Stance for hate mails and competing projects

[Gl3nn]

As a bonus

Can some of the apparently wise heads here tell me how an open source project can be re-licensed under a freeware license which is more restrictive and even not applicable here? - simply it can't without written permission which I highly doubt they have acquired.

How on earth does such a license sting as this fit into an open source project - impossible!

PilotLogic reserves all rights not expressly granted to You. You may not:
(1) reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software except
and only to the extent it is expressly permitted by applicable law or
the license terms accompanying a component of the Software; or (2)
transfer the Software or Your license rights under this Agreement, in
whole or in part.

When does american trade laws apply for a company based in Greece if they don't have a valid subsidiary based in America?

Finally, the whole license.htm file is directly copied from Codegear RAD Studio 2009, therefore the license is deemed invalid and not applicable for the project et al.

[Gl3nn]

look at the Orca/Lava Stuff (demos are the most visible)
and compare to VG/DX-Scene

Indeed, there is a match, and that's one of them i have on my list. What's even worse here is that DX/VG Scene is (was) a commercial product from KSDev before embarcadero bought it and turned into FireMonkey technology. However the licenses is still valid none-the-less so this is a clear evidence of trying to do legal piracy.

[qdos]

@ qdos => i see already a big lie in what you explained, how could we trust you ?

So how are things in the lying camp now?
Was it just me or were there in fact other people that are angry with CT?

Question now is, how can we trust you to be serious now

[mica]

Lazarus/FPC did a code audit to keep code clean from Embagearwhatever code.

If CT is not worrying about "borrowed" code it gives a bad reputation for lazarus.

[JuhaManninen]

Huh, at least dmytron has understood my point.
Everybody please note, the title of this thread is not "War between Jon L. Aasenden and CodeTyphon", it is "Stance for hate mails and competing projects".

I am committed to make my request to come true. No more hate mails!
Now the exact opposite is happening. People are asking evidence from qdos. He has asked his friend to join this fight in our forum ... No, we don't want the war here, that was the whole point!

From experience I know this can escalate into surreal proportions. There have been various fashionable excuses to bash Lazarus developers. Once it was a wrong RCS tool (SVN <--> Git). The bashing continued for years because there is really nothing to stop it. Developers, although having admin rights, only answer "no, it is not true". Then the same false accusations are repeated again and again. Moderation is considered so extreme that it is very seldom used.

I knew the war was sneaking in this forum when I started the thread. It was obvious from comments from some people, for example lagprogramming who has joined this thread, too.
His interpretation of my request to stop hate mails was that it opened a door for "... attempt to create a hostile environment ...". Right ...
I will try a private piece negotiation with him, don't know how realistic that is.

How to proceed?
qdos, I must ask you to stop bringing your war here. It is your war, not ours. Besides, if there was a crime, please go to police.
If nothing else helps then I will use moderation. Yes, I will be hated after that for sure.
Anyway the goal is to dedicate this forum for things that benefit the 2 projects, FPC and Lazarus. Hating somebody else does not benefit them.

[Martin_fr]

So there appear (I did not download CT to check myself) to be license violations, and they can be documented. Then it is a valid point to do so, and also to do whatever is needed to make then correct this.

One of the things that prompted this thread was that on the refereed blog, and in many posts too, personal expectations (or troubles) where mixed in and not distinguished from the real issues. And that should also be cleaned up.


Afaik the freeware remark comes from here:
http://www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/index.php/wiki/84-wiki/codetyphon-studio/72-codetyphon-about

Freeware appears to me to be not clearly defined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeware
If I read that correct all definitions on wikipedia refer to what authors usually put in their license, if they call it freeware. But nothing is implicit.

Overall it seems freeware is more of a concept than a license. So if there is a conflict depends on the actual license terms applied. (I do agree that the CT wiki page could be clearer. I dont know, if it breaks anything).

This is the general issue with legal stuff. There is a big grey zone, where you need to ask a layer before you can make a statement.

I am not sure where the other statement (reserved rights) is stated. So I cant comment.

[Gl3nn]

So there appear (I did not download CT to check myself) to be license violations, and they can be documented. Then it is a valid point to do so, and also to do whatever is needed to make then correct this.

One of the things that prompted this thread was that on the refereed blog, and in many posts too, personal expectations (or troubles) where mixed in and not distinguished from the real issues. And that should also be cleaned up.


Afaik the freeware remark comes from here:
http://www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/index.php/wiki/84-wiki/codetyphon-studio/72-codetyphon-about

Freeware appears to me to be not clearly defined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeware
If I read that correct all definitions on wikipedia refer to what authors usually put in their license, if they call it freeware. But nothing is implicit.

Overall it seems freeware is more of a concept than a license. So if there is a conflict depends on the actual license terms applied. (I do agree that the CT wiki page could be clearer. I dont know, if it breaks anything).

This is the general issue with legal stuff. There is a big grey zone, where you need to ask a layer before you can make a statement.

I am not sure where the other statement (reserved rights) is stated. So I cant comment.

Indeed, and since PilotLogic didn't respond on emails I approached them in a friendly manner in the forums asking for clarification which they refused to do. Instead they started to conduct witch hunt against Jon and me with the final result of banning me and delete the thread.
However I still have a copy of the whole thread.

