Being a strong believer in open-source, it gives me no pleasure to find people who violate open source licenses. Abiding by these licenses are fairly easy and I take a very liberal view of the rights that they protect.
Back in June, I discovered several userscripts that were copies of my Facebook Autopoke script. While I normally wouldn't have a problem with this, the fact that this user simply copied the script and just pasted his name on it made me pretty angry. It's one thing to use my script as a bases of a better script. Even if it's part of a larger work. But copying the script and just slapping your name on it not only violates the GPL legally, it violates it spiritually.
The GPL was created to foster sharing of thoughts and ideas without fear of stepping on someone's toes. What this user did was took my hard word and claimed it as his own.
Now, I contacted the Tony White back in May and never received a reply. So, I contacted Userscripts.org and informed them that I had revoked his license, persuant to section 8 of the GPL. The script is still up today.
So until I have this resolved, all work on the autopoke script will cease. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here in the comments.
I totally understand your anger! I love the autopoke script. It has been working very hard for the last months.
ReplyDeleteThat's awful. Definitely need to get those scripts removed. Perhaps the FSF could be contacted since not only are these people breaching the GPL but userscripts.org is hosting code which violates the GPL.
ReplyDeleteI understand it may not be worth the time and perhaps money to get this sorted but the GPL has to be defended.
Good luck getting these violators removed!
I fear these individuals might not fully understand the GPL agreement. I doubt they've ever actually read it. Best of luck in getting this settled, I hope the script works for a good while before a fix is needed, or this is resolved beofore then, other wise I fear we may lose a very useful script for facebook.
ReplyDeleteI've been in contact with userscripts.org's webmaster and he will be correcting this situation soon. He just had a baby so I completely understand if his regular duties have taken a back seat.
ReplyDeleteTony White is still welcome to correct his script, but until he contacts me, his license is still terminated.
@Jer419: You could be right, but the fact is I had contacted Tony White concerning the violation and gave him instructions on how to fix it. Since he never replied back or made the changes, his license was terminated.
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