7 ms·

Open source author pulls code after GPL abuse

26 points by iProject 14y ago

unwind 14y ago
As a few commenters to the author's post made clear, it's not obvious what GPL violations are taking place. Renaming it should be fine, as long as the license is intact. It's rude and very bad form (in my opinion), but as far as I understand it's not illegal in any way.
misnome 14y ago
Like other recent complaints about people abusing licences, this doesn't seem so obvious: > If you fork Mayan EDMS into a closed or private respository, stop and think about what you are doing because you going about it the wrong way. Wouldn't his definition of "fork" mean that nobody would be able to check out the source repository to view it? > Likewise if you fork Mayan EDMS and the first patch you commit is to change the name, stop. It has come to my attention that there are a number of unauthorized forks of Mayan EDMS being offered for download as if the original version was being abandoned As long as the upstream is attributed, does the GPL3 explicitly prohibit this? If people are not displaying the GPL licence and attribution, that is obviously a violation, but this doesn't necessarily mean that. > and at least one fork is being sold with a comercial license to add insult to injury. I don't know enough about the GPL to know if you can "sell" GPL software (with sources and attribution, of course, which these might have) > These violators have been listed in a new page called GPL violations. Listing is one thing, but no information on what specifically they have done or whether he has contacted them to request they comply/sent C&D. Removing the development source just seems to be like throwing a tantrum - you are always going to get people who try to abuse GPL, and the only way to avoid it is to fight them, or close the licence (which is complicated if you have accepted user contributions).
- timskinner 14y ago
  (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, just a free software enthusiast) > As long as the upstream is attributed, does the GPL3 explicitly prohibit this? If people are not displaying the GPL licence and attribution, that is obviously a violation, but this doesn't necessarily mean that. The GPL doesn't require attribution, merely that you comply with the terms of the GPL, in terms of making sure that any derived works are covered under the GPL. In fact, the GPL is incompatible with some versions of the BSD license because they require attribution. It's quite sensible to rename a project if you fork it so as to not violate the original developers trademark on the name (e.g. debian referring to their build of Firefox as Iceweasel) > I don't know enough about the GPL to know if you can "sell" GPL software (with sources and attribution, of course, which these might have) The GPL has no prohibitions against selling software covered under the GPL, as long as the software is licensed under the GPL and the source is made available. If selling GPL software were a violation of the terms of the GPL then companies like Redhat and Oracle could not sell their commercial distributions of Linux. This is why the FSF is careful to use the term "proprietary software" instead of "commercial software", since there is nothing in the GPL to prevent the software from being commercialized as long as it complies with the license.
paulhauggis 14y ago
You are allowed to sell GPL software as long as you also give out the source and a copy of the original license. If this goes against the "spirit of the license", there should be provisions against it. I also would like to know how this is a "free" license. The author is basically saying, you can use my source code, but only in the ways that I agree to. This doesn't sound very free to me. This is the reason why companies should stop using GPL software in their applications.
- kierank 14y ago
  Did you even read the article? He says "one fork is being sold with a comercial [sic] license". Commercial licence != GPL.
  - misnome 14y ago
    Given the general confusion in the post over what the GPL actually means, and what they thinks it means, It's not a given that the author doesn't just think that "Being Sold == Commercial Licence"
    - _delirium 14y ago
      It's possible he means something like an EULA, but I can't seem to find any solid information on any of these three products (which have incredibly generic names) to check. It's not allowed to redistribute GPL software with added license requirements (as often found in an EULA), since you can't add restrictions on downstream users other than those already in the GPL.
  - Vvector 14y ago
    I don't know the terms of the commercial licence in question. But GPL programs can be sold. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMone... Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney) Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
Xylakant 14y ago
I actually tried and find the GPL violations since I'm curious and would like to make up my own mind. So far without luck. All I can see is that the author accuses other people of creating closed forks (fine with the gpl IMHO) and renaming the product (fine with the gpl IMHO) and that one product is being sold on a commercial license. He neither adds any pointer which product that might be or how he thinks that the other actions harm the GPL. I'd love to see a more extensive statement on that so I can follow his reasoning. Until then, I'm a bit divided about this issue - it looks a little as if he feels slighted and ripped off by others and tries to retaliate while harming the community in the process. Edit: I meant by "fork" the "github fork" as the author of mayan did. So a "closed fork" would be to fork the project to closed github repo.
- bnr 14y ago
  > creating closed forks (fine with the gpl IMHO) That's not fine. At the very least, you have to provide the source code for your (entire) product if a customer demands it.
  - polshaw 14y ago
    As far as i have been able to figure out, what 'entire product' relates to is not 100% clear cut. AFAICT, you could easily segregate the parts of your product you wish to be private, and just modify the GPL code to inferface with that (you would tehn have to release this part).
    - stephen_g 14y ago
      No, the license says that if you distribute executables or libraries that link to, or contain GPL licensed code, all the source code of those executables and/or libraries must be released under the GPL or a GPL compatible license. What you're saying works with the LGPL license though (you can have closed source code that links to LGPL licensed code, as long as it's possible to re-compile the LGPL code and use the new version - which is easiest done by just having the LGPL code in a dynamic/shared library).
