Maui X-Stream: GPL Violations, Lies, and Damn Lies 444
Jeremy writes "Drunkenbatman is at it again. This time he takes apart Maui X-Stream and all the who and whats that go along with it. Deconstructing Maui X-Stream has GPL Violations with reproducable proof (not done this myself), chat logs, and double talk from the CEO's and supposed authors of the software."
interesting read (Score:4, Interesting)
Just kidding obviously. I read through this last night (skipped a few parts here and there), but wow, talk about talking out your asshole! I can't wait to see if Maui X-Stream launches any lawsuits against drunkenbatman (or anyone else). Should be entertainment on the level of the SCO fiasco if it happens.
What do you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is the penalty (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why this keeps happening.
If I do this, and get caught...so what? What's the penalty? Exactly who is going to prosecute?
What if this CEO came right out and said "Yup, copied the whole damn thing from Sourceforge. What are you going to do about it?" What happens next?
PS: Not trolling, genuinely curious. All the focus seems to be on "Is the GPL enforcable", not "Who shall enforce it". And IMHO, both are important.
eMule, eMule+, MetaCafe and the GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
http://forum.emule-project.net/index.php?showtopi
http://forums.metacafe.com/viewtopic.php?t=139 [metacafe.com]
The worst part is probably that the eMule+ folks, who forked the eMule codebase and should be well aware of how the GPL works, are directly contributing to this violation.
Re:The problem is the penalty (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks like they're dead? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.cherryos.com/ [cherryos.com]
Now they are saying:
and they are linking to:
http://emaculation.com/ [emaculation.com]
What they hell are these guys doing now?!?!?
This happens more often than you think... (Score:5, Interesting)
GPL violations are a lot more common than most people think.
Just because it doesn't hit the mainstream media doesn't mean that thousands (yes, thousands of OSS projects out there are being actively violated by commercial enterprises). A few years ago I caught Sony doing this [gnu-designs.com] and reported about it (picked up by Slashdot here [slashdot.org] based on my account).
But that was relatively small potatoes to another GPL violation we've had to deal with. The CEO of a mobile company (who shall remain nameless, thousands know who he is) took our code [plkr.org], stripped our names and attribution out, removed the COPYING file (our copy of the GPL license), put his name all over it, and claimed he wrote it. He also waffled and lied over the years about which parts of our project he was and was not using. His stories changed back and forth (and I have all of the emails confirming these wishy-washy statements).
When we started seeing companies giving away binary versions of an application that looked suspisciously like ours (and I mean pixel-for-pixel identical) without any source, attribution or links back to the GPL, we started calling those companies and requesting the source for compliance. Since these companies had no idea who we were, they referred us back to the company they bought it from.. the original one who took our code from us outside of compliance with the GPL.
Then the threats started coming in... from the CEO of the company that originally took our source. My favorite quote from him:
We were appointed an amazing attorney [harvard.edu] by the FSF, and she represented us well. I even went to NYC to meet with this CEO with Wendy to discuss how they could bring themselves into compliance. The CEO insisted that "..the GPL is not a license, its subject to interpretation... it was never reviewed by real attorneys or tested in court", and then proceeded to tell me to fire my attorney, right in front of her, because he said she wasn't giving me correct information about the law. Yeah ok, except she TEACHES law, and this CEO does what again? Oh yeah, steals other people's products for his own profitous gain.
He continued to threaten us for contacting his "partners" (who were also not transferred the GPL when he sold them "his" product [using our code]). Of course his threats fell on deaf ears, since it is our duty to require compliance with our code no matter who uses it.
The case goes on now, 4+ years later, but some interesting facts have come to light and we may have some official corporate backing from someone he believes is a partner of his... this is FAR from over, and he has absolutely no idea what mountain of legal stress is heading his way.
Wendy has moved on to the EFF now, and we have some new legal contacts at the FSF to try persue this further, but they're busy with lots of other cases.
If anyone is interested in hearing more details, feel free to contact me. If you want to support our case against companies like this, please visit our donation page [plkr.org] and contribute to help us fund more legal support (or just because your appreciate our work: Don't forget to check out our Plucker eye-candy page [plkr.org]).
Re:overwhelming evidence! Great article! (Score:4, Interesting)
The people in charge of the groups that own the code should get together and give permission for something like FSF to pursue this case in court (FSF has a few lawyers, I believe), and FSF gets to keep any money won in the suit. This appears to be an open-and-shut case. X-Stream gets shut down, FSF can try to get a lot of money from them, and the general public gets the source code to this nice (if stolen) software. Sounds like a win-win proposition to me.
Sue the MPAA? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Its not such a big deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?
The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization. But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users, under the GPL. Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you.
What does this "written offer valid for any third party" mean? Does that mean everyone in the world can get the source to any GPL'ed program no matter what?
"Valid for any third party" means that anyone who has the offer is entitled to take you up on it. If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer. The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you.
The GPL says that modified versions, if released, must be "licensed ... to all third parties." Who are these third parties? ,p>
Section 2 says that modified versions you distribute must be licensed to all third parties under the GPL. "All third parties" means absolutely everyone--but this does not require you to *do* anything physically for them. It only means they have a license from you, under the GPL, for your version.
