Maui X-Stream at it Again?

Goyuix writes "In their latest commercial venture, Maui X-Stream, the now infamous company behind Cherry OS, has recently launched a suite of tools that once again takes advantage of GPL'd code to get their dirty work done... This time it is a set of video encoding, streaming and display tools. A choice quote from SourceForge: 'There are boundled dshow filters, string, toolbars, dialogs, command line switches, etc..., which can be verified easily by just running the applications and taking a look, or a bit harder by analysing the memory dump'. Is the situation getting worse or is community just getting better at finding the violators?"

Not Better, Just Smarter

[gbulmash]

Is the situation getting worse or is community just getting better at finding the violators?

I don't think it's the community getting better, at least not in this case. If you have a crook who is known to steal televisions and then put them in his front yard, disguised as birdbaths, you're going to get suspicious every time a new birdbath appears in his yard.

Maui X-Stream is that crook and this video project is their latest birdbath.

- Greg

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

On the smart side, he's gotten >100,000 people to look at his birdbath multiple times, where there hasn't been a single story on Slackware / debian / enlightenment / Nethack / etc on the Slashdot front page in weeks.

Possible he's running Google ads somewhere nearby?

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[Wiser87]

I thought the violations in their video products had been known for a while? IIRC, there was a discussion about it in the PearPC [pearpc.net] forums. Interestingly enough, one of the people who looked into it said that if it weren't for the fact that it was in violation of the GPL, their products would actually be pretty good.

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[kz45]

I don't think it's the community getting better, at least not in this case. If you have a crook who is known to steal televisions and then put them in his front yard, disguised as birdbaths, you're going to get suspicious every time a new birdbath appears in his yard.

well, GPL violations are not equal to stealing. The original sourcecode is still there. Maybe a copyright violation of some kind, so your analogy doesn't hold.

I don't understand why the community has a problem with this in the first place.

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[mrdaveb]

I don't understand why the community has a problem with this in the first place. The original source code is still under the GNU license.

People who release code under the GPL are perfectly entitled to 'have a problem' with people breaching their software licence of choice.
Anyone who thinks it's OK for others to take their programs, close the source and release modified versions shouldn't be using the GPL - try the BSD licence [opensource.org] instead.

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[Dolda2000]

another point to consider: if people want to get proprietary software (or music for that matter) without paying for it (if it's against the license). They should consider using something else.

Of course it's not right to get proprietary software/music/movies without paying for it. However, that doesn't mean that it's the same thing as taking GPL'd software and closing it.

Taking proprietary IP and opening it up is harmful for few (the copyright holder(s)) and useful for many (the general public), while

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[Directrix1]

Open source implementations which are compatible with formats used by proprietary vendors are not proprietary software. Additionally, we would be nowhere without reverse engineering and the open sharing of knowledge. And that "we" includes proprietary software companies like Microsoft.

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[sjames]

I don't understand why the community has a problem with this in the first place. The original source code is still under the GNU license.

The same reason plagerism is one of the more serious offenses you can commit in the acedemic world for a start.

There's also the extra offensive nature that having been offered a very generous license for your hard work, these jackasses STILL choose to misapropriate it.

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[fireman sam]

Actually downloading music is different to what Maui X-Stream is doing.

The equivilant would be if I downloaded the latest Britney Spears album, printed new covers and labels and then attempted to sell it as my own works.

Nobody who downloads songs on P2P is claiming they now own the copyright to the piece of music and are attempting to sell it as their own work.

Maui X-Stream have downloaded PearPC, printed new covers and labels and were attempting to sell it as their own work. Exactly what they are doing

Re:Not Better, Just Smarter

[gbulmash]

Forget about Maui X-Stream, I want to hear more about this TV stealing birdbath maker!

His name is Eddie and I believe he'll be appearing in the Christmas episode of "Reno 911" ;-)

- Greg

Getting worse?

[Drakonian]

It's hard to say it's getting worse since it's only one company that keeps blatantly offending.

Re:Getting worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hardly just one company. The linux kernel, busybox and iptables seem to be popular among manufacturers of SOHO network devices. Sadly the GPL is not as popular.

The various open source media player programs also attract gadget developers who don't care enough about licensing.

Last but not least there is a trend to attempt legal and technical trickery to circumvent the GPL requirements. Companies which are completely aware of the license requirements are nevertheless building business models around open source and either try to make the GPL benefits too expensive for interested people or try to delay source releases indefinitely by continuously making small source management "mistakes".