shadowmint 14y ago
Seems a bit odd. If someone is violating GPL then get in touch with the FSF (http://www.fsf.org/ http://www.fsf.org/) and talk enforcement with them. If someone is forking your code and calling it something else, or selling it.... well, welcome to the GPL. You're allowed to do that. You need to read section 7, specifically: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version; or That's an additional term you can place on your code, and NOT part of the default license.
- zbowling 14y ago
  If someone is violating the GPL and the FSF owns the code then contact the FSF. The FSF doesn't care if someone is violating your code's GPL license. It's not their code so the don't have any right to enforce your license.
- tsahyt 14y ago
  Forking, calling it something else and selling it is okay by the GPL. Using a different license isn't. A piece of code that's under the GPL must remain under the GPL unless the author (copyright holder that is) decides to change the license. At least that's how I understood it. So while you can fork it and sell it, you can't sell it under a different license, which is what those guys did.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Perhaps the Software Freedom Law Center (http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ http://www.softwarefreedom.org/) and gpl-violations.org (http://gpl-violations.org/ http://gpl-violations.org/) are the right ones to ask.
verroq 14y ago
If he is going to use GPL, a licence with almost nil chance enforcement when violated, how naive is he when he so surprise that scummy people try and commercialise his software. If he cared about his software (which obviously he did) he should have just sold it himself. Honestly, I think he's just upset because of a lost business opportunity. On the flip side, your software is getting forked, used commercially with ??? amount of users, that'll look pretty nice on your resume.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  If he is going to use GPL, a licence with almost nil chance enforcement when violated, how naive is he when he so surprise that scummy people try and commercialise his software. There isn't necessarily anything "scummy" about commercialising F/OSS. I mean, do you think Red Hat are scummy for selling Linux?
  - verroq 14y ago
    I assumed there were actual violations, which would make the perpetrators scummy.
    - mindcrime 14y ago
      Ah, OK. I thought you were implying that scumminess was a direct result of trying to commercialise F/OSS. My bad.
- calpaterson 14y ago
  The GPL has an excellent enforcement history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation#GPL_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation#GPL_en... http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
  - verroq 14y ago
    Lets be realistic here, enforcement of copyright across nation boundaries is still difficult. Just look at the recent case where someone's game engine was cloned, translated and sold in China. Aside from some high profile targets, you cannot claim that GPL has an excellent enforcement history. A simple google query "gpl hall of shame" should suffice.
gioele 14y ago
Let's check the some facts. (Conclusions: the author seems right.) The application author claims that, among the others, a "DocuManager" application bundled its software and sold it with 1) disclosing that the original software is his "Mayan EDMS" 2) abiding to the licence (GPLv2). Google tells us that there are two DocuManager applications: 1) http://www.evolusoft.com/documanager.html http://www.evolusoft.com/documanager.html 2) http://documanager.co.uk/ http://documanager.co.uk/ 3) http://www.documanager.de/ http://www.documanager.de/ Point 1: Mayan EDMS is not properly credited. A search for "mayan site:X" did not find anything in any of these sites. The author seems right. Point 2: GPL terms not respected. One of the GPL terms deals with the fact that you must distribute the licence text itself or offer a way to do so. The string GPL must, thus, appear somewhere in the site. The query in this case is "GPL site:X". Site 1 and 3 have no page with the term GPL inside. Site 2 instead seems to talk about a GPL version and a commercial, extended, closed version: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.documanager.de%2Fmagazin%2Fsystemvorstellung_bitfarm_archiv_dms.html&act=url http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&... As is for point 1, author is right about point 2 for all these three applications. We do not know which software the author of Mayam EDMS was referring to when he wrote "DocuManager", but, in any case, none of the three surveyed applications seems to fulfil the licence terms.
- Xylakant 14y ago
  documanager.de is a portal that revolves around document management. There seems to be a magazine and an expert exchange/consulting business attached, but it's not a product. So they certainly don't infringe. documanager.co.uk seems to be a windows native application and has the sites copyright tag set to 2005. An unlike candidate for infringement on a django-based python webapp. evolusofts application runs on IIS and Microsoft SQL Server. It provides a twain scanner interface. Also an unlikely candidate - thought it just might be. Still, I don't buy it without another indicator other than the matching name. Conclusion: Your post seems wrong. They simply don't mention Mayan or the GPL since they're not based on a GPL product.
  - cube13 14y ago
yds 14y ago
The Free Software Foundation Europe and gpl-violations.org might provide advice and assistance: https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ftf.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ftf.en.html http://gpl-violations.org/ http://gpl-violations.org/
the_mitsuhiko 14y ago
Time to be an ass and demand the source code because he has to provide it for three years. //EDIT: he does not even link to the violations. Where is proof that someone actually violated the license?
- regularfry 14y ago
  It's Python. If you're entitled to the source, you've already got it.
lttlrck 14y ago
Pulling the code is an overreaction. Prams, toys and babies etc.
warmfuzzykitten 14y ago
I guess I'm confused. What is an "unauthorized fork"? Anyone can fork GPL software at any time, for any reason. That's the whole point, isn't it?

