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Finding the Pits In CherryOS
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Mar 12, 2005 03:18 PM
from the light-the-bombeck-beacon dept.
from the light-the-bombeck-beacon dept.
An anonymous reader writes "DrunkenBlog is carrying a story with piles of gathered evidence (including screenshots of code diffs) exposing the speed claims of CherryOS, and that the company behind it (Maui X-Stream) is not only stealing code from the open source project PearPC but at least several other OSS projects too. There are some choice quotes from PearPC developers on how it is harming their project. They appear to have a strong case, but enforcing the GPL could take help."
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Does this? (Score:4, Insightful)
In all seriousness though, this looks like a perfect time to test the GPL in cou rt (if they make it that far.)
Does their use of OSS without complying with GPL violate copyright laws or justlicensing laws?
Steal or Copy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Stealing code? I though they were wrongfully copying it, or did we completely throw away the concept of copying alltogether?
Re:Steal or Copy? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Steal or Copy? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Steal or Copy? (Score:4, Funny)
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No, they didn't steal it. (Score:3, Insightful)
The sad truth... (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Troll"??? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:The sad truth... (Score:4, Informative)
--
What's worth doing is worth doing for money...
That does not mean the license has no teeth, just like many other civil laws: you have to have the money to go to court.
Oh and regarding your
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Re:The sad truth... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the Linux phones out there. None of the phone manufacturing companies supplying the OS on those things have released ANY code for those phones.
And that's Linux itself!
Why isn't anyone doing anything about this?
Re:The sad truth... (Score:4, Informative)
Remember - as long as it's not a modification of or using parts of GPL code, then you can do what you like with it.
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Re:The sad truth... (Score:4, Informative)
You are correct that they don't have to give out the source to their own binaries, as long as they're not GPLed or derived from GPLed software.
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Re:The sad truth... (Score:4, Informative)
This is incorrect. Read section 3 in context
Quoting from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html [gnu.org]:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
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,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
[My emphasis]
Thus you only have to comply with one of either (a), (b) or (c) and it is perfectly legitimate to sell GPL software and only provide the source with the purchased binary (thereby meeting the requirements of section a). Mind you, anyone who buys it can then quite happily make it available for free download if they want
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The sadder truth (Score:5, Funny)
The saddest truth is that I'll probably be modded funny (at best) or troll, instead of insightful. =)
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Re:The sad truth... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-violati
Regarding these cases, Eben Moglen (the FSF's general legal counsel) once told me that the reason you've never seen a GPL violation case go to court is because it's always a slam-dunk case that will be decided in your favor; that it's always in the infringer's best interest to settle out of court. I don't know how self-serving that statement was, but it's worth pondering at least. It's been my experience, in any case.
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Re:The sad truth... (Score:5, Informative)
Bruce
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Re:The sad truth... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Grab zagrabyonnoye (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Apples EULA statement about running it only on apple hardware is legal anyways, it sounds like illegal tieing, but what the hell do I know? IANAL.
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Re:Grab zagrabyonnoye (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be true that no GPL cases have come to court (although I'm not sure about that either). But there has been a very large number of infringement claims that never made it to court, becuase the guilty party gave in. In summary, to win against the GPL, you cannot argue that it is invalid: if it were invalid then normal copyright law would mean that any copying or distribution was illegal - so that approach would be the lawyer equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Instead you would need to convince the judge that it is both valid but allows more than it appears to allow. But that is a difficult case to argue ;)
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Warez too! (Score:5, Informative)
Mirror (Score:3, Informative)
Right back at you: (Score:4, Interesting)
Your points would be valid if they weren't so automatically cynical.
No, Slashdot is for the freedom to do things without big corporations having the means or possible means down to breathe down everyone's back, or against laws that are contrary to fair use. Many slashdotters don't practice what they preach, but to treat all slashdotters as equally hypocritical is itself hypocritical, unless you yourself are hypocritical. In either case you are a hypocrite. Slashdot *would* be okay with the RIAA pursuing legal infringement if they weren't trying to sue for $150,000 per song (or something). Do you think that the PearPC would claim millions in damages to Maui X-Stream? Duh, no. P2P copyright infringement is not theft. Selling copyrighted materials is. Taking GPL code is not theft. Selling GPLed materials is.
You take three extreme examples and apply stereotypes to all three. BTW, saying "but it applies to the majority" and then talking about "ridiculous double standards" is also a double standard. Congrats on hanging yourself with your own rope, hypocrite.
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Re:More /. HYPOCRISY (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that Slashdot as a whole tends to be against making money without making a useful contribution to society, and against corporatism. So they're OK when someone patents a specific, useful, non-obvious idea and makes money from it, but not when a corporation which probably didn't invent the idea buys up an obvious patent and goes around suing people who are using the idea independently. Similarly, if someone copyrights a work and makes it available at a reasonable price, most Slashdotters would be fine with that, even if they would prefer that he give it away. But when the RIAA gets rich by selling crap music with ridiculous contracts to prevent the artists from making a buck, this is a bad thing.