For reference, their "Freeware" license which is included with every release can be found here: http://pastebin.com/mSF6VbZS

@JuhaManninen: The sole motivation for this move is not to start a war or hate mails, this is meant as a service for other developers who consider developing commercial application with CodeTyphon as they could end up as an implied in a legal mess because the framework is not properly licensed.

I have several times tried to approach PilotLogic in a friendly manner, and even made suggestions on how to rectify and comply with the licenses however I've just been laughed at.

[lainz]

So there appear (I did not download CT to check myself) to be license violations, and they can be documented. Then it is a valid point to do so, and also to do whatever is needed to make then correct this.

Ok if I understand you propose to actually verify the whole thing and if there is any license problem correct this not to go against CT.

[JuhaManninen]

Referring to findings of Martin and others, yes I believe there are violations but still the request to avoid hate mails apply.
There are people who love to bash and hate somebody using whatever excuse. A license violation is a PERFECT excuse. And because people discuss about it in Lazarus forum, it means that Lazarus developers must hate the other projects. And when this false accusation is repeated few times, people start to believe it and repeat it themselves.

No! Let's stop all hate mails and concentrate in SW development in this forum.
Police or layer are proper for legal issues, not this forum.

[lainz]

Referring to findings of Martin and others, yes I believe there are violations but still the request to avoid hate mails apply.
There are people who love to bash and hate somebody using whatever excuse. A license violation is a PERFECT excuse. And because people discuss about it in Lazarus forum, it means that Lazarus developers must hate the other projects. And when this false accusation is repeated few times, people start to believe it and repeat it themselves.

No! Let's stop all hate mails and concentrate in SW development in this forum.
Police or layer are proper for legal issues, not this forum.

Ok, licenses are not part of software development of course. Is another aspect of how it must be used it is ok.

Ok if you believe that are violations all people here share a point of view at least, finally.

[qdos]

qdos, I must ask you to stop bringing your war here.

Well that was my point as well.
There is no war.

So yeah -- im out. I have no interest.
People can believe what they want.

Must be handy to have someone to pin this on.
Jez you guys really are unfair.

[taazz]

OK so far we have 3 violations mentioned TColorProgress, TGifAnim, ACS and one maybe for orca/lava. Haven't looked close at the moment but I will take a closer look on those components and their license. I do not have an dx/vg scene license or access to the code my self so I can't validate or invalidate anything about them.

As for the rest of the comments and assumptions I will respect juha and avoid commenting my self too after all I have my own assumptions to clear out too before commenting.

As for the stance of hate mails there is only one thing to be done
1) if a couple of pages are posted at least 2 in order to give the OP the opportunity to guide the thread in the correct path
2) if the hate posts and OT is continued then a warning by an admin should be posted.
3) If after the warning 1 or 2 posts are made in the same hate/OT manner then the admin will lock the thread putting a stop to subject.
4)If any of the participants try to open a new thread correctly titled and in the correct subforum then let them continue their talk if things get out of order again the thread gets locked and the person with the most hate/OT posts get temporarily banned from the forums he should get an email with the reasons no details just that he was out of order on thread X and how many days he will need to wait before being able to post again. This can be escalated for each ban the participant gets to give the moderators the ability to be a bit more fair on their ban time.

Please no post/thread deletion of single participant or the thread lock it and let others draw their own conclusions.

[mica]

about VG/DX-Scene you can look here

http://blog.synopse.info/post/2011/08/11/FireMonkey-and-DXScene

[Martin_fr]

For reference, their "Freeware" license which is included with every release can be found here: http://pastebin.com/mSF6VbZS

Thanks for this. There are various points that in my opinion are at least very unclear. But I can not say if they are legally wrong (misleading, or worse).

But first, the  same text also contains:

The Software is a modular programming system. Most of the components
are open source packages, developed independently, and accompanied by
separate license terms.

So the license would only apply to their work. And only where  their work is not bound by other licenses: that is changes the made to a component (the Lazarus IDE being a component in their project), and according to the components license published as part of the component should (in my understanding) be covered by the components license (as required by that license).  --- that is from reading that text, not inspecting the work

Thus the license could (probably) apply to their "CT central". I never looked at it, but it may be their own work?



The hairy bits  (and really I do not know were they stand legally) start by looking at their web page. And to keep it fair, even in the light of certain other suggestions, the below (if at all relevant) could easily be oversight, or translation.

The question is what exactly each term and name does refer too (And I do have the feeling they may have never really defined that to the dot themselves....)

http://www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/index.php/wiki/84-wiki/codetyphon-studio/72-codetyphon-about

CodeTyphon has Typhon V-IDE

Does "has" mean
- uses
- includes
?

So does "CodeTyphon is freeware" or "Codetyphon is licensed" include the IDE  (and maybe other components, or does it not)?

And if it did, then would that mean that the linked license text, contradicts itself ?

[dmytron]

Since they have refused to answer over and over again, I don't see any other way than reporting them to the Free Software Foundation for GPL violations.

Then do it, and as quickly as possible, before Lazarus forum become a place for civil war.