26 points by iProject 14y ago

As a few commenters to the author's post made clear, it's not obvious what GPL violations are taking place. Renaming it should be fine, as long as the license is intact. It's rude and very bad form (in my opinion), but as far as I understand it's not illegal in any way.

misnome 14y ago

Like other recent complaints about people abusing licences, this doesn't seem so obvious: > If you fork Mayan EDMS into a closed or private respository, stop and think about what you are doing because you going about it the wrong way. Wouldn't his definition of "fork" mean that nobody would be able to check out the source repository to view it? > Likewise if you fork Mayan EDMS and the first patch you commit is to change the name, stop. It has come to my attention that there are a number of unauthorized forks of Mayan EDMS being offered for download as if the original version was being abandoned As long as the upstream is attributed, does the GPL3 explicitly prohibit this? If people are not displaying the GPL licence and attribution, that is obviously a violation, but this doesn't necessarily mean that. > and at least one fork is being sold with a comercial license to add insult to injury. I don't know enough about the GPL to know if you can "sell" GPL software (with sources and attribution, of course, which these might have) > These violators have been listed in a new page called GPL violations. Listing is one thing, but no information on what specifically they have done or whether he has contacted them to request they comply/sent C&D. Removing the development source just seems to be like throwing a tantrum - you are always going to get people who try to abuse GPL, and the only way to avoid it is to fight them, or close the licence (which is complicated if you have accepted user contributions).

timskinner 14y ago
(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, just a free software enthusiast) > As long as the upstream is attributed, does the GPL3 explicitly prohibit this? If people are not displaying the GPL licence and attribution, that is obviously a violation, but this doesn't necessarily mean that. The GPL doesn't require attribution, merely that you comply with the terms of the GPL, in terms of making sure that any derived works are covered under the GPL. In fact, the GPL is incompatible with some versions of the BSD license because they require attribution. It's quite sensible to rename a project if you fork it so as to not violate the original developers trademark on the name (e.g. debian referring to their build of Firefox as Iceweasel) > I don't know enough about the GPL to know if you can "sell" GPL software (with sources and attribution, of course, which these might have) The GPL has no prohibitions against selling software covered under the GPL, as long as the software is licensed under the GPL and the source is made available. If selling GPL software were a violation of the terms of the GPL then companies like Redhat and Oracle could not sell their commercial distributions of Linux. This is why the FSF is careful to use the term "proprietary software" instead of "commercial software", since there is nothing in the GPL to prevent the software from being commercialized as long as it complies with the license.

