On Aug 27, 5:29*am, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:41:46 +0000, Michael Jaworski wrote:
So basically the message being promulgated here is that it is ok for the
LK8000 team to take someone else's copyrighted work (which is
distributed under a licence with strict terms stating how it can be
used/distributed), create a derivative work and shirk on his contractual
obligations with the original author?

Both projects have gone off in slightly different directions. I haven't
seen XCSoar code since shortly after it was open sourced, but it was
somewhat messy and definitely uncommented at that point. Since then I
know Max has been tidying it up and modularising it with a view to making
it less dependent on one OS. Meanwhile a lot of LK8000 has been
rewritten, e.g. it uses different task file and mapping data formats now.

The bottom line is that the projects have most likely diverged
sufficiently that merging code bases now would be more trouble than its
worth.

--
martin@ * | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org * * * |

How is what you wrote in any way relevent to the point that
effectlively underground wide distribution of LK8000 is copyright
infringement and violation of the GPL? Like Michael I also find this
behavior worrying.

Implications of the GPL just should not be a surprise to developers
going on open source projects. Pretending something is a restricted
distribution but effectively encouraging wide underground distribution
is unlikely to stand up in court. I wonder what the agreement looks
like with the participants that governs their behavior in the LK8000
program? Does it require them not to redistibute code? Will the LK8000
developer remove participants in that program mentioned here who
appear to be doing of blatant redistibution? By not investigating that
or taking action the likely argument would be that they are materially
conducting public distribution of the binaries (and therefore need to
make the source code widely available). The remedy for all this is
really really easy, make the source available. People here who are not
developers or who have no close experience with open source may not
understand the implications. To many open source software developers
this behavior is not seen as subtle dicking around the edges stuff,
its seen as stealing.

BTW anybody reading (and if you are posting in this thread then I'd
assume you've read it) and then distributing the binaries to others is
going to have a hard time every denying they committed willful
copyright infringement. Ask your lawyer the difference between willful
and non-willful infringement. If I was one of the original copyright
owners everybody identified in thread as distributing the code would
be getting cease and desist letters. Likely nothing will happen, but
just maybe at some time lawyers in the GPL ecosystem will come across
this and go after folks to make a point, as they've done on other
cases, including the theft of the model railroad JMRI GPL code. So
help them out by keeping posting names and contact information on how
to get the LK8000 software.


Darryl