It's time for revenge!

[Spy der Mann]

Let's put a final to this. We MUST make a precedent. And we have to make a model punishment.

Yes, we have to invoke... Katana Tux! [splitreason.com] (grrrrr)

Death wish?

[booch]

Yeah, it almost seems like this company WANTS to get sued. They keep trying the same thing, even after they get caught. I'd be surprised if they don't get what they're asking for.

Worse

[breakbeatninja]

I think the situation is definitely getting worse AND the open source community is becoming more adament about exposing this sort of behavior. The problem is that all open source licensing relies on honesty and many commercial vendors don't know the meaning of it, so when the two sides clash, open source may get the short end of the stick.

Re:Worse

[Zenmonkeycat]

The problem is that many businesses see OSS advocates as "Dirty Pinko Commies" who just want to make everything free while they smoke their drugs and have promiscuous sexual relations. These "communists" don't believe in personal property, and aren't apt to be consumers in a capitalist society. Therefore, capitalists can abuse them and steal from them, and they can't do anything but whine and complain to Comrade Khrushchev.

I realize that sounds silly, considering the fall of the Berlin Wall and Gorbachev

Re:Worse

[arose]

You mean GNU Brute International Elite Squad?

Re:Worse

[shaitand]

"If you have something innovative keep it closed source"

The only thing closed about closed source is the license. Anyone can decompile the binary back to a human readable form.

I may be a bit late to the party here -

[thewldisntenuff]

But is the problem that they aren't properly stating who the source code belongs to? I mean, I thought code-copy was okay in the GPL so long as you noted the GPL warning and who the code came from.....For example, I can repackage an OS and sell it with my own support, etc (a la CentOS -> RedHat), so long as I make such statments, right?

I really don't know - so it'd help if someone would explain it instead of modding me (-1, stupid)

Thanks

-thewldisntenuff

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[TelJanin]

You also have to give the source code to anybody that you've given the binary to, if they ask. However, you are not obligated to give the source to everybody.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[yamla]

That's not true at all:

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

"any third party".

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[Asgard]

Not so fast -- from the FSF FAQ on the GPL (enough TLA's?)

If I know someone has a copy of a GPL-covered program, can I demand he give me a copy? No. The GPL gives him permission to make and redistribute copies of the program if he chooses to do so. He also has the right not to redistribute the program, if that is what he chooses. [fsf.org]

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[Buran]

Not so fast on the 'not so fast'. As long as you redistribute your app, you must give out the code. You can refuse to give the source if you don't redistribute the code -- but if you distribute, you must give out source.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[Omnifarious]

There are two basic ideas in the GPL.

The first is that you cannot prevent people from sharing. So, if you sell someone a GPL program, you can't prevent them from handing a copy to a friend under the GPL.

The second is that you must allow people to make their own modified versions of the software. In order for this to work, they have to have the source code to the software. So, you must provide the source code if asked, and you are not allowed to charge extra for source code.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[DarkOx]

Actually you are allowed to charge for the distribution of the source code. If I decide to send you the code on a floopy, I can insist that you pay me $0.20 for the floppy and whatever postage is. Similarly I could make you pay me for cost associated with bandwidth if you download it. Most people don't because the effort of attaching a dollar figure to you transfering 250Kbytes over my T1 probably would cost more then the transfer, and hey its the nice neighborly thing to do.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[TelJanin]

You are allowed to sell the software. You are not allowed to keep the source to yourself. Somebody could re-sell GIMP for $200, and as long as they gave the source code to their customers it would be legal.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[zotz]

"You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy"

Have you seen a limit placed on this fee anywhere? I haven't. (IIRC) I have seen limits placed on the fee you may charge for providing the source if you originally only supplied a binary.

"to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."

Sure, licensed to them, but you can still charge them a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy to them. Right?

Perhaps it is time for the GNU boys to pu

You're reading the GPL out of context

[Anonymous Coward]

so you could claim that you're charging $200 for the transferrance, but I don't know how well it would hold up in court.

You are wrong. The section of the GPL that you are referring to is discussing the source code that you must provide. While you are required to give the source code to all requesters if you distribute the binary at all, you are allowed to charge a nominal fee to cover your costs of the source distribution (i.e. cost of media and mailing, though a few nasty folks have taken to violating

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[gbulmash]

No, if you are using GPL'd code and selling it for profit, it is against the GPL.

