GameCube Tunneling Software Rivals Clash 53
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Warp Pipe website posting, in which the creator of the GameCube tunneling software alleges that "members of [planned GameCube tunneling alternative] Xlink community have exploited the fact that our source code (previously open source) is still sitting our SourceForge CVS servers." The confusing allegations, eventually shown to be unrelated to the Xlink creators, have ended in the Warp Pipe code declared closed source and removed from SourceForge. However, the Beta of the Warp Pipe online-enabling software for the GameCube, which "...will support residential DSL and Cable broadband with either a router or 2 NIC setup", is still due before the end of the year.
Exploited? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Exploited? (Score:1)
Re:Exploited? (Score:2)
Re:Exploited? (Score:4, Informative)
It should be noted that XLink wasn't involved at all, someone simply posted a link to the code in the sourceforge CVS on XLink's forums because the WarpPipe people were deleting the link from their own forums. XLink never used their code, as they simply used the code they had already had for their XBox software, with some minor modifications to work with the GameCube.
NOT XLINK (Score:3, Informative)
Re:NOT XLINK (Score:1)
Re:Exploited? (Score:2)
Shindugga.
errrr (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm confused, once something is licensed as open source, doesn't it remain licensed as open source forever?
As such, any versions of Warp Pipe develop would need to be open source, as they would be a derivative wor of the previous open source alpha code?
I'm assuming (it's not fully clear) that the code was in fact open source at some point.
Re:errrr (Score:2)
Blah I'm not even clear, no coffee.
I mean by the above, isn't it impossible to revoke an open source license once it was granted?
If that were not the case, then SCO for example could declare any code it owns that it had previously released under an open license, to no longer be open source, and effectively then claim rights on any work based on that code.
So it must be the case that you can't revoke open source status from code (or we're all screwed).
And I'm assuming the alpha code must have been open so
Re:errrr (Score:1)
However this change can of course not be made retro-actively. So any code released under (for instance) the GPL will always be GPL, and other peoples derived work must also be GPL.
But since I am the owner and therefor licenseholder I am free to change the license.
Re:errrr (Score:1)
A handful of licenses approved by OSDI (which is what is required for free use of SourceForge unless you get approval for something else) allow you to change the license on derived code. This means that the alpha could have been under a BSD-like license, which would mean the code on SourceForge would remain free, but they could change the license for future releases (as they have done).
In other words, just by us
Re:errrr (Score:1)
Copyright holders are not bound by the licenses they choose. If everyone who held copyright to the code in the project agreed to relicense the software for a new release, they could do so. They could even do it for the current release.
There's no changing a license retroactively, though, so anyone who has received the code under an open source license can continue to use it (and, more importantly, redistribute it) under that license.
Re:errrr (Score:4, Informative)
However, the copyright holder can do whatever they want with the code, and later versions can be relicensed as they want. For another example, if someone wanted to make a closed-source game based on the Quake source code, they could negotiate another licensing agreement with id, even though the code is GPLed.
In short, if you are the copyright holder, you can have code released under simultaneous licenses. The "viral" quality of the GPL only holds for people who aren't the copyright holder.
Re:errrr (Score:2)
He put it on Sourceforge out of ignorance.
You can't accidentally open source something. Even if the Sourceforge contract includes an explicit transferable grant of the right to distribute the source code, there clearly wasn't a meeting of the minds, so it isn't a valid contract.
Re:errrr (Score:1)
Re:errrr (Score:2)
A standard BSD license allows you to do anything
Re:errrr (Score:2)
Anyway, this now goes from cool project to lame prima-donna shit, in my book.
Re:errrr (Score:2)
Re:errrr (Score:2)
Nope. The original author, unless they cede copyright to the FSF or a similiar organization, retains the right to re-license the code.
It's even feasible (IANAL-RU?) that the author could disallow the open-source'd code as well. Don't know, not a judge, not a lawyer, can't cite precedent.
Re:errrr (Score:2)
Re:errrr (Score:1)
I suspect that someone could, as long as no one else contributed code to them. The practicality would make a lot of projects simply not worthwhile to "un-GPL", but, AFAIK (IANAL-RU?), authors can generally renig licensing agreements for, at the least, a return of any payment that they have recieved.
Even assuming that I'm 100% right (I'm probably at least part
WarpPipe is so wrong with their licence (Score:4, Interesting)
About a month ago, when they released alpha1, the binary was with a GPL licence. I asked them to release the source. They didn't do that. Instead they changed the licence to a closed one.
the binary is still at http://diablero.free.fr/warppipe/ [diablero.free.fr]
They are so childish with the project, it's quite sad :(
CVS still available, actually. (Score:1, Informative)
Must be fashionable to declare IP Violations (Score:1)
Do the Warp Pipe people plan on making a business out of their product? Or are they just horrified of competing forks? Did they close it because they are worried about people tweaking their copies to cheat at games? This is the only concievable reason I could think that they would care, but who knows.
Re:Must be fashionable to declare IP Violations (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Must be fashionable to declare IP Violations (Score:2)
The whole mess is confusing and sad. I don't really care, one way or the other-- as long as somebody's codebase lets
Re:Must be fashionable to declare IP Violations (Score:1)
Maybe Chad has been smoking pipe. Or maybe Chad hasn't been smoking pipe, which is why he's so twitchy and aggressive.
