussion as proof of their claims.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tombert 4y ago

Did this ever get resolved? It seems like the latest comment is from November of last year?

Shadonototra 4y ago
I doubt they care, they ship their installer with adware It's a nice software, but the people behind it are shady
traspler 4y ago
There is a longer/older issue with more recent comments here: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60
cwkoss 4y ago
I wonder how it would play out legally for someone to fork and relicense the codebase as GPL. Could cheat engine successfully sue to take down the new repository?
- legalcorrection 4y ago
  Yes! See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084383
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yes, just because someone violates the GPL doesn't give you rights to their code; it's just that the easiest way to unviolate is to release everything as GPL.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - chrisfinazzo 4y ago
    Although Stallman argues otherwise, the nature of the GPL is really incompatible with how business is done in the real world. If the GPL requires you to release source code, but the reason for your success is that you've found a clever way to do something that no one has thought of yet, doesn't that really put a damper on what people will try doing - because the invention is no longer yours and must be shared?
    - throwaway2037 4y ago
      I'm confused by this comment: Although Stallman argues otherwise, the nature of the GPL is really incompatible with how business is done in the real world. Red Hat deals heavily in GPL'd code that it writes and maintains. It is a major contributor to many, many GPL'd open source projects. Even where it cannot get patches accepted upstream, they maintain many year, massive patch sets to satisfy needs of corporate clients. How do you explain their success? The same is true, to a lesser extent, for SuSE, which has a major economic footprint in corporate Germany (and Austria and Switzerland). And how about The Qt Company or MySQL / MariaDB?
      - JohnHaugeland 4y ago
        > How do you explain their success? Red Hat is a rare outlier. The vast majority of business related software is not GPL, and cannot be.
        lostcolony 4y ago
        Certainly consumer oriented stuff. The thing notable about every company I've seen relying on GPL code is that what they sell are services/support. People pay Red Hat to be able to email someone when they have a problem. That's it. That's the business mode. Same with MariaDB (MySQL is a little unique in that it was purchased by Oracle, and I can't speak to Qt having no familiarity with it). That works for B2B positioning, since the cost of support staff scales well when each new customer is worth thousands of dollars in revenue...and doesn't work well for B2C where the cost of support staff won't scale well when each new customer is worth a few bucks.
Rexxar 4y ago
There is nothing to resolve apparently. Someone claiming there is a license violation doesn't mean there is a license violation. Even if it's true, it just seems to be mislabelled headers and code in tcc and that have been cleaned up in next versions of tcc so just updating the dependency resolve the problem.
jjri 4y ago
Check now

legalcorrection 4y ago

Let me clear up a huge and very common misconception: an (alleged) GPL violation like this doesn't mean that you, the recipient, suddenly has the right to demand that the rest of the code be released as GPL. All it does is give the copyright holder of the GPL'd code a legal claim against the developer of the infringing product. It's unlikely that even the copyright holder could get a court to award anything but monetary damages. Courts are very reluctant to order specific performance (i.e. release all of your code as GPL) of a contract instead of just granting monetary damages. (Like a reply points out, the copyright holder is likely to win an injunction against further infringement.) Importantly, the new code in the infringing product is still copyrighted, and that copyright is owned by the person who wrote that code even though they also violated the GPL license of other code. Edit: Good point about the SFC/Vizio case. I would be surprised if the SFC wins, but it's a clever argument. It would be a major earthquake for the free software world, but maybe not an earthquake in their favor. No one is going to touch GPL code with a ten foot pole if it gives the entire public standing to sue you.

jrootabega 4y ago
I now see how the Software Freedom Conservatory's lawsuit against Vizio is notable in that it seems to do most these things.
colejohnson66 4y ago
Correct, However, assuming this is all true, the developers (whose work is being infringed[a]) could get an injunction saying Cheat Engine can't release the infringing versions anymore, and must remove the infringing code going forward. And if Cheat Engine refuses, they could get an order against GitHub to remove the infringing works (the releases and possibly the entire repo). [a]: According to a comment on issue #60[0], this would be any of: the FSF, Fabrice Bellard, Timppa, Martin Waldenburg, Jean-Franois Goulet, or Bo Brantén [0]: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

kop316 4y ago

The git issue is hard to follow. They reference having GPL'ed license code, but the author claims there is only LGPL code in it. The issue poster then says at one point GPLed code was used....but then doesn't show commits where it was added or removed? There is an additional git issue that is referenced, but this only talks about the original license of the repository. I could just be bad at following what is going on too, since this is the first time I have seen this.