Dang, someone better tell RedHat, SuSE, Lindows, etc., etc., on and on and on!!!!!

I can sell compiled binaries of grep for a billion dollars each if I can find someone willing to pay that for them. The GPL allows it. AFAIK, I just can't relabel it as FrepSearchIncredible, withhold the source code, and pretend it's my own unique product.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[PocketPick]

I am intrigued by this FrepSeachIncredible. How much are you looking for again?

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[gbulmash]

I am intrigued by this FrepSeachIncredible. How much are you looking for again?

[In his best Dr. Evil voice] "One biilllion dollars! Muahaha!"

- Greg

An offer

[grolschie]

How 'bout I offer you three sharks with frickin' laserbeams for your FrepSeachIncredible?

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[OverlordQ]

I just can't relabel it as FrepSearchIncredible, withhold the source code, and pretend it's my own unique product.

And I think Maui X-Stream is doing all of these things

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[slamb]

I can sell compiled binaries of grep for a billion dollars each if I can find someone willing to pay that for them.

But of course you can't find someone willing to pay. The GPL permits you to sell software, but it also permits any of your customers to undercut you by selling it for a lower price or just giving it away. So if you write some GPLed software, you can probably sell it once. If someone else wrote it, you probably can't sell it at all.

So there are two realistic ways to make money off GPLed software:

• Do custom development for a fee. Like a consulting business that develops niche software that probably only one company would ever use. They have more options in case you become unreasonable or go bankrupt, so presumably they'd be willing to pay more than for a proprietary solution.
• Sell an aggregation (like Red Hat Enterprise Linux), documentation, or support. This is what those companies you mentioned - RedHat, SuSE, Lindows, etc. - do.

These are valid ways to make a living, but they'll never be as lucrative as Microsoft's business model. Namely, to write the software once, sell it over and over, and sell the extras separately.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[DJCacophony]

A great book to read on this subject is "Open Source - The Unofficial White Papers". It has some great papers about building businesses off open source. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764 546600/qid=1115078180/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/002-2477466-1646408?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 [amazon.com]

Ratio of "Stupid" Customers to Informed Customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument only holds water if you're assuming that potential cusomers are informed and discerning.

If FrepSeachIncredible [slashdot.org] can pull off the same trick as Sunkist Oranges [csuhayward.edu] (where consumers are paying a hefty premium for a little purple stamp) it could work brilliantly.

Personally, I am hoping to get in on the ground floor of FrepSeachIncredible. Maybe we could even get SCO to sue us as part of the marketing blitz.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[natmsincome.com]

You forgot the 3rd and 4th way which are catching on.

3rd. Charge a subscription for updates. Doesn't work for shrink wrap but for enterprise software it's great. Sure you can get the patches from other sources (CentOS etc) but if your a big company you can't afford the risk. (This is actually what RedHat is doing)

4th. Dual license, SugarCRM and StarOffice.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[Dolda2000]

These are valid ways to make a living, but they'll never be as lucrative as Microsoft's business model. Namely, to write the software once, sell it over and over, and sell the extras separately.

Likewise, the leader of a free country will never be as rich or powerful as a dictator.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[slamb]

> > I can sell compiled binaries of grep for a billion dollars each if I can find someone willing to pay that for them. The GPL allows it.

> Um, would you care to state where in the license this is explicitly allowed? Because I can cite where it's explicitly prohibited.

No, you can't. The GPL is explicitly designed to allow you to do this, as stated in the preamble:

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

I suspect you're thinking of this paragraph:

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

But you're not required to give the source to anyone who doesn't have the binary, and you're not required to give the binary away.

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[zotz]

"But you're not required to give the source to anyone who doesn't have the binary, and you're not required to give the binary away."

Nope, if you originally provide only the binary, you must provide the source to any third party. (Who asks.)

If you transfer the binary and source together in the first place, that is all you are obligated to do. Right?

all the best,

drew

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[gbulmash]

"You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

Obviously the buyer qualifies as a third party.

Yes, but I didn't say I was selling a license to use grep. I was just selling the compiled binary, the "physical product" as it were. It's my "grep" distribution and it is multi-fantastic-incredible.

