Don't go too overboard.. It doesn't look like Lego has even been contacted and asked to remedy the situation.
I suggest being allowed to call them just Legos instead of "Lego™ style plastic building blocks" would be appropriate punishment.
I suggest being allowed to call them just Legos instead of "Lego™ style plastic building blocks" would be appropriate punishment.
It is a very common thing to do. Startups cut corners and don't get attention cause they don't have a lot of money. But get bought out by a multi-billion dollar company and it gets noticed.
Folks here seem to be contacting the bricklink team already for clarification, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Feels to me like open sourcing would be a win for them, provided they don't link to any other code containing proprietary licenses.
Unless Bricklink actively hid it during acquisition it doesn't justify Lego at all.
https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/help/apps_video_games_dev...
GPL doesn't say you must provide source code once you get caught, it says you must publish it the moment you release a derivative work.
Thus it’s not a question about getting caught, but whether someone made a request.
> require that programs distributed as pre-compiled binaries be accompanied by a copy of the source code, a written offer to distribute the source code via the same mechanism as the pre-compiled binary, or the written offer to obtain the source code that the user got when they received the pre-compiled binary under the GPL.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Terms_...
And, no. You don't have to publish the source code. You have to offer to distribute it. Which is different. (I am not a lawyer).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35183786 contains a quick discussion about what is and what is not there. I don't have the product, so I cannot tell.
Sure, should. Some don't. So, developers and activists also need to be policing it.
Lego is giant international corporation with a small army of lawyers and dedicated compliance officers. They don't get the benefit of the doubt here nor if someone infringed on their IP would they 'delicately handle it' to preserve the reputation of the offender.
But we have no idea how they'll remedy the situation, because the situation has, in all likelyhood, not been pointed out to them at this point in time.
And it's highly unlikely that their "small army of lawyers and dedicated compliance officers" would knowingly allow this. Therefore I doubt the situation is the result of actively malicious behavior.
>Therefore I doubt the situation is the result of actively malicious behavior.
This is giving them the 'benefit of the doubt'.