Comments within. (I am personally uncomfortable including the GPL
violations people until we have a clear direction from the leadership of the
flightgear project as to the direction the project would like to go).
On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 1:49 AM, Arnt Karlsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
> ...
>
> > Still, the question is if this company is violating the GPL. We have
> > no proof of that.
>
> ..I'm checking my wee mirrors to find out. ;o)
The GPL can only be violated when they distribute the software. Their
website doesn't entail them distributing. Action can only be taken if there
is a clear violation (ie: they distribute a flightgear derived product
without an offer of distributing source. Who knows, they may include the
source in the DVD or CD that they ship.
I personally don't want to charge forward and claim a violation when nothing
has been distributed.
> (The gpl-violations.org guys go after people who
> are not honoring the release of source for both distributed and
> derived works - typically in embedded systems. Usually they settle
> when the company honors the GPL and provides source or stops
> distributing the offending product.)
..aye, this means they have valuable experience
> and can guide us. ;o)
>
> > At this stage it appears that they are simply selling a binary
> > distribution of a set of OSS applications.
>
> ..then, in good faith, they shouldn't mind saying so.
> My opinion now is, these people are common criminals,
> or a tSCOG-style Microsoft proxy team.
> http://gpl-violations.org/faq/violation-faq.html
> http://gpl-violations.org/faq/legal-faq.html
> http://gpl-violations.org/faq/sourcecode-faq.html
> http://gpl-violations.org/faq/vendor-faq.html
But they do say that - http://flight-aviator.com/
===
[image: flight]Based on the award winning Flight Gear project
[image: flight]All from the thriving Open Source Community, this sim is
forever changing
===
> > As mentioned before, ethics or questionable business practices aside,
> > we need to focus on what they are actually violating. Even the
> > wikipedia screen shots are licensed under the GPL can be re-used
> > freely.
>
> ..aye. Removals of "FlightGear.org" and "GPL" etc around
> these screen shots, would prove a few things though. ;o)
I don't see what you are saying. The screenshots don't seem to be trimmed -
beyond a possible crop here or there.
http://www.flight-aviator.com/images/fps/multiplayer-map.jpg as well as
http://www.flight-aviator.com/images/getstart11x.jpg don't seem to be hiding
it from being (or being derived from flightgear). The lack of attribution
is not quite nice, but is a common mistake.
Again, if the flightgear leadership, or the creators (and hence copyright
owners) of the images have particular concern then that can put forward when
a direction is chosen.
> ..and keep in mind, top posting is not quite comme-il-feaut
> at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ;o)
I understand, but the google mobile client provides no options to inline
quote or bottom quote. (I would actually expect that from a legal
perspective a top-posted email thread is far more valuable than a inline
posted... But that is a different discussion. :)
Please note that I am not saying take no action, I am just saying take a few
days to gather what each copyright owner who is impacted wants and ensure a
plan is prepared before taking action.
Remember, the emotive aspect - although it is real and affects people
personally - should not be the prime driver for individuals. The legal
framework that each person has implicitly or explicitly has agreed to is
what should be driven. (I had a long discussion with some people from
Creative Commons that people should also be made aware of what they are
giving up. If you CC-Share Alike an image, and then see that image being
used to promote something you personally find distasteful - have given up
your right to control what the downstream person does with the image. You
have no fundamental recourse unless the downstream restricts other people
from the Share Alike rights within the license. You may not like it, but
you gave up your right to control that when you licensed it. The same goes
with the GPL.
As mentioned before, I see the baseline direction should be at least the
following.
1) Respect copyright - The images and and so on should attributed fully
2) Respect the GPL - If the flightgear derived binaries that are
distributed are not accompanied by source or an offer to provide the source
that created the binary, then actions should be taken to ensure that it is
available.
1) is fairly obvious, but 2) will need someone to buy the CD before taking
further actions.
Regards,
Matthew
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