- Greg

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[X0563511]

You can charge as much as you want. It's the SOURCE CODE that you cannot charge for (other than reasonable transfer fee. like for the CDR it's on)

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[dragonman97]

He can sell it for a billion dollars each...provided he makes the source code available on request (and this presumes that customers are notified of the presence of GPL code, and their rights to request the source). The GPL does not prohibit the binary distribution of a piece of GPLed software - but the source must be available upon request (and even to recoup the cost of duplication/mailing, if applicable).

Re:I may be a bit late to the party here -

[MushMouth]

Not only that, I believe you can make the source available on any media you wish. In other words you can print it or better yet you can have it carved into stone tablets, and charge whatever the going rate for stone tablets.

Has to be machine readable

[MushMouth]

I guess stone tablets are out, however 5 1/4" floppys or those bigger ones would probably pass muster.

Well...

[Effugas]

To be clear -- using dshow filters, piped executables, and so on is fine by GPL; you're just not allowed to link the code into your application. It looks like they modified the GUI tools, though, without releasing source. That's not allowed.

Re:Well...

[shaitand]

"you're just not allowed to link the code into your application"

I wish people would stop repeating this. Some anal arse came up with this concept a long time ago and it did not make anymore sense then than it did now. The concept of a GPL violation during compilation or runtime is utterly ridiculous. If you allow that road of thought then running ANY software under the Linux kernel would be a GPL violation.

The exception in the Kernel GPL version is not there because it is needed, it is there to silence id

try out the live chat!

[croddy]

Chat Information Please wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat Information You are now chatting with 'Gene'
Gene: Hello
you: where are you distributing the vx30 source code pursuant to the conditions of the GPL
you: hello?
you: a simple URL is all that is required.
Gene: If you knew what you were talking I would talk to you but...
Chat Information Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.

Re:try out the live chat!

[_Sharp'r_]

You know, for some websites, live chat is the most expensive part of ths site... all those call center reps to pay... not that you could slashdot a call center and run up a huge bill, could you ...?

Re:try out the live chat!

[Buran]

Sounds like HE didn't know what he was talking about and was trying to cover his ass by hanging up on you.

Re:try out the live chat!

[AndroidCat]

I tried and got someone called Liza.

> Hello, I am Liza.
* Where are you distributing the vx30 source code pursuant to the conditions of the GPL?
> Would you prefer if I were not distributing the vx30 source code pursuant to the conditions of the GPL?
* A simple URL is all that is required.
> Come, come, elucidate your thoughts.
* What?
> Does that question interest you?
* What are you wearin ..

She was no help at all.

Re:Or the phone number...

[Anonymous Coward]

Toll free is better (costs them money): 1 [phone]

Re:Or the phone number...

[techfury90]

I decided to have a little bit of fun using myiprelay on aim calling them up (I know I forgot the toll free number and used the 808 one, sorry):

My IP Relay: . Please hold for the next available operator. PLS ENTER THE NBR U WANT TO DIAL GA
techfury90 : 8086615699 GA
My IP Relay: IP RELAY RO 9560F DIALING 808 661 5699 PLS HD
My IP Relay: RING 1 (F) GOOD AFTERNOON
My IP Relay: (EXPLAINING RELAY) GA
8:30 PM
techfury90 : hello i would like to know where the GPL source code to your VX30 software and cherryos is loca

A bit of both, really...

[mph_az]

as 'free' software pops up on the radar of increasingly unscrupulous people, more violations are taking place. At the same time, as the community gains more experience with people unfairly taking advantage of GNU software, they are becoming more vigilant.

Not really an interesting question, to me the interesting question is...what the hell made them think they wouldn't get caught again?!?!

Re:A bit of both, really...

[thegrassyknowl]

Not really an interesting question, to me the interesting question is...what the hell made them think they wouldn't get caught again?!?!

Do it a few times, get slapped on the wrist a few times. They think "the community thinks I've learned my lesson - they probably have stopped checking up on me"

It's that simple, really. That or they're run by 2-year olds who just don't learn and always think they won't get caught again (yes I have one of those).

Hopefully not a growing trend

[coupland]

My question is, what's to stop this sort of behaviour? Most free software projects operate under a tight budget as it is, how many have the funds to sue anyone who misappropriates their GPLed code? If every victim has to solicit donations to fund a lawsuit [slashdot.org] then what's to be done? Sure the FSF [fsf.org] can probably help, but I doubt they'd have the resources to defend the GPL on multiple fronts if violators launched a wholesale attack.

Re:Hopefully not a growing trend

[RealAlaskan]

Sure the FSF can probably help, but I doubt they'd have the resources to defend the GPL on multiple fronts ...