exikyut 4y ago
Following the link to issue 60 posted elsewhere, I found someone posted exactly that type of list in a comment: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
naoqj 4y ago
https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
- kop316 4y ago
  Ahh, that helps a bunch. Thank you!
- lawl 4y ago
  Just checked one of those at random: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blame/master/Cheat%20Engine/tcclib/tcctools.c https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blame/master/Ch... > modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public > * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; LGPL, not GPL. No shady stuff going on either, https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/tcctools.c https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/tcctools.c sais the same thing. Edit: texi2pod.pl however does seem to be GPL, and not LGPL: https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/texi2pod.pl https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/texi2pod.pl however, perl isn't linked, so there's probably a way out there. il-opcodes does seem to be GPL2+, and the header arguably would end up in the binary thus forcing everything to be GPL? https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/il-opcodes.h https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/il-opcodes.h Edit 2: I think I've resolved this: Fabrice Bellard already agreed to relicense under a permissive license, see: https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/RELICENSING https://github.com/mirror/tinycc/blob/mob/RELICENSING Thus, I think it would be really hard to argue that there's any problem left, since the only file here that could be in violation (il-opcodes) is authored by fabrice bellard and arguably already permissively licensed. Case closed.

jdrc 4y ago

are you saying they are cheating?

capuno 4y ago
underrated
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
__michaelg 4y ago
Thank you. Someone had to.

Decabytes 4y ago

The FSF has a page called The Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement^1. In it they talk about the GPL. But they make it very clear that they don't want to go about suing people who violate the license, and they would like to educate people on why they are violating the license. The zealotry does not help anyone. > Legal action is a last resort. Compliance actions are primarily education and assistance processes to aid those who are not following the license. Most GPL violations occur by mistake, without ill will. Copyleft enforcement should assist these distributors to become helpful participants in the free software projects on which they rely. Occasionally, violations are intentional or the result of severe negligence, and there is no duty to be empathetic in those cases. Even then, a lawsuit is a last resort; mutually agreed terms that fix (or at least cease) further distribution and address damage already done are much better than a battle in court. TLDR: Legal action is a last resort. Most GPL violations occur by mistake, without ill will. 1.https://www.fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles https://www.fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles

rob_c 4y ago

please stop feeding the trolls, yes there may be mistakes but threatening legal action and lawyers when it's not sorted in a week is being a bad actor and this _should_not_ be encouraged.

uwuemu 4y ago

mytherin 4y ago

The provided evidence for a GPL violation by cheat-engine seems extremely thin. Here is a list of the supposed violations, as per this comment [1]: ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/texi2pod.pl copyright Free Software Foundation via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/il-opcodes.h copyright Fabrice Bellard via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/tcctools.c copyright Timppa via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/tcclib/lib/libtcc1.c copyright Free Software Foundation via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/bin/tcclib/libtcc1.c copyright Free Software Foundation and Fabrice Bellard via GNU GPL v2+ ./Cheat Engine/SynHighlighterAA.pas copyright Martin Waldenburg via GNU GPL v2+ (and MPL) ./Cheat Engine/LuaSyntax.pas copyright Jean-Franois Goulet via GNU GPL v2+ (and MPL) ./DBKKernel/obsolete_ntifs.h copyright Bo Brant via GNU GPL v2+ * libtcc is licensed under LGPL, as can be verified by downloading the source [2]. The bulk of the alleged violations come from the vendored version of this project. * il-opcodes.h [3] is included in libtcc, but has a GPL license in the header. As the GPL license author is the author of libtcc (Fabrice Bellard), this seems like a mistake in that single header and the general license of the project should take priority. An author of source code is allowed to relicense their own code to whichever license they wish, after all, even if the original license used to be the GPL. * texi2pod.pl [4] is licensed under GPL, but as it is a single perl script it does not link to the main cheat-engine program, which means the GPL does not extend to the rest of the cheat-engine project. * LuaSyntax.pas and SynHighlighterAA.pas [5] are dual licensed under MPL, so are not violations to begin with. * The other linked file (obsolete_ntifs.h [6]) has since been deleted and was not in use to begin with (and hence never linked to the actual project). Unless I am missing something, none of these allegations seem to hold any water. It mainly seems to boil down to the author of libtcc making a sloppy license mistake in a header (likely copy-pasting licenses around incorrectly). [1] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue... [2] https://bellard.org/tcc/ https://bellard.org/tcc/ [3] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/master/Cheat%20Engine/tcclib/il-opcodes.h https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/master/Che... [4] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/8bdb7f28a9d40ccaa6f4116b13c570907ce9ee2e/Cheat%20Engine/tcclib/texi2pod.pl https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/8bdb7f28a9... [5] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/5d595d7fce94fdee876070d7ac0eca5cec0e9a89/Cheat%20Engine/LuaSyntax.pas https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/5d595d7fce... [6] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/e38c7997c9cbd29628cd0c31adaf9f0cb9247790/DBKKernel/obsolete_ntifs.h https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/blob/e38c7997c9...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