paulhauggis 14y ago

You are allowed to sell GPL software as long as you also give out the source and a copy of the original license. If this goes against the "spirit of the license", there should be provisions against it. I also would like to know how this is a "free" license. The author is basically saying, you can use my source code, but only in the ways that I agree to. This doesn't sound very free to me. This is the reason why companies should stop using GPL software in their applications.

kierank 14y ago
Did you even read the article? He says "one fork is being sold with a comercial [sic] license". Commercial licence != GPL.
- misnome 14y ago
  Given the general confusion in the post over what the GPL actually means, and what they thinks it means, It's not a given that the author doesn't just think that "Being Sold == Commercial Licence"
  - _delirium 14y ago
    It's possible he means something like an EULA, but I can't seem to find any solid information on any of these three products (which have incredibly generic names) to check. It's not allowed to redistribute GPL software with added license requirements (as often found in an EULA), since you can't add restrictions on downstream users other than those already in the GPL.
- Vvector 14y ago
  I don't know the terms of the commercial licence in question. But GPL programs can be sold. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMone... Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney) Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

Xylakant 14y ago

I actually tried and find the GPL violations since I'm curious and would like to make up my own mind. So far without luck. All I can see is that the author accuses other people of creating closed forks (fine with the gpl IMHO) and renaming the product (fine with the gpl IMHO) and that one product is being sold on a commercial license. He neither adds any pointer which product that might be or how he thinks that the other actions harm the GPL. I'd love to see a more extensive statement on that so I can follow his reasoning. Until then, I'm a bit divided about this issue - it looks a little as if he feels slighted and ripped off by others and tries to retaliate while harming the community in the process. Edit: I meant by "fork" the "github fork" as the author of mayan did. So a "closed fork" would be to fork the project to closed github repo.

bnr 14y ago
> creating closed forks (fine with the gpl IMHO) That's not fine. At the very least, you have to provide the source code for your (entire) product if a customer demands it.
- polshaw 14y ago
  As far as i have been able to figure out, what 'entire product' relates to is not 100% clear cut. AFAICT, you could easily segregate the parts of your product you wish to be private, and just modify the GPL code to inferface with that (you would tehn have to release this part).
  - stephen_g 14y ago
    No, the license says that if you distribute executables or libraries that link to, or contain GPL licensed code, all the source code of those executables and/or libraries must be released under the GPL or a GPL compatible license. What you're saying works with the LGPL license though (you can have closed source code that links to LGPL licensed code, as long as it's possible to re-compile the LGPL code and use the new version - which is easiest done by just having the LGPL code in a dynamic/shared library).

shadowmint 14y ago

Seems a bit odd. If someone is violating GPL then get in touch with the FSF (http://www.fsf.org/ http://www.fsf.org/) and talk enforcement with them. If someone is forking your code and calling it something else, or selling it.... well, welcome to the GPL. You're allowed to do that. You need to read section 7, specifically: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version; or That's an additional term you can place on your code, and NOT part of the default license.

zbowling 14y ago
If someone is violating the GPL and the FSF owns the code then contact the FSF. The FSF doesn't care if someone is violating your code's GPL license. It's not their code so the don't have any right to enforce your license.
tsahyt 14y ago
Forking, calling it something else and selling it is okay by the GPL. Using a different license isn't. A piece of code that's under the GPL must remain under the GPL unless the author (copyright holder that is) decides to change the license. At least that's how I understood it. So while you can fork it and sell it, you can't sell it under a different license, which is what those guys did.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Perhaps the Software Freedom Law Center (http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ http://www.softwarefreedom.org/) and gpl-violations.org (http://gpl-violations.org/ http://gpl-violations.org/) are the right ones to ask.