I suppose that if the expenses started to get out of hand, the FSF [fsf.org] could take a few of the more egregious offenders to court, rather than settling [fsf.org]. Or, they could simply start demanding a large cash settlement from the real bad guys. I'd say that their work could be self-funding, if they wanted to get mean.

Re:Hopefully not a growing trend

[Audacious]

Actually, now that the GPL has been shown to be valid in court, it should be getting easier to have a lawyer represent you in court. Donations are then not needed because all you have to do is to make sure your lawyer gets paid when the money is collected from the people who have stolen/misappropriated/converted your GPL'd code into their applications.

This is NOT to say that you can just go down to your local street corner and have lawyers rush towards you with open arms, gushing with enthusiasm about wanting to represent you in court. But any lawyer who deals with copyrights, patents, and such should have a very good grasp on how to go about dealing with people who misappropriate computer code. In many cases, all it really takes is for a lawyer to write a halfway decent letter to the offender for them to back off. Thus, for less than $300.00 you can probably find a lawyer willing to write the letter to the company.

This is also not to say that the person to whom the GPL'd code belonged could not write a letter by just getting one of those Business Lawyer CDs and using the template letter to send a cease and desist letter.

But I would use a lawyer. Mainly because it gives more force to what you are saying and/or doing.

(And yes, IANAL! Not all of the time mind you - sometimes I'm just a normal person - but right now IANAL!) ;-)

Re:Hopefully not a growing trend

[retro128]

Well looking at the price of the software, and assuming it is ripped off from GPL code, I'd say that the primary goal here is to make a lot of money without having put put in any up front R&D or programming costs. The key word here is "money". If enough was made, I don't think the real author would have any trouble securing a lawyer on contingency to sue the pants off of these guys. The ability to sue isn't the problem. The real problem is building a case and proving that the software is based on so

Re:Hopefully not a growing trend

[infiniti99]

My question is, what's to stop this sort of behaviour?

Nobody, unfortunately. When "Integrity Messenger" ripped off the Psi Jabber client [affinix.com], none of us could afford to pay for a lawyer. We tried to raise awareness by spreading news about the violation, but this only caused Integrity Messenger to threaten me with a lawsuit for slander (or something to that effect) and so we shut our mouths. I've been on a waiting list with the FSF since 2002 to get this case resolved, but nothing has happened. Christian R

Re:Hopefully not a growing trend

[Buran]

It's not slander if it's true.

Kill em.

[jericho4.0]

And if I see the "innocent until proven guilty" argument, I'll flip. This guy is a con artist, and the OS comunity needs to deal with it.

Replace "kill" with "sue" if you live in such a legal enviroment.

String 'em up

[winkydink]

it's good for the men and it'll teach 'em a lesson

Have you seen the price???

[stox]

$799.00, holy cow, whatta deal!!

BTW, what happened to 1.0?

Re:Have you seen the price???

[Doyle]

Does that price include a $699.00 SCO Linux licence? I want to make sure I'm legal with all this...

Time for a court injunction?

[davidwr]

Is it time to get a court injunction?

Perhaps the time is right for a "GPL Clearninghouse" whereby authors can "contract" limited enforcement responsibilities to the clearinghouse. If PearPC and the items currently in question were both enforced by this clearinghouse, the clearinghouse would find it a lot easier to enjoin these people from ever violating the GPL again with respect to ANY code under its management.

Judge, to the officers of Maui X-Streme:
"You are hereby ordered to comply with the licensing restrictions of any and all code which now, or in the future, is owned or managed by The Clearinghouse, provided that The Clearinghouse informs you or the general public that it is managing the code in question. Failure to do so will be contempt of court, punishable by jail time. This order will be reviewed every 24 months. Do you understand?"

Acquisition

[slamb]

I think it's getting worse. They're by no means the only violators; just the most flagrant.

I recently discovered that Acquisition (a popular Mac OS X gnutella client) is using GPLed Limewire code. It's not anywhere on the main Acquisition website, acquisitionx.com. The website implies the whole thing is written by David Watanabe. It's shareware with nag screens. Most users will never know there's Limewire code used. The most obvious place it's mentioned is the fine print of the "About" box.