My personal views are pretty similar. I hate obvious patents, especially software and business method patents, and patent-whoring companies as well as copyright-whores like the RIAA (but their music is mostly crap, so I don't pirate it). I'm fine with copyrights on say Windows (although I wish it were better), and I think the copyrights on PearPC are legit also. Personally, I try to make my work public domain, because it's not good enough to sell and I don't want people to bother about credit, but if I do something saleworthy, I'll certainly sell it.
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If the court decides they should compensate... (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be anticlimactic (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does CherryOS even bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everybody knows (Score:5, Informative)
It's worth making some noise even about something this blatant.
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Re:Why does CherryOS even bother? (Score:4, Informative)
Correction: Everyone on Slashdot and the PearPC forums.
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already slow... (Score:5, Informative)
Article through mirrordot [mirrordot.org]
contact the EFF and the FSF? (Score:3, Interesting)
if I was a PearPC developer, I would.
this is blatant theft.
You've got to laugh... (Score:4, Funny)
I mean, even the name itself smacks of copyright infringement...
Copyright infringement is NOT THEFT! (Score:5, Informative)
It does not matter who's copyright is being infringed or who is claiming it, it is STILL NOT THEFT.
I'll bet I'll be modded down now, since this sort of thing is only accepable on an anti *AA thread.
Re:Copyright infringement is NOT THEFT! (Score:3, Insightful)
If I download a song by *insert popular music person here* and claim that I performed the song and cha
Re:Copyright infringement is NOT THEFT! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're not. If while he was distracted you grabbed hold of the plans he'd written down and walked off with them without permission then that would be theft. Claiming his work as your own would be fraud. Duplicating his work and distributing it without permission would be copyright infringement.
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How about a legal fund for PearPC? (Score:3, Insightful)
GPL coders (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn those code thieves! (Score:4, Insightful)
Can we just call it breach of license and stop being all dramatic about it?
The Opensource Community needs to pull together (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what's funny (Score:5, Insightful)
CherryOS is given too much credit (Score:4, Funny)
Is Pear allowed to... (Score:4, Interesting)
Anonymous? (Score:3, Interesting)
Gee. I wonder who that could be [slashdot.org].
How to avoid their EULA (Score:3, Interesting)
On the Trial Download page [mxsinc.com], there are 5 checkboxes you "have" to agree to. If you don't check them, and click Download, it still lets you download with agreeing!
Google Bomb (Score:3, Interesting)
The Dan Rather connection... (Score:5, Funny)
"Jim Kartes is the president of Maui-X Stream... He later worked as a news and documentary cameraman for CBS News in New York." (emphasis mine)
I guess we should have seen the writing on the wall.
Why not do something about this? (Score:5, Informative)
This story made me decide to donate to the PearPC project http://sourceforge.net/donate/index.php?group_id=
Re:When is stealing IP justifiable? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Free Software movement's goal is to increase the availability of software. Free Software advocates want to give control to the end-users. The GPL is designed to prevent people from hoarding it and reducing the availability. It basically uses copyright law against itself*, because if there were no copyright then all software would be Free.
In contrast, the RIAA's goal is to decrease the availability of music. They want to control it themselves. Their use of copyright is designed to augment their ability to control and hoard the music.
Even though both organizations use copyright as a tool, they use it for opposite goals. And that's why we believe copyright infringment is moral in one case and not in the other.
*when I say the GPL uses copyright against itself, I mean the modern (e.g. RIAA's) interpretation of copyright. Originally, the goals of copyright were more aligned with the goals of the GPL, to increase and spread knowledge. It could be argued that the modern interpretation is a corruption of copyright, and the GPL is a device to try to restore its original meaning.
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Re:Stealing code? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrisy.. (Score:5, Informative)
PearPC - While able to run OSX - it is simply an emulation of PPC hardware. There are plenty of operating systems that PearPC can run eg: linux, bsd , beos etc. It is upto the person running the emulator whether they violate apples licensing agreement.
Cherry OS however - albeit the same thing as PearPC are explicitly advertising their (stolen) product for the purpose of running OSX. They are much more likely to find themselves on the end of an apple lawsuit than the PearPC developers.
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Nothing to do with licenses. (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with licenses, since they are not following the terms of the license (GNU GPL [gnu.org]) offered to them by the copyright holders.
This is copyright infringment, plain and simple.
1) They copied copyrighted works and claim it as their own, in some cases without even removing the orignal author's name and GNU GPL license notice.
2) The only way they can legally use the copyrighted works is by honouring the license under which they authors have released it with
3) They have not honoured the terms of the GNU GPL (Unless they are simultaneously denying the use of GNU GPL'd code and are also providing downloads to said source code).
4) Now we fall back to good old-fashioned copyright law. If you don't have permission, you can't copy it.
Considering the complete lack of evidence of there being even a sliver of their own code in the PPC emulation, apart from doing a "search and replace" for "PearPC"->"CherryOS", then this does in fact need to be taken very seriously.
Ok, so if they follow the gpl, so what?
So what? They wouldn't be breaching international copyright law, that's what.
Contributors to PearPC don't want to work 40hrs a week at their real job and come home to find their pride and joy/hobby being ripped off to profit some wanker who just slapped together a nice VB frontend over a couple of weekends.
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