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CherryOS Mac Emulator Resurfaces
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Mar 09, 2005 07:17 AM
from the and-takes-a-deep-breath dept.
from the and-takes-a-deep-breath dept.
Clash writes "Following its initial announcement and subsequent controversy last October, Mac emulator CherryOS has finally been released. Its creator, Arben Kryeziu, found himself in hot water last year amid claims the software was simply stolen from the open source PearPC project. With the code now under public scrutiny, it appears that such allegations are true. According to BetaNews, CherryOS boots up in the exact same manner as PearPC, and its error messages and source files are nearly identical. The emulator also includes MacOnLinuxVideo, which is the same driver used by PearPC to speed up graphics. The CherryOS configuration file also closely mirrors that used by PearPC. Trial download without registration found here."
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Um. (Score:5, Interesting)
Enforce the GPL or it loses relevance (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Enforce the GPL or it loses relevance (Score:4, Informative)
It's up to the copyright holders of the infringed works to take action.
If not, the GPL might as well not exist.
A copyright holder failing to take action does not weaken either copyright in general or the copyrights they hold. The only thing it may do is limit the damages the copyright holder can claim if they later sue. On the basis that they allowed the infringement to continue once they became aware of it.
Parent
How Much Justice Can You Afford? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody in the tech world seems to grasp that defending your legal rights costs money. Every time Slashdot does a story about another round of Cease and Desist letters [webtechniques.com], we get a ton of posts saying, in effect, "That's obviously lame, people should just ignore them." But the sad fact is, you don't know how lame any legal action is until you've gotten legal advice. Nor can you take legal action without that overpaid guy in the suit.
Well, if you're very smart and very patient, you can represent yourself in Small Claims Court. But that's not applicable to this kind of issue.
Parent
Re:Enforce the GPL or it loses relevance (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Just like piracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm confused about the
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:3, Informative)
Or didnt your even RTFSummary?
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't do that, you are violating the GPL and asking to be sued.
If you follow the GPL, others can re-distribute YOUR program which will limit the price you can charge without being undercut by others. Linux distributions are a good example for this:
Companies like Novell/SuSE can get away with charging up to 100 Euros for a nice package of installation disks, manuals and some installation support. But you won't find a 1000 Euro distribution without some proprietary software add-ons or extended support included.
As opposed to the server versions of Windows, where the OS alone may cost some thousand dollars.
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a _huge_ difference between code reuse and stealing code. If this guy simply was trying to sell CherryOS (really just the GPLed PearPC) but he kept it as a GPLed work, there would be no legal problems for him.
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how you feel about Intelectual property , This is immoral , unethical and illegal and rightly so
Parent
WAIT A MINUTE (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual, in CherryOS articles, copyright infringement of GPL code mysteriously becomes theft. In P2P piracy articles, copyright infringement mysteriously becomes an okay natural culture movement.
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:4, Informative)
The GPL also stipulates in clause 3 that the source code must be "machine-readable" and "on a medium customarily used for software interchange". So you might be expected to produce an "alphabit soup reader" in court.
Don't forget that there isn't really such a thing as "violating the GPL". The GPL is a licence to do something above and beyond your "fair dealing" rights -- determined by the courts -- applicable to copyright law. If you aren't in compliance with the GPL, and what you're doing isn't considered "fair dealing", then you're in breach of plain old copyright law.
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes you can sell it under another name and ask a billion for it... But you still have to acknowledge that there is GPL code in it and have to supply the source code upon request.
Jeroen
Re:MOD TROLL DOWN PLEASE (Score:4, Insightful)
All he is stating is the fact that apple didnt rip off xerox and that the grandparent is obviously a bad troll
if you want to read about the Xerox GUI and the money apple paid to study it and improvments that were made by apple enginers to the design then a quick google search on the topic will help enlighten
Parent
Re:why would it be illegial? (Score:5, Informative)
They should atleast put a notice with it saying 'This contains GPL code, send your request for the source here:'
Jeroen
Parent
GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
-b0lt
Intellectual Property? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intellectual Property? (Score:5, Informative)
IP is broken down into three main areas comenly on slashdot
1:Patents - Mainly refering to software patents , or the ownership of an idea , most slashdoters are against this and rightly so , as it stiffels freedom
2: Trademarks - Can be both very usefull on one hand to stop cheap rip offs but also gets abused alot by companys (IE: why pentium is called pentium as intel tried to trademark a number )
3: copywright : also a two sided blade , abused alot in the DMCA which companys use to stop us enacting our rights to fair use , and used properly in the GNU GPL and Creative commens license which i hope i dont need to explain to people here
Ok i do dice over the issues , but IP is not just one thing , and in this case its totaly right to complain about people violating IP , its the copyright equivelent of identity theft( well close enough)
Parent
Re:Intellectual Property? (Score:4, Interesting)
All of these authors are(were) prolific (at least in some sense), and wouldn't have been nearly so if no one had been obligated to pay them for use of their writings. Anything that creates this kind of obligation is a copyright of some kind.