There is some source available, at AcquisitionX.org. (There are no links from the other site [google.com]. Found it through some googling.) This is the "core" of Acquisition, a modified version of LimeWire's core code. But the actual UI code is not released. The developer claims this is "full and complete compliance with the LimeWire GPL", but it's not. The key characteristic of the GPL is that you have to release applications that use GPLed libraries under the GPL themselves. He's following the terms of the LGPL instead. If they'd meant to release it under that license, they would have! He's profiting from other people's work without following their license or giving them proper credit.

(Sorry for making people click through. I deliberately have no links to either Acquisition site because I don't want to increase his PageRank.)

Re:Acquisition

[Stormwatch]

So THAT's why Acquisition is so damn slow, it's as slow as Limewire. I use Poisoned instead!

Re:Acquisition

[Steamhead]

The net core of Acquisition is piped rather then linked, thus it is in complete compliance with the GPL.

Re:Acquisition

[don.g]

It means that the app *may* *technically* be in compliance with the GPL (but they're scum for doing it like that). Essentially, they will have an executable with the GPL code, and then an executable with their code (and no GPLed stuff), and some way of communicating between the two. This means that they can get away with releasing only the source for the executable with the GPLed code in it, but it's not terribly useful by itself. The Mac OS X IM client Proetus [defaultware.com] does this, using GAIM's networking code.

Is

Re:Acquisition

[Tim C]

The MySQL guys are wrong. Imagine Apache was GPLed rather than Apache licenced - following th MySQL guys' reasoning, all web browsers that access an Apache-hosted site would have to be GPLed.

So what is the GPL equivalent?

[dark-br]

Becouse I would be happy to have that java video on demand on my site but I could not find a free (as in beer and as in speach at the same time) solution.

Does anyone of you fellow /.ers know such a solution?

Regards,

Addario

Re:So what is the GPL equivalent?

[Dolda2000]

as in beer and as in speach at the same time

Maybe you'll have more luck if you try free speech instead. ;-)

paying for Firefox!

[Arctic Dragon]

Are you interested in purchasing Mozilla Firefox Arctic Dragon Edition? It's yours for only 4 payments of $39.99 and a $50 monthly Update Subscription fee. If you want the source code, it will only cost you an additional $150!! Wow!
This offer ends soon! Call now! Not available in stores.
Call 1-800-GPL-FUCK

DISCLAIMER: If you're a Mozilla developer and you see any similarities between your code and mine, it's only a coincidence.

Re:paying for Firefox!

[lewp]

I desperately want the number 1-800-GPL-FUCK.

Business Model

[porkface]

I'm sure they made a small chunk of change on the CherryOS scam. Now they're just doing it again and hoping to skim some cash before they fess up and retreat.

Someone needs to put them out of business for good if we're to claim any success in stopping GPL fraud.

CherryOS = Cherry Open Source?

[cbr2702]

Have you noticed that http://www.cherryos.com/ [cherryos.com] currently says:

Cherry Open Source Project

Can anybody confirm?

[labratuk]

From the description, the 'VX30' codec looks like Theora, and the Java player sounds like cortado [flumotion.net]. They even say they're using Vorbis as the audio codec, which wouldn't surprise me.

Re:Can anybody confirm?

[labratuk]

Hmm. Don't think this is cortado.

When all else fails, work up a #6 on them.

[t0qer]

Quote from the movie blazing saddles.

Taggart: I got it. I got it.
Hedley Lamarr: You do?
Taggart: We'll work up a "Number 6" on 'em.
Hedley Lamarr: "Number 6"? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that one...
Taggart: Well, that's where we go a-ridin' into town, a whampin' and whompin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.
Hedley Lamarr: You spare the women?
Taggart: NAW. We rape the shit out of them at the Number 6 Dance later on.
Hedley Lamarr: Marvelous.

Call Them Up!

[Jukashi]

Seriously here their number: 1-808-661-5699

I just gave the guy a piece of my mind, if we all do it...well they'll just change the number - but its fun! lets hear some recordings!

They're stoned. It has to be that.

[JumpSuit Boy]

To much of that Maui-wowwie . Come on it's the only thing that could explain how stupid these guys are.

I'd say we're getting smarter

[Spy der Mann]

Specially with a dedicated website [gpl-violations.org] for posting these frauds.

i called maui x stream

[Ravenrage]

and when i asked about when they are going to release the code i was told quote "if those lazy bitches on slashdot bothered to check the evidence they would know it contains no gpl code" and when i asked about the fact that the claim can be verified i was told "fuck you" and then they hung up

Re:i called maui x stream

[rincebrain]

Mod parent underrated, if it's true, this is quite interesting, and shows that either we're all idiots (no comment), or their phone staff has no idea what they're talking about.

