Re: [Hampshire] Unscrupulous salesmen...

On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 10:42:04PM +0100, Tim Brocklehurst wrote:
> On Saturday 24 October 2009 20:59:30 Brad Rogers wrote:
> > On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:44:29 +0100
> > Tim Brocklehurst <timb@???> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Tim,
> >
> > > I came across this thread this afternoon, and thought that it was
> > > worth bringing to everyone's attention. Essentially, an unscrupulous
> > > company has taken the Freship project, removed all references to the
> > > GPL, and put their own name on it, and are now selling it.
> >
> > If only they'd left the GPL references in place. Then, it wouldn't be
> > legally wrong. Morally so, of course.....

> Hmmm, theft of IPR as well? I agree that the GPL allows you to
> resell other's work, but it must be clear that that is all you're
> doing.

Theft is "intent to permanently deprive the owner of something".
Copyright violation isn't theft, despite the attempts of the MPAA to
claim such. Shipping this software without a GPL licence attached (and
following up on all of the provisions of the GPL, such as making the
source available) is a clear violation of the copyright license of the
original software. The moral implications of rebadging and selling GPL
software are somewhat more murky.

For example, the apoplexy engendered amongst some members of the
BSD-licensed software community in similar circumstances is
problematic to me -- the license they choose to use allows any
commercial or proprietary usage of the code. Some members of the
BSD-licensed software community seem to think that a deeply-held
conviction that proprietary shippers of their software should
contribute their modifications back to the originating authors.
Morally, there is a very good argument for this stance; legally, there
is none. As much as I deplore the fact, I see few people or
organisations following the moral (or ethical(*)) path without legal
enforcement. Simply asking that they do, as the BSD-licenced
community do, is naive -- particularly if they then get exercised
about others failing to do so. At least the GPL gives this moral (or
ethical) wish a firm legal basis(**).

> Just worth being aware of.

I'm well aware of it. It's one of the reasons that I don't copy
commercial software -- the only protection that we (free software(***)
authors) have from this kind of abuse is the selfsame law that
protects the producers of proprietary commercial software.

Hugo.

(*) We can debate the differences between morals and ethics later...
(**) Yes, I'm aware of the mistakes of Genghis Khan, and that this is an example.
(***) In this instance, I mean the FSF definition of Free, as in GPL or LGPL.

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