Open source author pulls code after GPL abuse

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/28/mayan_edms_gpl_violations/

by iProject • 14 years ago

26 48 14 years ago

theregister.co.uk

unwind• 14 years 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.

misnome2• 14 years 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• 14 years 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• 14 years 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• 14 years ago

Did you even read the article? He says "one fork is being sold with a comercial [sic] license". Commercial licence != GPL.

misnome2• 14 years 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"

Vvector• 14 years 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#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.)

batgaijin• 14 years ago

Commercial license for what? Support?

Until there is more evidence this is just a developer who misunderstands what the license entitles others to do with his work.

__alexs• 14 years ago

> 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.

When the "ways that I agree to" are that you must provide your users with the following 4 things

> The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

> The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

> The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

> The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

I don't see how it's not a free license. Unless your idea of freedom is the right to monopolistic and rent seeking behaviour. Which I guess is a perfectly legitimate freedom to want, personally I just don't have any desire to give it you.

jabiko• 14 years ago

It seems like the author is aware of this: https://plus.google.com/108413286958999778262/posts/UTSF2mZ7...

But besides that, I think he overreacts a bit. Maybe my google-fu is not strong today but I couldn't find any of the forks he is talking about.

shadowmint2• 14 years ago

oh please; "This is the reason why companies should stop using GPL software in their applications." ?

You're just trolling now.

There are plenty of reasons not to use GPL, but obscure reasons to do with the 'spirit of the license' isn't one of them.

icebraining• 14 years ago

If this goes against the "spirit of the license", there should be provisions against it.

It doesn't. RMS encourages people to sell GPL licensed software, written by them or not, and to charge as much as they can or want.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Xylakant6• 14 years 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• 14 years 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.

polshaw2• 14 years 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).

Xylakant6• 14 years ago

As long as the fork is only used in-house I'm the customer. I do have access to my own source code. GPL is satisfied. I might as well create a closed fork and hand over the code to the people that buy my product. I can't place any restrictions on what they do with the modified source, but as long as I give them access to the source as required by the GPL that's fine as well. If they choose not to redistribute - fine as well. I might even create a closed fork for tinkering and not do anything with it. It's not the act of creating a closed fork that violates the GPL. It's redistribution without source - and that's independent of wether it's a fork or the original version.

shadowmint2• 14 years ago

Seems a bit odd.

If someone is violating GPL then get in touch with the FSF (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

    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• 14 years 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• 14 years 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.

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Perhaps the Software Freedom Law Center (http://www.softwarefreedom.org/) and gpl-violations.org (http://gpl-violations.org/) are the right ones to ask.

verroq3• 14 years 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.

mindcrime2• 14 years 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?

verroq3• 14 years ago

I assumed there were actual violations, which would make the perpetrators scummy.

calpaterson3• 14 years ago

The GPL has an excellent enforcement history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation#GPL_en...

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html

verroq3• 14 years 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• 14 years 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

2) http://documanager.co.uk/

3) 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&...

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.

Xylakant6• 14 years 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.

cube132• 14 years ago

I did a quick google search for the other two infringing products, and I get nothing for "Kratos 0.12.3". The only hit is the original source.

MagicDocs does get a hit, but the last time it was updated on download.com was 2005, well before Mayan EDMS even existed.

ircmaxell• 14 years ago

> The query in this case is "GPL site:X". Site 1 and 3 have no page with the term GPL inside.

GPL has no requirement that the site make any mention of the license. It says the license must be included with the distribution. So check the download...

yds• 14 years ago

The Free Software Foundation Europe and gpl-violations.org might provide advice and assistance:

https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ftf.en.html

http://gpl-violations.org/

the_mitsuhiko• 14 years 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• 14 years ago

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

lttlrck• 14 years ago

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

warmfuzzykitten• 14 years 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?

Open source author pulls code after GPL abuse

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