NYCPHP Meetup

[Tim Gales]

> From: talk-bounces at lists.nyphp.org
> [mailto:talk-bounces at lists.nyphp.org] On Behalf Of Mitch Pirtle
> Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 9:45 AM
> To: NYPHP Talk
> Subject: Re: [nycphp-talk] [OT] Furthermre -- I mean 
> Furthermore -- CopyrightDispute over Mambo Code
> 
> 
> First off, a disclaimer that I am a Mambo core developer, and
> therefore the tool of Satan.
> 
> I'd like to point out some of the facts behind this story:
> 

First off, thanks for setting this strait.
What you say makes a whole lot more sense to 
me than that news story.

> 1) Brian DID distribute Mambo from his site, for weeks (maybe
> months).  We even took a screenshot of the downloads page 
> because we thought it was strange for him to claim something 
> was his, but then distribute it under the GPL under Miro's 
> copyright.  (Miro is the copyright holder for Mambo)  Typical 
> Brian behavior, the download area of the site just 
> mysteriously disappeared...
> 

If he was distributing a 'derived work' based on code 
whose copyright is held by Miro and published under GPL, 
then he is obligated to give his changes or mods to Miro -- 
if indeed the Mambo copyright holder wants them. 

This fact that he was publishing his changes seems 
to me to be diametrically opposed to what this 
guy was claiming (again as nearly as I could make 
out from the news article) -- that the code was stolen 
from his unpublished work.

...
> We've now opened up a legal defense fund, as we are 
> convinced that this kind of behavior will not go away 
> and only get worse.  
...
> IMHO this is the biggest threat to FOSS, the capability 
> of someone slandering and defaming a FOSS project, and the 
> project having no resources to defend itself.  Who's next?

It is even worse that he is threatening to take action 
against the end users of Mambo (as you mentioned in 
your post). 

If this guy gets away with this (wins any sort of 
legal judgement), it could definitely put a scare 
into prospective clients, who you might be trying 
to persuade to use open source code -- Mambo or not.

T. Gales & Associates
'Helping People Connect with Technology'

http://www.tgaconnect.com