make3 4y ago

why is this thread voted so high

uwuemu 4y ago
[dead]

mdb31 4y ago

For anyone asking why enterprises disallow any code with the letters "GPL" anywhere near the license, here is your answer... Is it GPL? GPLv2? GPLv2+? LGPL? AGPL? The majority will enjoy their absolute freedom... to stay far, far away from all that noise...

gwbas1c 4y ago

If I were running the project, I'd put a very firm comment like this: @Maniues: Please explicitly list all files in this project that violate GPL, or I will close this issue by (Some reasonable date.) Then, by that date, I'd double-check that none of the code violates the GPL. Why: I suspect that Maniues has a poor understanding of the semantics needed to determine if the project actually violated the GPL. It's quite common for people to raise a ruckus on something that they don't understand. Upon closing the issue, I'd state, "I checked all of our dependencies, including XXX. Nothing violates the GPL." If there's LGPL or similar, I'd say something like, "We use XXX, which is LGPL, not GPL, and we are in compliance with the license." Then I would close the issue. Issues like this shouldn't be left unresolved.

cyberbanjo 4y ago
> all files in this project that violate GPL This comment is in a different issue, not sure if it's exactly that: https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issuecomment-942071225 https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine/issues/60#issue...
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  "Go read XXX" is a non answer. (The link also doesn't list the files in violation.)

nerdjon 4y ago

So I know next to nothing about open source licenses like this. I have just never needed to deal with that world. I do find this side of things very interesting so I took at look at the thread. But 2 things stick out to me in particular: 1. The person who opened this ticket... their tone is. Strong. Especially for someone that claims to not have a stake but is threatening to contact those that do? What is the point? 2. I took a look at the history for this person and they open a lot of these tickets. So again... I am curious what their point is? What is the end goal of just spending all this time looking at repos and getting into arguments over licensing.

kjs3 4y ago
Everybody has a hobby. Some people do constructive things; some people pick petty fights with strangers.

noobermin 4y ago

I will say, having spent (wasted) a few minutes parsing some of those issue threads, the attitude of the comments basically trying to strong-arm the author into using GPL kind of sucks, it's approaching a realization of all those delusional blogposts I read in the mid 00's about how the "viral nature" of GPL code is a threat to muh precious code I've written myself. At the very least, tell CE to not use the GPL'ed portions (I mean, from what I found, the actual violations are simple things, one is a script to convert text formats, another is literally a list of op-codes) and have them use something else or roll their own, those pieces shouldn't be hard to self-write. I'm team free software and GPL code makes it more likely that people will GPL their code, but this sort of mobbing/bullying shouldn't be the way to do it. Let people make the decision because it is technically superior to do so, and sure ask people but bullying like this seems counter-productive. As an aside for the tcc bits, they're right, tcc is lgpl, but it is odd that parts of it are stamped GPL proper, so I'm not sure what the protocol is there...is that an improper inclusion of GPL'ed code into a LGPL project? That would be tcc's fault then...

AbraKdabra 4y ago

The level of entitlement of the issue creator is absolutely disgusting.