Re:Must be fashionable to declare IP Violations (Score:1)
anyways, I was reading a flamewar over on an IGN message board between the guy who made that post on xlink's forum and one of the developers on warp pipe. The WP guy said that they wanted to do binary only releases and did not know the source would be in the open. They wanted to do a "Free Beer" type software, not "Free Speech".
Cultural Vanity (Score:2)
Usually these developers come from the highly competitive demo scene; it'
Point of making it Open Source ? (Score:2)
Isn't the point of Open source that everyone can make use of it and generally enhance software (provided they comply with the GPL) ? Seems to me they really did NOT want to make their project Open Source and keep it for themselves.
Re:Point of making it Open Source ? (Score:2)
A developer may want to make the source available so that users know that the developer is being honest in his creation of code that doesn't include backdoors, virus-like behavior, or other bad things. If the license agreement says that you can compile the source once you've paid for it or have agreed to other terms, but you ar
A bunch of 5-year-olds! (Score:3, Informative)
One group seems to have written this 'Warp Pipe' tool, using Sourceforge infrastructure, declaring it under a BSD license (as far as I can make out from the comments) when they set up the SF project.
Another group then starting working off that (supposedly open-source) codebase. The first group are not happy about this, and have decided it's now proprietary and want to remove rights to use that code.
(Either that, or they think users of a BSD-licensed package needs 'express written consent of Warp Pipe to repackage or redistribute in any way'.)
Apparently, they didn't *actually* specify license terms in the source; but they must have claimed an open-source license in order to use Sourceforge. So at some point, they were a little 'unclear' about the license.
All very amateurish...
BTW, the sf.net project page is still there: here's a link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cubeonline23/
And CVS: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/cubeonline2
Disappointing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Was the Warp Pipe source code EVER, at any point, made available with a GPL license on it? If so, doesn't that mean that if anyone still has that code, that GPL license cannot be revoked, and someone *cough* could put it up on sourceforge and fork it?
This now means we have two competing closed source projects. This annoys me just a little bit, because I suspect that had not Warp Pipe initially announced it was open source, someone would have begun a competing open source project that did the same thing. Instead, Warp Pipe announced as open source, then did this bait-and-switch thing *less than a week before the release of Super Mario Kart*, ensuring no open source project will have even a chance to get *started*.
Re:Disappointing. (Score:1)
Will WP be a commerical product - NO.
Will WP always remain free - YES.
We were plauged by the same problems on our forum when we announced that we were going closed source. The problem is that popular developer support only comes after much of the code has alre
Re:Disappointing. (Score:1)
Aha. In that case, I am rather out of it.
Thank you for your response, the motivations at least make much more sense now.
Attemping To Clear Things Up (Score:4, Interesting)
We also were under the impression that since Source Forge allows you to change your project to a proprietary license, that closed source projects were also allowed. We were also wrong about this, and as soon as we were notified, we pulled the binary releases and started to terminate or relationship with Source Forge, as the code up on CVS represents code that has been protected by a non-GPL license for over a month.
The person who posted the CVS link claimed he wasn't aware that we pulled our release (even after users were complaining about the release missing on our forums). He also was aware that the code had no license attached because it was not meant for public distribution via CVS. He also knew we went closed source over a month ago. This is why I bring up the question of ethics. Yes, we were wrong in assuming that Source Forge supported closed-source projects. However, we were (and still are) in the process of handling this issue with Source Forge. And we could have done so privately without our code being distributed to the public. Something we didn't want to happen.
Also, our decision to go closed source was made by everyone who contributed to the project and we have every right to do so. Nobody was left out in the cold. Every contributor made the decision and they are still contributing to the project. Since this code does not have a license, they should not assume that it is protected under the GPL. As a member of the team who owns the IP, it is not protected by the GPL. You are free to browse, but we do not sanction any forked effort. Please respect our work and our decision to keep our work and source our own. Our whole goal is to provide a great product for the GCN community. If you wish to create your own project, please do so. However, we respectfully ask you to leave our code out of it.
As for the Xlink team, we have made amends. I had a long chat with the Xlink project leader and he has assured me that he respects our IP and he will have nothing to do with it. We discussed some problems we both had tunneling our respective consoles and shared a few good ideas to boot.
So, in the end, everything has been cleared up and this Slashdot posting is a recap and blowup of old news. We take responsibility of our oversight, and we are moving forward. We just ask those of you to respect our IP. If you want to use our code, do the right thing and obtain permission.
Re:Attemping To Clear Things Up (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Attemping To Clear Things Up (Score:2)
Judging from the behavior of your dev team on your discussion boards, you appear to be a bunch of frustrated teens. I mean, as of 24-48 hours ago, you were refusing to even say what GUI toolkit you were going to use. Then you locked the thread, which appears to be your main method of ignoring questions.
Please make up your mind! Quotes from other posts (Score:2)
Warp Pipe Project - GameCube Online
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=71554
Wow. . . (Score:2)
Someone TOTALLY missed the whole point of the OSDN.