Asimov is a great example. He loved to write. Money wasn't even his main motivation for writing (according to him). He (again, according to him) worked 80 hours/week on writing sometimes. If he had had to keep teaching college chemistry and doing chemistry research (though he never really did that) to support himself and his family he wouldn't have had nearly as much time to write.
Burroughs is an example of someone that wrote almost solely (probably) for the money. If the money hadn't been there he would have kept looking for (other) work.
In these cases copyright is a GOOD thing for me, because otherwise I would have been deprived of many of their writings, and that would be a BAD thing.
Parent
Re:Intellectual Property? (Score:4, Insightful)
From my point of view, copyright is good if it is limited, both in time and in scope.
If I write a book, an essay, a piece of software, or if I create some nice pictures or music, then I don't want to have my work copied by others unless I allow them to do so (the GPL or the Creative Commons licenses are ways to allow that under some conditions).
I think that it is reasonable to allow authors to protect their original works for a limited amount of time. Most authors expect some kind of tangible or intangible benefits when they publish their works. Copying without permission may deprive them from these benefits, so it is good to have some copyright laws protecting the authors.
However, these laws should allow fair use and should include a reasonable time limit. By "fair use", I mean having the right to make personal copies (including conversion to other formats - for example converting music or video to Ogg Vorbis or Theora) or to distribute short excerpts of the works. Note that "fair use" does not include distributing copies to your neighbors or to anybody else via the Internet.
Parent
Wondering how developers feel about this (Score:5, Interesting)
I was always wondering how developers behind BSD-licensed products felt about this whole thing. Before you pounce on me, I know PearPC is a GPLed product, but the way I see it, the risks are pretty similar.
So, how would BSD developers feel about creating something, having it ripped off, and bandied about by someone else as if it was their own creation, with the original developers getting no credit? Has it happened? Did it cause you to think about switching to GPL, or maybe some other license?
Re:Wondering how developers feel about this (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wondering how developers feel about this (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact is that BSD developers are beyond that and the lack of ego is codified into the license. Its a much more 'mature' license in some ways.
As such, you can't 'rip off' BSD applications as long as you leave the copyright files alone. You don't even have to display them, you have to leave the credits in there somewhere and we are happy.
This post is licensed under the BSD. I'd prefer that you kept it under BSD, but if you want to edit it and take credit for it, feel free to do so.
Parent
Re:Wondering how developers feel about this (Score:5, Funny)
The fact is that BSD developers are beyond that and the lack of ego is codified into the license. Its a much more 'mature' license in some ways.
As such, you can't 'rip off' BSD applications as long as you leave the copyright files alone. You don't even have to display them, you have to leave the credits in there somewhere and we are happy.
Parent
Re:Wondering how developers feel about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me quote something...
Which means that they'd still have to credit you.
Parent
Re:Wondering how developers feel about this (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a risk, it's the point of BSD licensing. Just because "the community" flies into a rage about "taking from 'us' and not giving anything back" doesn't mean the developers feel that way. Why do you think they decided to use those licensing terms?
Parent
Free publicity. Why? (Score:5, Informative)
At least this time the schmuk has taken the "trouble" of removing all references to PearPC in the binary. Sadly he's too stupid to remember to change the configuration file format, or the hard coded MAC address that PearPC uses for the emulated NIC.
It's stolen ? (Score:5, Funny)
A bit more on the rip... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not the only one. (Score:5, Informative)
I saw that Miranda [miranda-im.org] had been ripped off for (at least) a second time.
Going to all that trouble just to rip people off and install spyware. It's fucking sad.
Sound (Score:5, Funny)
As soon as it becomes available in PearPC?
Wired link (Score:5, Informative)
Intellectual property? Test the GPL? (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be pretty obvious that this guy will have legal action taken against him at any moment. He has no reputation as a business owner that I can tell so he has nothing to lose. But this case would have interesting value to those businesses out there who have and who would use GPL code in their stuff. I don't think I'm being paranoid or dramatic when I suggest the possibility is there. After all, isn't it Microsoft that ultimately funded SCO's legal machine? Or at least partly?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and I know that no one could disagree with that.