verroq 14y ago

If he is going to use GPL, a licence with almost nil chance enforcement when violated, how naive is he when he so surprise that scummy people try and commercialise his software. If he cared about his software (which obviously he did) he should have just sold it himself. Honestly, I think he's just upset because of a lost business opportunity. On the flip side, your software is getting forked, used commercially with ??? amount of users, that'll look pretty nice on your resume.

mindcrime 14y ago
If he is going to use GPL, a licence with almost nil chance enforcement when violated, how naive is he when he so surprise that scummy people try and commercialise his software. There isn't necessarily anything "scummy" about commercialising F/OSS. I mean, do you think Red Hat are scummy for selling Linux?
- verroq 14y ago
  I assumed there were actual violations, which would make the perpetrators scummy.
  - mindcrime 14y ago
    Ah, OK. I thought you were implying that scumminess was a direct result of trying to commercialise F/OSS. My bad.
calpaterson 14y ago
The GPL has an excellent enforcement history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation#GPL_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation#GPL_en... http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
- verroq 14y ago
  Lets be realistic here, enforcement of copyright across nation boundaries is still difficult. Just look at the recent case where someone's game engine was cloned, translated and sold in China. Aside from some high profile targets, you cannot claim that GPL has an excellent enforcement history. A simple google query "gpl hall of shame" should suffice.

gioele 14y ago

Let's check the some facts. (Conclusions: the author seems right.) The application author claims that, among the others, a "DocuManager" application bundled its software and sold it with 1) disclosing that the original software is his "Mayan EDMS" 2) abiding to the licence (GPLv2). Google tells us that there are two DocuManager applications: 1) http://www.evolusoft.com/documanager.html http://www.evolusoft.com/documanager.html 2) http://documanager.co.uk/ http://documanager.co.uk/ 3) http://www.documanager.de/ http://www.documanager.de/ Point 1: Mayan EDMS is not properly credited. A search for "mayan site:X" did not find anything in any of these sites. The author seems right. Point 2: GPL terms not respected. One of the GPL terms deals with the fact that you must distribute the licence text itself or offer a way to do so. The string GPL must, thus, appear somewhere in the site. The query in this case is "GPL site:X". Site 1 and 3 have no page with the term GPL inside. Site 2 instead seems to talk about a GPL version and a commercial, extended, closed version: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.documanager.de%2Fmagazin%2Fsystemvorstellung_bitfarm_archiv_dms.html&act=url http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&... As is for point 1, author is right about point 2 for all these three applications. We do not know which software the author of Mayam EDMS was referring to when he wrote "DocuManager", but, in any case, none of the three surveyed applications seems to fulfil the licence terms.

Xylakant 14y ago
documanager.de is a portal that revolves around document management. There seems to be a magazine and an expert exchange/consulting business attached, but it's not a product. So they certainly don't infringe. documanager.co.uk seems to be a windows native application and has the sites copyright tag set to 2005. An unlike candidate for infringement on a django-based python webapp. evolusofts application runs on IIS and Microsoft SQL Server. It provides a twain scanner interface. Also an unlikely candidate - thought it just might be. Still, I don't buy it without another indicator other than the matching name. Conclusion: Your post seems wrong. They simply don't mention Mayan or the GPL since they're not based on a GPL product.
- cube13 14y ago

yds 14y ago

The Free Software Foundation Europe and gpl-violations.org might provide advice and assistance: https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ftf.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ftf.en.html http://gpl-violations.org/ http://gpl-violations.org/

the_mitsuhiko 14y ago

Time to be an ass and demand the source code because he has to provide it for three years. //EDIT: he does not even link to the violations. Where is proof that someone actually violated the license?

regularfry 14y ago
It's Python. If you're entitled to the source, you've already got it.

lttlrck 14y ago

Pulling the code is an overreaction. Prams, toys and babies etc.

warmfuzzykitten 14y ago

I guess I'm confused. What is an "unauthorized fork"? Anyone can fork GPL software at any time, for any reason. That's the whole point, isn't it?