I sent my first GPL violation notice today!

[MyndFyre]

I explain it pretty well in the e-mail to both parties, but you might find this interesting.  :)


Hello:

I was writing to inform you of a possible violation of the use of licensed software, called the "Virtual Disk Driver," or VDK.exe, in the commercial product Mount Image Pro.

VDK is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.  While this license permits you to sell binaries and warranty service, it also requires that you provide or at least make available at no fee the complete source code of the original and any derivative works based on the original.

I cannot be certain that MIP is violating this license agreement.  However, I recently had the opportunity to both use VDK and MIP.  When I could not coax VDK into mounting the drive, I came across MIP and decided to try the trial edition.  The GUI interface did not assist in any way.  However, recalling that the dd command (the program that I'd used to create the raw drive image) saw a 0 partition that was actually the disk, I used MIP.exe to mount partition 1, and I was successful.  However, I noticed when using the MIP command line utility, its output was nearly identical, including the same command structure and interface, to VDK.

Neither party is in the United States as far as I can tell, and so I can only speculate as to how the proper method of handling this license violation should proceed.  The purpose of this letter is to inform both parties of the possible violation of the GNU General Public License.  The GNU GPL is not intended just to be an open-source license; people who are looking for that can use a modified BSD license.  The GNU GPL is intended to promote "copyleft" practice -- once code is open-sourced with the GPL, it is supposed to stay open-source.  As an independent developer who frequently uses either of these licenses, I have a keen understanding of why I prefer that these license agreements be upheld.

This is VDK's website: http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/
Mount Image Pro: http://www.mountimage.com/

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.  As I said I am simply a third party, and want to verify that the original license agreement was met.

[ZeroX]

Nice and formal.

WHen I was caught downloading illegal software off some dudes sever this is what he sent me.

HEY!!! Asshole...... This is my own private fttp. If I catch you agian Iam going to send spyware to your fucking comp and have all your info and legally get your ass married to a horse. STOP IT.

True story.

[Joe]

legally get your ass married to a horse

Oxymoron.

[rabbit]

No, it's not at all.  What the hell are you talking about?

[MyndFyre]

I got a reply:

Hello Robert,

As the matter of fact *I* myself wrote the MIP programs for them.
In other words, I sold them a tailored version of VDK, which does not
include any third party GPL code but includes some code based on their
confidential information, and permitted that they sell it under their
brand and their own licensing terms.

Although it may not fully comply with the "copyleft" spirit of the GPL,
I don't believe any actual licensing violation is involved in this case.
Also I'm sure that the original VDK stays "open".

For all that, I thank you very much for informing us of the issue.

Regards,
Ken

[iago]

Send a polite notice, and get a polite reply.  Makes me smile. :)

[Joe]

No, it's not at all. What the hell are you talking about?

Its illegal to marry a horse.

[iago]

That doesn't mean it's an oxymoron.  It just means it's dumb.

And by the way, I took the meaning of "get your ass married to a horse" to be that his donkey should be married to a horse.  Is it legal for animals to get married to each other?

[rabbit]

In the United States, probably, but only if they are of the same genus and are opposite genders (making asses incapable of being married to each other, but they can be married to any other animal in its genus).