stealing from GPL?

[iustitia]

Hello Fellow hackers and/or M$ haters:

I just realized something.  How does the FSF enforce the GPL.  I was wondering what would happen if a  propietery company stole a bits and peices program that was licensed under the GPL.  Since most of those types of companies only realease binaries of their software, it would be certian that no one would notice, especially becuse most End User licenses forbid reversing.  This is probally been brought up here before, but I just realized it and found it an especially haunting prospect.  There could be thousands of software companies that are stealing large portions of code from hackers who believed they were coding in defiance of Corperate America, when in fact they were helping it.  The prospect scares the crap outa me.

[voidmain]

Good question. If a proprietary company such as M$ were to use GPL believe me, sooner or later someone from the inside would squeal. Sort of like software piracy. Companies usually do not pirate software because sooner or later a disgruntled employee would rat them out. There is an email address that violations can be reported. For more information see:

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

[psyjax]

YEs good point. As Void has pointed out a few times, M$ has incorporated many portions of free BSD into the NT kernel.

Tho they wont admit to it. Bastards!

EDIT:

Err.. hehe.. I didn't notice I posted right after the man himself  

Anyway, I think he suggested... hmm.. hey Void, what was your theory behind M$ swiping GPL code? If you remember that is  

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax ]

[voidmain]

Well, BSD code is not GPL code. M$ is actually free to incorporate any BSD code into their OS that they wish (and I wish they would incorporate more to be honest, would be a hell of a lot better product). The BSD license allows you to "steal" code and do whatever you want with it, including modifying/selling and not releasing the source code. Under the GPL you are allowed to modify and sell but you must also release your source code and allow the same freedoms to your customer. I have read that M$ has used the BSD TCP/IP stack, and we all know they stole Kerberos and hacked it up until it didn't work with anything but other M$ products. And of course IE was originally created from Mozaic, also open source (but not GPL).

[ahri]

I keep hearing windows uses the BSD TCP/IP stack. Is there anyway to verify that or is it rumor status?

I allso heard that the NT kernel is OS/2.

[iustitia]

Voidmain:

That article from the FSF has been somewhat reassuring. However, I still think it impossible enough reversersing is going on that would find code under the GPL.  Especially when one considers the amount of code under the liscense, and the majority of shrink-wrap liscenses that forbid reversing.  Especially because we know of frequent stealing of things like kerbos, Mosaic, Screwing over netscape, spyglass, and java, and the TCP/IP thing which has been my most recent learning of the offence.  And M$ is just one company out of the thousands of "innovators"!

[voidmain]

From what I recall it was starting with Win2k that they went with the BSD stack.  As you probably know, every version of Windows prior to Win2k the TCP/IP stack was absolute crap. NT was better so maybe it was with NT they started using BSD code. I'll do some searching and see what I can find.

[voidmain]

Here I see someone else referencing it:

http://old.lwn.net/2001/0607/a/esr-big-lie.php3

   

quote:
Other open-source licenses -- such as the BSD license in the TCP/IP
stack that Microsoft adapted for Windows -- will never infect
anybody's code or data, because they're designed not to.  But Ballmer
wants businesspeople and the public to fear them all, because only if
open source is general is discredited will Microsoft maintain its
monopoly.

And here's one that would make it appear that
M$'s FTP client and more was robbed from BSD:

http://www.daemonnews.org/200108/dadvocate.html

Very interesting...

In fact I just ran a "strings" on my ftp.exe and sure enough, the copyright is there, plain as day!

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Kintaro]

The GNU LGPL is fully legal.... If somone stole your source... you just sue them for copyright infringement.

[Calum]

yes but the question is how would you know their binaries were from your source, if they didn't release their source for you to check it against?

Voidmain was saying they don't do that purely because somebody on the inside would leak it. That's what money's for though, and finding articles on the web does not a lawsuit make unfortunately.

[Kintaro]

Depends on the source i geuss.

[sporkme]

oh come on, microsoft never stole or lied, ever, honest!  nor did intel ever screw over amd and motorola and ibm and cyrix!  i swear!  and internet explorer was written in little ones and zeros by bill gates dog with a pencil shoved in it's asshole!  it was something else, you should have been there...

o wait, they have all profited from unpaid talent and then rheamed them.

expressedly, the thieving corporations are the stink, but open source is the shit!

(if this is uniquely an american euphanism, being the shit is a good thing errrrrrrrr derp!)

[iustitia]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
Voidmain was saying they don't do that purely because somebody on the inside would leak it.

Thanks for clearing that up Calum.

[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: iustitia ]

[dbl221]

Actually guys M$ DOES use open source software in the development process.  Perl for example is used by M$ developers.  They simply do not include ANY open source code in their final products.  Its a case of using GPL'd "TOOLS" not using GPL'd code in your products.

Example(real): a M$ developer writes a Perl script to help him debug his C++ code.

Chew on that...read the GPL and see if you can find a hole....good luck

[iustitia]

quote:Originally posted by dbl221:
Actually guys M$ DOES use open source software in the development process.  Perl for example is used by M$ developers.  They simply do not include ANY open source code in their final products.  Its a case of using GPL'd "TOOLS" not using GPL'd code in your products.

Example(real): a M$ developer writes a Perl script to help him debug his C++ code.

Chew on that...read the GPL and see if you can find a hole....good luck

I had alreay known that. I was just wondering about releases.