What a sec... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is it that people get upset at Gnu Public License violations, but think that downloading Music and Movies is OK? Shouldn't they either come down on one side or the other (GPL violations ok, music and movie downloading OK; vs GPL violations bad, music and movie downloading bad), but not both sides as seems so often the case?
Even more LGPL violations than GPL (Score:2, Interesting)
This is because people using LGPL falsely assume they don't have obligations if they merely link to the libraries.
LGPL Section 5 Paragraph 3 states that if you use material from the header files, your binaries become subject to LGPL even if your source files do not contain any LGPL code.
This means companies that link to c runtime libraries on Linux should be living up to LGPL requirements such as allowing modifications to the binaries, explicitely allowing reverse engineering, and so on.
My stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
"Ryan Thoryk (aka EventHorizon), a Unix and Network Specialist in Illinois, is the one who put all of the hard work into peeking around the original VX30 binaries"
Yay - finally my hard work is getting mindshare
-eventhorizon
Re:But this is a problem (Score:1, Interesting)
This is beside the point anyway. What versions of Unix do you use that don't have license agreements?
Re:overwhelming evidence! Great article! (Score:4, Interesting)
Journalists/Press people have their job because they have the right face, hair, and name to be on TV. Other thant that, they are pretty much brain dead.
Haven't you noticed a lot of the big name news channels are actually reading news right from blogs now. CNN,MSNBC,etc have spots where they actually show the website and read the words off it. Its actually lame as shit. I think MSNBC has hot chicks that do it.
Re:Legal threats. (Score:3, Interesting)
-eventhorizon
Re:The problem is the penalty (Score:1, Interesting)
No, they want you to sign over copyright. They own your project. Needless to say, very few people actually do this.
Re:Linux users are just as guilty of WHAT (Score:2, Interesting)
I Want to discuss the concept of property ownership with you. It's usually pretty simple, but you seem to not grasp it fully.
When I purchase something (Windows XP, XBox, PS2, lumber, or a drill), I am now the owner of that piece of property. It is now mine to use in whatever manner I see fit. I can break it, hack it, stick it under a blow torch, make it run linux, make it run Amiga OS if I want. Stick it in my Microwave, use it for ammunition in my trebuchet, decompile it, or feed it to my fish.
The only thing that I cannot legally do is a) use it in the commission of a crime (because its a crime, you know)or b)sell it as an unadulterated product.
Now, lets cover what valid crimes are...
1.reverse engineering for commercial purposes
2.altering the product to get other, related products or services for free
3.engaging in other criminal mischief based on my alteration of the product.
4. Publishing decompiled source code of a closed source product.
That means that if I, as an individual choose to take the fonts from my personal, legal copy of Windows, and use them in my personal, non-commercial, dual booting linux desktop, MS has no recourse against me.
If I write instructions for other people with legitimately licensed copies of Windows to do the same on their personal machines, MS has no recourse against me.
I am liable for damages ONLY if I use or encourage use of this process in a commercial setting, or do so without a properly licensed copy of Windows.
Corporate law is stickier than personal property law, but personal property law is VERY clear. No seller can limit use of something sold to a private citizen for private use except as a limitation of liability in the result of injury, or the commission of a crime.
That means that Sony and MS cannot dictate the uses to which I put my XBOX or PS2 once I have purchased them. They can, and routinely do, void the warranties and ban machines from online play when changes are detected, but that is the absolute limit of their recourse in these matters.
It doesn't matter that you don't understand WHY I want to do it, or how. It doesn't matter if your product was not intended for that purpose, or even if it's dangerous. If I were to overclock my xbox to the point that the CPU was hot enough to cause localized fusion that immolated me and my house, MS could not then sue my estate for violation of the EULA, and neither could my estate turn and sue MS for 'allowing' me to use their product in such a manner... well, I suppose my estate could try, but they would lose - and rightly so... I would then, of course, be obliged to return and haunt the executor of my estate for being such a knob.
And just to make sure we're clear, unless the folks running the OSS projects for XBOX and PSX are encouraging you to hack boxes you don't own, or to use the products to steal additional services, they're safe too. They are publishing instructions for how to void the warranty on a properly and legally owned unit.
The EULA's you talk about are completely unenforceable. These kinds of questions are not in the neighborhood of copying my DVD's - there is no duplication of functionality or media - no real potential for abuse by redistribution for a company to hide behind. This is purely a question of ownership rights, and the definition of property/purchase. No court, not even our backwards, hyper protectionist ones would ever back such a fundamental change in the laws of ownership.
If they did, rest assured that even Congress would sit up and take notice when rednecks and geeks everywhere found out they were no longer able to use their lawnmower engines for go-karts and motorized barstools because limitations put in place by Briggs and Stratton to strengthen their Go-Kart motor business.
Which brings us to your definition of theft....
It's an interesting definition..well, no I guess it isn't... you
Re:This happens more often than you think... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me there is a market for some enterprising attorneys to seek out GPL violators and sue their asses off (on behalf of the violatee of course). I don't mean on a pro-bono basis either. I mean as a business (they would keep a % of the settlement)
Instead of "ambulance chasers", they could go by "code chasers"