Clear license violation (Score:5, Informative)
Note that there is no requirement to credit the original authors, which some people seem to believe.
Stolen? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stolen? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes we can. "We" are the several hundred thousand slashdot readers, not some hivemind, and people might use words differently. Now, if you could find a single person being inconsistent you'd be welcome to attack.
Parent
Insightful, my arse. (Score:5, Informative)
This is a contradiction in terms. A stolen toaster does not become the property of the theif. If it did, it wouldn't be stolen, nor would the store have a right to have it returned. It's still the store's property. It's just that the thief has taken unlawful posession of the toaster. If you're going to be commenting on the subtleties and nuances of property law, you should at least use basic terminology correctly.
they get the soul ability
Let's keep religion out of this, ok?
However when they modify it, rebrand it and repackage it they are claiming those rights that are in effect the intelectual property. They are claiming distribution rights and claiming authorship.
Yeah, but they didn't remove anything tangible from the posession of the "rightful owners", which is always the distinction that music piracy apologists use when they cry "copyright infringement is NOT theft!".
What would be equivilant is taking a good, but little known song, then putting it onto a CD and claiming that it is mine
No, that's plagiarism.
The grandparent is correct. What they did is copyright infringement, and is every bit as much a theft, nor more and no less, than music piracy.
Parent
Review (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider this (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So what? He's just forked a GPL project. (Score:5, Insightful)
(He should have supplied the License allong with the binary)
Jeroen
Parent
Re:So what? He's just forked a GPL project. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's where you're wrong not only for the OBVIOUS reason "if you fork a GPL software it must remain GPL" (and I just downloaded the installer and afaik the code IS NOT distributed along), but also because he denied having forked PearPC, where the GPL forces to keep the copyleft of the original authors (ok you can still say "it's my software I coded it all alone last saturday" and let the copyleft in the code, but then everybody can read it if it's GPL'd, so I think giving credit to the legitimate authors is something that the GPL implies)
Even if the PearPC licence had been more permissive (MIT or BSD style), he would still be a moron who cannot even admit he just took the code.
In the current case however, he's just a thief and I hope the PearPC developpers will get some support to sue and get the GPL tested in an US court.
Parent
Re:It wasn't stolen (Score:5, Informative)
The point of the GPL, in case you missed it, is that modifications to the source cannot be kept from the community if the modifier wants to distribute their work. If you want to benefit from GPL code, you have to give back in the form of your modifications.
Parent
Re:It wasn't stolen (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is all about protecting our ability to keep software evolving... not about ego boosts.
Parent
Re:Deal with it (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Blah Blah Blah or shuld that be halB labB lahB (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea behind patents is:
1) Work hard or some novel idea
2) Get it to work.
3) Patent it and start selling it without anybody in the way.
4) Profit!!! - for funding more research on more novel ideas.
How it actually works is:
1) Find some obvious thing nobody thought to patent because it's so blatantly obvious
2) Patent it. Getting it to work is optional.
3) Wait till a bunch of people use it, then sue them.
4) Profit!!! - for funding more lawyers.
Copyright is similarly screwed up, though in most cases significantly higher degree of creativity is needed. Copyrighting silence, copyrighting a single black dot isn't as notorious as patenting triple click. Although in the Trademark field things are VERY screwed up. (site Mobil-X shut down because it's too similar to "Asterix" ????)
Parent
Re:Blah Blah Blah or shuld that be halB labB lahB (Score:4, Informative)
The most egregious example in my mind of a software patent is a Japanese company's patent on linking a help file to a help icon. There is no specific code involved. ANY help icon linked to ANY help file is in violation of the patent.
Copyrights actually encourage competition, because if someone codes a great word processor, for example. Some other coder might try to make a different and better one, with his own code.
But patents stop any competition, because nearly every computer process can be patented and monopolized. Think about, right now nearly every piece of software you use is in violation of that Japanese help icon patent.
And think of all the other trivial processes your computer does that are or soon will be patented. Once you start eliminating all those processes, you end up with a pretty looking empty box under your desk. Unless of course Apple obtained a business method patent on pretty looking boxes under desks.
Parent
Re:Emulators? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Smoking Gun (Score:4, Informative)
http://66.42.197.91/FromPearPC.gif [66.42.197.91]
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/screenshots/osx_ins
Parent