Re:i called maui x stream

[northcat]

That's a pretty outrageous claim you're making. How can we know it's true?

(Yeah yeah, I know, I'm captain obvious)

Their Con Is Working?

[wan-fu]

Assuming that this really is a GPL violation, then I'm surprised they've already got some big names to fall for the con. On their own website, they make mention that VX30 was used by HFPA. I was incredulous of course and decided to do some fact checking. Well, turns out, it's true! The video gallery [hfpa.org] over at the Golden Globe awards has an icon for VX30 which links back to MXS.

Here's what I think would be the most hilarious thing of all:

1. the code turns out to be a GPL violation.
2. HFPA gets mad, makes a ruckus - especially to the movie industry
3. movie industry sues MXS
4. ???
5. Slashdotters celebrate and rejoice over the movie industry suing someone

Wouldn't that be something?

Looks like they don't want angry calls:

[Bri3D]

Company /Contact

Please Register Your Information With Us First

I don't think so.

'at it again'?

[drew]

i was under the impression that this had been known for some time. when i saw the headline i thought that they were distributing some new gpl ripoff, not something that has been discussed for (almost) as long as the cherryOS mess.

then again, this is slashdot...

Maui X-Stream, funded by

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Microsoft, MPAA, and RIAA.

Has Anyone Bothered

[Greyfox]

To report them to Hawaii's AG and the Better Business Bureau yet? Let the AG get up in their shit with a fraud investigation and see how many more times this wart on the dong of the open source community reappears after that...

What about these guys?

[rk]

These guys [luxuriousity.com] look like all they're providing is stuff like GIMP and Open Office. Unless the disks have the source on them, I somehow doubt that they're exactly complying with the GPL.

Got to love their mailing address. A PMB at a P.O. Box.

Re:What about these guys?

[ross.w]

If you look on the web site, in amongst all the "free steak knives" style market speak, they do mention that you get the source code on the CD.

Make it free

[randomErr]

They are making an easy to use version of free software for profit. So here's a wierd idea: Copy thier work and make a free or low cost version of the same software. Learn from what they did and recreate it.

stop giving them press!!!!!!

[Mark19960]

and they will GO AWAY!

the more its brought up, the more they do to get in the news. its only GOOD BUISNESS PRACTICE...

they dont care about the GPL, open source, ect.
they just want free exposure, and they are getting it.

Re:boundled?

[arbitraryaardvark]

Google returns 1000+ hits for boundled. Typo or neologism?

Re:History repeating, in a way

[Holi]

Well considering Spyglass Mosaic was a commercial browser and was not GPL'ed. It was an enhanced version of NCSA Mosaic which was also not GPL. MS licensed Mosaic from Spyglass in 1995 in a lucrative deal for Spyglass where they would receive a quarterly fee plus a percentage of Microsoft's revenues for the software. We all know what happened next. All in all Spyglass got screwed now worms rule that thar intrweb thing.

So basically you have no right to the IE source code(not sure why you'd want it).

Re:History repeating, in a way

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no it wasn't.

They took the BSD networking stack for Windows '95 (and NT?) but then there was a bug found in the BSD networking stack and Windows wasn't susceptible, so it'd diverged enough by then (which was around 98/99 or something).

They sold GPL Unix toolkit software for a while, but now they give it away.

Any other examples of BSD/GPL licenced software in Microsoft?

Re:How Is This Particular Instance

[LnxAddct]

Err Red Hat has always provided full source to everything and has never tried to hide the fact that it uses GPL code. In fact it thrives on it, Red Hat produces more open code then any other entity. This includes gnome.org, the kernel, apache, gcj, and most other major open source projects are maintained mostly on Red Hat's payroll. Linus never seemed to have an issue with anything they did, he did afterall take something 10 million dollars worth of stock that they gave him for free just for his contributions. Some major open source folks work at Red Hat, everything from top kernel maintainers, to the guy who wrote the first gcc c++ compiler. People very rarely appreciate what Red Hat has done for the community.
Regards,
Steve

writing codecs is hard

[sjf]

writing high quality high compression codecs more so. It takes PhDs, time and money. They don't spring fully formed from the breasts of crooks. Who is the genius behind this ? No doubt he or she very well known in the SIGGRAPH crowd.