OpenEuphoria

Re: Vincent, please read. (was Re: Why some ...+ FASTER PARSING than 2.4 !)

• Posted by Alexander Toresson <alexander.toresson at gmail.com> Jan 04, 2006
• 546 views

C Bouzy wrote:
> 
> Alexander,
> 
> If you ask anyone who advocates "true" open source, they will tell you if a
> developer charges for access to the code, or puts unreasonable restrictions
> 
> on how the source code is being used, it is not considered open source.

I never said that. Source code must be available for at most the cost of
shipping. And of course they can't put unreasonable restrictions on how the
source is being used.

> Once
> again, a developer should not "EXPECT" TO MAKE MONEY OFF OF THE SOURCE CODE
> if it is released as open source. 

That is true. On the other hand, you can't be sure that you will make money off
commercial software either.

> You have made a lot of points about GPL and licenses in general, but I want
> to inform you that the GPL and putting restrictions on open source code
> is a waste of time. If a coder uses part of source code that has a GPL
> attached to it, and did not follow the terms of the GPL, that coder is
> completely free from any legal ramifications. I can show you a few cases
> where developers tried to take legal action against companies who they
> claimed used their source code that was NOT open source, and those 
> developers lost. Source code is almost impossible to protect, and if a
> coder changes the protected code just enough, it is no longer considered
> the same code.

It is true that it may be hard to prove that the GPL has been violated.

I googled a bit, and I didn't find any case where a GPL violation had gone to
court and the developer of the GPL-licensed code had lost the case. Actually, in
most cases it had been settled out of court. That is, the developer contacts the
company that violates the GPL and the company politely resolves the issue:

http://www.tomahawkcomputers.com/download.html

http://lwn.net/Articles/71418/

http://news.com.com/Fortinet+settles+GPL+violation+suit/2100-7344_3-5684880.html

I just found one case where it had gone to court, and in that case it was a
success:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5198117.html

Regards, Alexander Toresson